Grandma Goodwin

This post is more for me than for any of you, except maybe my family, but you are welcome to read and enjoy it as well.

My grandma, Nedra June Goodwin, passed away early this morning at the age of 91. These pictures were taken at her 90th birthday party. The top she is surrounded by 9of her 10 grandchildren and the bottom is my family with grandma. My Grandma Goodwin was the epitomy of the word "grandma," I have so many fond memories of her growing up. We always lived about an hour away from her and every Saturday since I can remember we went to "grandma's house." She always had a stocked candy dish and cookie jar. When we were really young we just went a played all day. She had a huge yard and a pasture, a climbing tree, a little smurf (sp?) to ride, chalk for hopscotch, a clothes line that doubled as a volleyball net, a tetherball pole...she had coloring books, paper for drawing, and a manila envelope for myself and each of my sisters to keep our drawings in. She kept all of our drawings, of course she was not one for throwing anything away. She saved all of her arisol hair spray lids and kept them in potato sacks for us to use as building blocks, we LOVED grandma's blocks. She had barbies and "little people" and games my dad played when he was a boy. We played a lot of cards, perfecting our speed at games like nerts and speed. As brothers-in-law and husbands have joined the family none of them can compete with the speed of my sisters and I. It also nurtured a competitive spirit in each of us.

As we got older, my dad put us to work. My grandpa passed away when I was 7, so we went to mow her lawn every week and wash our car of course. When the Fall came we spent hours raking up all of her huge leaves from her 4 very large Maple trees. Grandma was always very generous in our payment for our work. It made up for not being paid for doing the same things at our house. Every once in a awhile we would wash grandma's car, (when she still drove, and even then it was to the grocery store once a week and church) grandma's car always had lemon drops in it and we would help ourselves to one as we dusted off the insides, I don't want to know how old they were. Sometimes we would take our earnings and walk down the street to the 7-Eleven and buy a slurpy.

After a hard day of work and play we would eat dinner. Grandma had special silverware for the kids with Disney characters on the end. Jamie had a Bull Winkle plate, mine was Cinderella, and I can't remember what Rachel's was, by the time
Lori and Kara were old enough we had grown out of our plates. Before going home grandma got each of us our brown lunch sack and the box of crayons and we would decorate our sack. Then she would take us to the back bedroom and give us our treats to take home, always a candybar, a 5 pc of gum, and life savors. Then we would go home and to it all again the next Saturday. My grandma also saved all of her change from her grocery shopping trips and on special Saturdays she would bust it out and divide it amongst my sisters and I, we LOVED this! We usually got about $5 worth each.

I love my Grandma Goodwin so much and I know she is in a much better place now. As much as I miss her I'm glad she doesn't have to suffer the pains of old age and the dementia of her mind. I look forward to the day I can see her again!