Grandma Laura was born in a world far different than most of us here today know. She was born in a time before electricity, radio, TV, gas furnaces, running water, sewers, or the automobile. Throughout her life she saw many changes in the world, but never allowed that world to come between her and her family. For nearly 96 years she lived a life most of us can only hope to emulate; a life of compassion, caring, and most of all love.

Grandma Laura was our Matriarch, the glue that held this family together. She was the kind of person who touched your life in such a way that you never forgot her. The bond she created with people reached past family ties and beyond distance or location. I have seen this in bonds that have survived divorce, in the concern of neighbors, and in the love of friends. She touched everyone around her, and we touched her, and we are all better for it.

My visits with her were certain to be filled with news from all corners of the family. Without her I would know nearly nothing about the going-on’s of the lives of Clela, Mike, Pat, or their families. She was my source of family history and a link to my own father. She will always be the ideal to which all other grandmother’s are compared to. She was a strong, proud woman who took what cards life dealt her and made the best of them. She always seemed to be happy and content with her lot, and was full of caring and love for the family she watched over.

Grandma Laura never knew her father, who died when she was very young. Perhaps this is why she showed such understanding as I questioned her through the years about my own father. And it was not until recently that I realized what a powerful love and influence her mother was in her early years. Not surprising, as her life always revolved around her family. Grandma Laura said this about her own mother and I think it applies equally to her, “She was a beautiful person, always listening to others worries, kind and considerate and loving.”

I never met the man Grandma Laura married, the man I know of only as Grandpa Howard. But I know that they spent 43 years together and raised two daughters, my Grandma Betty and Aunt Clela. I never heard her speak a bad word about him, and the stories she told about Sunday breakfasts and holidays were full of family and fond memories that made me long to have been a part of such good times.

Other than the few years in the 1930’s when she and her family moved to California to be near her mother, who had tuberculosis, Grandma Laura lived in the same house in Auburn Hills from 1927 until earlier this year, when because of failing health she moved into her daughter Clela’s home. Grandma and that house have been a familiar constant in my life, in all our lives. As a young boy I remember spending many nights in that house, playing cards, watching TV, and eating popcorn. But no visit to Grandma’s was complete without a pancake breakfast. I still think about those days, and her, every time I make pancakes for my own kids. Grandma Laura’s was like a second home to me, a place I could go and always feel like I belonged.

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We all have wonderful memories of Grandma Laura. She loved to take Sunday rides in the car and spend time visiting with her family. She was a great storyteller who had a life-times worth of stories to share. She had a good memory for details and she loved to talk, but she was also a great listener. She loved needlework, knitting, and crocheting, and left us all with the afghans, baby sweaters, and booties she has made for us and our children. She took great pride in her daughters, and all of her family. She could make each of us feel very special and that we were the most important person to her. She was able to do this because she was truly proud and happy to have each of us as a part of her family.

She never missed a birthday or Christmas; was there for all holidays and special occasions; and always strove to balance her time so that she could see all of us on those special days. She loved all of her Family, saw our faults and foibles and loved us anyways.

While she was never a wealthy woman, she lived a comfortable life rich with the love of family. She felt her greatest reward as a mother was that she was able to help her girls to accept life and be good parents. She was always proud of them. She was also proud of the families that each had raised. Her wish to each of them, and to all of us, is simply that which she was able to find in her own life; Health, Happiness, and Contentment.

Her hope was, when she passed on that our families would be brought together and made stronger by the bonds that she strove to forge amongst us. That we would all have happy loving lives, and that we would all know that she cared deeply and felt lucky to have been apart of each of us.

Grandma would say that life goes on and there is a reason for everything. We must each take the lessons we have learned from this great woman and pass them on to those who were not fortunate enough to have known her. She said to me in the hospital, “I’ve enjoyed it all, but now it’s someone else’s turn.”

There is so much more that I could say about this remarkable woman. But I will simply say that I have seen her memoirs in a Grandmother’s Memories, and I can say with certainty that she was proud of all that she had accomplished, truly happy with her lot, and believed that there really is a reason for everything in this life. Can any of us ask for anything more.

May she rest in peace knowing that we will all carry her memory in our hearts.

Ronn McCarrick
December 31, 2002