Grandma Esther

Esther and her brother Albert

I often wonder, if those in heaven can hear and see us on our earthly journey. I did not really appreciate my Grandmother until after she had gone. It seems the older I get the more of her attributes, I hope to acquire.
Grandma Esther left the farm in Deary, Idaho to come be close to my mother, her only child. She lost three husbands over the years, all to heart attacks. My mother still recounts the stories of her daddy having attacks when she was a child. Looking back, we feel that his heart must have been weak from childhood. How frightening that must have been for a child to see her daddy slump over and fall to the ground. The clincher for him was the inoculations he received when he enlisted in the military. His heart could not withstand the onslaught of viruses and weekend what little he had left. After his passing, my grandmother met a man named Henry. He was a kind, Christian man that helped raise my mother. I never heard anything but kind words throughout the years from both my mother and grandmother about him. Many years after Henry’s passing, grandma met a man named Paul. Paul was financially secure, something my grandmother had not known growing up on the farm. They married and he later became an alcoholic. I remember my grandmother leaving on a midnight train as she feared for her own life. It did not seem like she was in Phoenix that long before a Western Union Telegram arrived from Portland. We were all sitting in the living room as my dad read it out loud. Paul had been found on the sidewalk. He had been stricken by a heart attack. Grandmother covered her eyes and wept…
Grandma still owned the 220 acre farm in Deary. She had left it under the watchful eye of a neighbor. She received news that someone had broken in and stolen her oval picture frames and other cherished items that had been brought by her parents from Sweden. Deciding to stay in Phoenix with my mother, she quickly sold the farm long distance. It was sold for a meager ten thousand dollars. The people that purchased it, sold the timber and paid for the farm in full. My grandmother's deepest regret in life was that she had not listened to her daddy. Swan had homesteaded the place during the 1800‘s. He would often tell her, "Esther do not ever sell, there is enough wood to last several generations."
After the sale of the farm, she purchased a little shanty of a house on Montebello. When asked what color she would paint it, she would reply, “Pink of coarse” and pink it was. Monetarily she did not have much. She lived off of a small pension, she received from her long and tireless hours spent as a sales clerk at Montgomery Wards. She always had money for a birthday’s and Christmas. We would often tease her about making money in her kitchen. I can not recount a time that she sat idle. She was either cooking up as storm, baking, canning, crocheting, knitting or quilting. There was nothing that woman could not do.
My memory takes me to times of seeing her in the grocery store with a cart full of empty boxes. They would be stacked so high, you could not make out the little old lady behind the cart. If you went to the back room, you could get boxes for free in those days. Those were the very boxes that our Christmas and birthday gifts would be wrapped.
Grandma would travel the grocery stores like a circuit and calculate who could offer her the best deal. She would make a deal on seconds with the produce manager and purchase it for much less. Then she would travel home to begin her endless hours of canning.
She would never watch a violent or any movie that had an ounce of immorality. Her favorites were a ball game or Lawrence Welk. In her younger days, she loved to dance. She would often times go to a place called the Odd Fellows. It was nothing like what we know of today. Latter in life, she had a small group of friends that would meet once a month to play cards. It was nothing fancy, just a time to put together some treats and enjoy good company. One by one, they passed on.
When greeted at her home, you would always find her wearing a dress that often times was laden with a pretty floral gingham apron. She would quickly remove it and begin her ritual of asking, what she could get you. She bestowed a servant's heart. Her family was always number one. Her generosity was boundless. Esther Betty Swanson was quite a lady.
If you can hear me from heaven, I love you and miss you dearly.

Cheryl Anne

“Are you afraid to die? Remember that for a child of God, death is only a passing through to a wonderful new world...” Corrie Ten Boom