Day # 10 - I Remember, With Grateful Thanks, My Grandmother . . .

 Remembering Vera Claire McDonald Shipp  
My Grandmother
 November 10th 1892 - April 25th 1986

My Bridesmaid's Luncheon at the Swan Coach House in Atlanta - June 7th, 1975
Front - Me (Center) - Jan Fuller (Left)
Back - Granny (Left)  My Mother (Right) 

Afternoon Bridal Tea at Mary Jean Davis's House
Left to Right - Granny, Me,  Mother

At Our Wedding - June 7th, 1975 - Druid Hills Methodist Church - Atlanta, GA
Granny and her Brother, My Great Uncle Mid (Middleton McDonald)

 

 All Ready to Go - Dinner Party Given for Us 

Granny (right)  Terry (center) Me (left) 

One of our last pictures of Granny - Taken in Feb of 1986 before her death in late April -
Taken Outside the Skilled Nursing Facility at DeKalb (then General Hospital) Medical Center
Left to Right - My Niece, Rebecca, in my Sister's Lap,  Dorothy (back center) and Granny
She was a beautiful woman up until the very last breath she took.

I spent much of my spare time today remembering, with grateful thanks to God for her life and for my acceptance into her family.  She never treated me any differently than her other Grandchildren even though I was the adopted daughter of BOTH of her daughters,  first her older daughter, Mary Claire, and then her youngest child, Ethel, after Mary Claire died just before I turned nine years old.  

She and Granddaddy were the only ones in my adopted family who never changed "roles" . . . I came to know and love them as a baby, and that never changed. They were, simply, "MY" Grandparents.  Granny and I had a very special relationship, maybe partly because I "HAD" lost my mother and my father at a very young age. Whatever the case,  I loved her dearly, and not a day goes by that I don't think about her and those beautiful blue eyes and hair that turned silver when she was just 20 years old. Those eyes, even after they grew old and tired and dim and could no longer see to sew which she dearly loved to do,  were still full of twinkle and mischief.  She was a woman who knew exactly how to find trouble and get into it when she wanted to!!!!  I loved spending time with her.  

She would have been 122 years old today - - - yes, I know - - - not possible, but today IS the 122nd anniversary of her birth, and I am thankful beyond description for every day I had with her and for every day she lived, and for the way she lives on through each of us still.  

Happy Birthday, Granny - we love you and we miss you every day . . . it's as if the last 27 years since you left us don't even exist.

In the words of the hymn, O God, Our Help in Ages Past" 

(Isaac Watts - Public Domain) 

"A thousand ages in Thy sight are like an evening gone.
They fly forgotten as the night before the rising sun."