To Spend the Day with Grandma

Snowballs, water fights, fishing, and flowers were all facets of my Grandma Holdaway’s life. Erna Rogers Holdaway was a woman of many talents who lived life to the fullest. She was a card shark who, cooked, sewed, quilted, and grew wonderful gardens. She is a woman I have always admired and looked to for inspiration.

Some of my earliest memories were late summer and early fall days at Grandma’s house canning. Most everything she canned was out of the enormous garden she and grandpa grew out back. We bottled peaches, pears, green beans, tomatoes, applesauce, apricots, and corn. Growing up I hated all that work especially snipping green beans. Much of the work was difficult for a young child to help with, but even the young child could snip green beans. Summer after summer we bottled food for storage at Grandma’s house and created some of my fondest memories.

Grandma was also an excellent seamstress. When walking into Grandma’s house mom would call out, “yoo hoo!” and oft times we’d be answered with a “yoo hoo” from the sewing room down the hall. If nothing else was planned that’s where you’d normally find Grandma. I don’t know how her house stayed so clean because I swear she was always sewing. In fact my grandma is the one who taught me to sew. At age 12 she helped me sew a quilt for my bed. It was a log cabin design as I recall and I sewed the strips together, then the blocks, then the rows and so on. I still keep have that quilt and love it and the knowledge dearly.

Another love of Grandma’s was music. When she and my grandpa first met he was singing for some kind of competition and the music teacher asked my grandma to play piano. As I recall hearing of their courtship, when grandma first saw grandpa get onto the school bus after she moved to Provo from Arizona she turned to her friend in the seat and said, “Margaret, I am going to marry that man.” Grandma and Grandpa both had wonderful singing voices, and seemed to pass that trait onto their children. One of my favorite times of year was Christmas time because the family would get together and sing Christmas carols and make the most beautiful harmonies. When Grandma was younger, as I have heard, she also played the cello very well. Music was a part of her soul.

There is a snapshot taken of my Grandma wearing her apron and pulling something out of the oven. When looking at that photo everyone agrees that the picture captures Grandma perfectly. My grandma was a wonderful cook as well as a baker. Family parties were always well stocked with good food. One of my favorite things was when she would get a bunch of different juices including apricot juice and pineapple juice and whatever else she could think of and dump it into a big Tupperware bowl to mix for our drink. Somewhere that drink picked up the name kick-a-pooh joy juice. Whenever we went to Grandma’s house we would always look in her pantry to see if she had any banana oatmeal chocolate chip cookies. Sometimes we found raisins instead of chocolate chips and that was disappointing back then. The east wall in Grandma's kitchen was covered in plaques with little saying on them. The one that rings out in my mind said, "No matter where I serve my guests, they seem to like my kitchen best." Much time was enjoyed around Grandma's kitchen table and truthfully we did like her kitchen best.

I inherited a love of flowers from my grandma’s house. In the cold storage under the porch grandma had lots of vases. I would ask if I could go pick flowers for Grandma’s kitchen table. On the West side of her house was a whole row of pink rose bushes. On the east along the gravel road was a row of purple iris. In between the back lawn and the garden were purple lilac bushes. She had a bunch of different flowers all around next to the house. There were hen and chick plants, climbing roses, chives, dusty miller, mint, and many others I cannot recall. In her front flower bed in front of the porch she had many autumn joy succulents. I always loved Grandma’s flower gardens.

As I said earlier my grandma lived her life to the fullest. She was a delightful woman with an open door to anyone who came her way. I don’t believe that a guest ever stayed at their house without the offer to play a game of Rook. Grandpa and Grandma loved playing Rook. Whether playing Rook while camping at Strawberry reservoir where they loved to go fishing or at their kitchen table they loved the game. They loved fishing together just as much. Whenever my Grandpa went fishing there was my Grandma right beside him. They were both very good too. One story goes that Grandma always had tuna fish for lunch when fishing because she swore it made the fish bite.

Perhaps Grandma liked fishing because she liked water. My Grandma is the best water fighter I know. Once at a family party at her house the adults were sitting around talking and she came out with a pitcher of water and doused one of my uncles. Then after they got her back she stripped off her clothes to reveal a swimsuit underneath. Another time when my sister Cheryl was having a date at Grandma’s house Cheryl and her friends were playing volleyball in the back yard. They were surprised with water balloons from Grandma’s bedroom window. When water wasn’t available she would use snow. On my first trip to Zion’s National Park we were stopped by slow traffic and Grandma saw some snow on the side of the road. Grandma and my brother Brian jumped out of the van and took a moment to have a snowball fight in April.

While Grandma was fun loving and spirited she also knew when to be serious and she had many serious times in her life. One of the times I witnessed was when she lost a daughter, son-in-law, and four grandsons in a car accident. While some would have asked God why me she looked for the positive side in the tragedy. She saw how her beloved family’s death brought people into the gospel. She saw how it helped that mission area to flourish. She always trusted the Lord. Often times I hear my mother recall how whenever her brothers were on their mission Grandma would comment how Grandpa’s dairy cows would always produce more milk to sell. She had a very close relationship with the Lord and I know that is because she learned how to follow Him and stay close to him.

Anyone who knows me probably knows how special my grandma was to me. I can’t imagine a life without her and it pains my heart that I have siblings who did not know her well. I know that when I graduate from this life I will see her again and I look forward to that day rather than fear it. Grandma Holdaway will always be a special woman to me and if the truth be known I would give anything to sit and snip green beans with her again someday. Heaven must be a big garden in the sky where I can bottle with grandma and have a water fight that produces rain.