As everyone has been making their plans for Memorial Day weekend I felt a little left out because I had no where to go, no barbecue's to attend, no special activities in mind for the long weekend. This morning I awoke from a dream that reminded me why Memorial Day has never been a time to get away from home for me. I dreamed that this beautiful and adoring woman was still alive and part of me wanted to go back to sleep and dream the dream again.
Every year on Memorial Day my mom would ask us who wanted to go with her, grandma and grandpa to place flowers on the graves of those who had passes on. I don't recall a year passing where I didn't want to go spend that time with Grandma Holdaway. I will forever be thankful to my mom & grandmother for setting that example for me. I truly feel blessed to have been influenced by such beautiful women in my life.
Ross Thrower & Erna Rogers Holdaway
It's sad for me to think that my children will never know the great people I called grandparents. I love my grandparents more and more as time goes on. Hopefully someday these few words will remind my children that they are amazing people just because of the amazing forebarers they come from.
Grandpa Holdaway was a tall man whose heart outstretched his size. His middle name was Thrower after his mothers maiden name and grandma liked to call him Ross "T" and say that the T stood for tease because he was a big tease. He had the biggest grin as he would tease too. Grandpa was a hard working dairy farmer who was usually busy doing one thing or another. He loved tending his enormous garden after he sold his cows & this was often where you'd find him. His two favorite hobbies that he enjoyed with grandma were playing card games (especially Rook), and fishing at Strawberry Reservoir. Grandpa had a fantastic singing voice and even sang with the barbershop quartet. He loved and adored my grandma & set wonderful example of how to be a husband, father, grandfather & priesthood leader. I am thankful for the legacy he has left me.
I have always wanted to be like my Grandma Holdaway. Erna Rogers was born in Snowflake, Arizona and moved to the Provo area when she was in high school. She had amazing musical skills and played piano and cello in high school. Grandma loved sewing, quilting, singing, cooking and family. She was a woman of so very many skills. She had a way of making each and every one of her grandchildren feel like they were the most special child to her. She loved to serve others. She loved to have her family gathered around her. Every family party was spectacular. She cooked so much of the food and sad to say often times took all the time cooking and still got stuck with the clean up. I never her her complain, however. She loved to create opportunities for her family to be together and enjoy each other. There is not one cousin, aunt or uncle who doesn't enjoy reminiscing about how much fun our family parties were because of the many hours she put in to make it great. I miss her dearly as well as those special memories she created for her family.
Ivan Dustin & Wilma Naomi Gibson Kunz
Grandpa Kunz was one of the hardest working men I knew. Because he was always working I didn't make much time as a child to get to know what an outstanding man he really was. I have been thankful as an adult to learn about him more through my Aunts, Uncles, Cousins, and writings by my grandma. Grandpa was a rather quiet man. I'm not sure if that is because he had a very talkative wife or if he just had a quiet disposition. He was quite the handy man. Even as a young man there is a story of him taking the wheels off of a baby buggy as a younger sibling slept. One of my best memories of grandpa was when they come to visit us in Oregon and grandpa was going nuts wanting a project to do as he couldn't sit for long. Finally my mom put him to work building shelves for her food storage in the garage and he was happy. That actually encompasses quite a bit of who he was. He worked as a young man to help provide for his parents family and as a father he worked very hard to provide for his own family. He is a wonderful man whose example I am truly thankful for.
Grandma Kunz was a woman I only recently learned to appreciate, but I am grateful to say that there are things I have learned about her that have helped me grow to love her. I am also very grateful to her for the histories she wrote so that I could learn more about her and my grandpa. My grandma was a woman who loved to chat. She often times would call my mom in Oregon just to visit on the phone after everyone here had gone to bed. From reading her biography she really enjoyed raising her children. She was a very spiritually inclined woman. She & grandpa were always helping others when they could. Grandpa & Grandma never had a lot of money, but they did a great job of making do with what they had.
This Memorial I am thankful for the sacrifices of those who have gone before me and set wonderful examples. I hope that I can pass on these great examples to my posterity & set as good of an example for them.
