Looking Back at 2009

January 16-19 - we took a road trip to Sarasota, FL to visit my sister Judy and her husband Guy. James always looked forward to visiting them. Judy would take him to see the circus headquarters and shopping, just the two of them.
January 28 – James had gall bladder surgery at SE Medical Center in Dothan. This was the day the workers came and poured cement to enlarge our front driveway. Also on that day Gappa Wise came and started removing the bricks from the back of our bedroom wall to add a bathroom. We were surprised when we got home from the hospital on Jan. 31 to see the new driveway turn-around and a tarpaulin covering the back of our bedroom.


February 2 - James was taken to the ER in Opp due to complications following surgery and he died at 8:30 pm that night. He had multiple problems and his system just shut down and he stopped breathing.
February 5 – funeral at 2 p.m. for James at Elba United Methodist Church. The church was filled with friends and family on that very, very cold day (in the 20’s). James did not like cold weather and I had problem sleeping that night because I kept thinking he was freezing out in the cold cemetery.
March - Jim spent most of March getting physical therapy for sciatic nerve pain in his hip and leg.
March 11-12 - Jim went with me to Auburn to the annual state DAR meeting.
March 27-30 – Jim’s brother Larry and wife Suzi came from Virginia Beach for a week-end with us. We met them at airport in Montgomery. Jim and Larry spent the week-end reminiscing about their mother who passed away in Sept. 2008, and of course talking about James. Weather was so bad they couldn’t come to his funeral.

April 12 – Easter Sunday and spring break for Bill’s girls. He took Katie and Caroline on a cruise for a week. Nerissa had her spring break earlier.
April 30 – we took a road trip to Austin, TX to see Ron and Cindy and granddaughters Liz and Ally, and their new home. Had planned the trip in April for about a year, to see the bluebonnets and there weren’t many last year, and they were all gone.

May 3 – Dedication day for Habitat for Humanity home in Elba. I wasn’t present but was recognized for landscaping the home as a Master Gardening project.
May - our new bathroom was completed and furnished and clothes moved into the “his and hers” walk-in closets.
June 6 – Granddaughter Katie graduated from West Florence (SC) High School. We 
gave her a bicycle to have for transportation when she went to College of Charleston that fall. Couldn’t have a car on campus due to lack of parking spaces.
June 8-17 - long road trip from Florence to Charlotte to Greensboro, NC and then sisters got together at Cyndi’s (niece) in Emporia, VA on Sun. June 14 to celebrate Jake’s graduation from high school. On to Nanticoke, MD for a couple of days visiting Chris and Al. We got back to Elba on Wednesday, June 18.
July 14-21 - vacation time.
July 15 – celebrated Bill’s 51st and Jim’s 75th birthdays with a cookout at Alice and Jerry’s house in Charlotte, SC.
July 16 - Jim’s 1952 high school class reunion in Harrisburg, NC – Jim was one of the organizers and worked long and hard on getting this together and everybody had a great time.
Jul 18-20 – traveled to Olive Hill, KY to the Logan family reunion. The cousins got together on Sat. night and then the big covered dish luncheon was on Sunday in Vanceburg, KY.
Jul 20 – spent the night at Black Mountain, NC with Nell’s sister Carolyn and husband Dave and stayed at their B&B. Returned to Elba on July 21.
August 7-15 – Grandma Camp: just Caroline this year. We had fun doing this with her for a week.
Aug 21 – Nell had surgery on her eyelids at Eye South, Dr. Bryant. She spent the week-end putting ice packs on her eyes and wondered why she ever decided to have that surgery. But later it paid off since her eyesight improved so much.
August 11- went to Florence, SC to help Katie move to her dorm at College of Charleston.

Sept 26 - helped our pastor and his wife move into an apartment and store most of their furniture. The parsonage had to be abandoned due to black mold coming in from underneath the house. Did not know that they would be in that apartment for almost 2 months!
October 3 – Our 56th wedding anniversary. Also Grimes family reunion. Our family was hostess this year. Good attendance. Reunion was held at picnic pavilion at Curtis (New Ebenezer Baptist Church).
October 10 – 24th Curtis School Reunion – Judy and Guy spent the week-end with us.
October 23 – Nell went with Master Gardeners on a trip to Birmingham to Aldridge Botanical Gardens and stopped over at Petals from the Past in Jamison, AL.
November 11th – Debbie Davidson, James’ friend in Winston-Salem, died.
November 20-28 - Florence, SC. Attended Caroline’s Mock Trial competition in Lexington, NC on Sat., Nov. 21. She was awarded “Most effective Attorney” in the SC State Middle Schools competion.
Nov 25 – Nell turned 75 and celebrated with a party at Bill’s house in SC.
Nov 26 – spent the day at Sunset Beach, NC for Thanksgiving Day with lots of relatives attending.
December 3-9 – another road trip!! Austin, TX to attend Liz’s graduation from University of TX on Sunday, Dec. 6th.
Dec 8 – James’ birthday. We left Austin at 9 am that day to start home (2 day trip)
Dec 18 – had a Christmas luncheon for Nell’s cousins.
Dec. 25 - spent Christmas alone, just the 2 of us, for the first time in 55 years! Went to several Christmas gatherings at Nell’s cousins. Ate Christmas dinner with cousin Tom and wife Sharon.
Dec 27 – Aunt Ida turned 90. Went to visit her at her home in Brewton on our way home from TX earlier in Dec.

Getting ready for a new and better year – 2010.

Christmas Day 2009

Christmas Day is almost over and it was a good one.
After having spent half the night under "tornado watch", we were surprised to wake up and see the sun shining. After breakfast, we went into the living room

and took turns opening our gifts under the tree.

I got to go first and I'm holding a gift from our son Bill.
It's a machine that you stack 35mm slides in and convert them to digatal images on the computer so you can put them on a CD and make copies. Also can do the same with negatives. We have lots of old slides of the boys when they were younger and the color is fading so I hope to transfer them very soon.

Santa brought me an under the shelf AM/FM radio and 7" pull-down screen TV to use in the kitchen. I have been looking for one of those so I was very surprised to get one.

Jim was hoping to get a new brierwood pipe. He got

3 pipes and was very happy. Bill ordered one online and it came from the Ukraine, the one Jim is holding in the photo. Ron also gave him two pipes. They are hard to find and you almost have to order them online. A local service station keeps pipe tobacco in store for him. He also got some clothes, chocolate candy, a new LED flashlight, a Clemson sweatshirt, and a bunch more.

Even before we started opening our gifts, our phone started ringing; family calling to wish us

Merry Christmas. We were either calling people or they were calling us throughout the day. What fun! And we were all sending pictures on email throughout the day.

My cousins Tom and Sharon invited us to have Christmas dinner with them and their children from Orlando. Tom's sister Kathy and her family also came. What a spread! Turkey, ham, chicken and dumplings, all kinds of veggies, hot rolls, cranberry casserole (I brought this dish) and a table filled with desserts of all kinds. We had a lot of fun recalling Christmas with our grandparents on the farm, many years ago. We also talked about James and how he loved Christmas and things he would do and say. Talking about him helps us not to be so sad.

Now the temperature is dropping almost freezing. We have a fire going in the fireplace and just being lazy. Turned off the TV for awhile and enjoying the peace and quiet. It has been a nice Christmas Day. God bless everyone!

Christmas Eve is Here

It's time of year when the stockings are hung by the chimney by care, and the kids are being tucked in their beds - my favorite time of the year. Since Dec. 1955 we have "Played Santa" for our 3 boys and their children.


This year we are alone :-(  By this time of the year, James would be so "keyed up" he didn't want to hear Christmas music or even talk about Christmas. It got worse as he got older and last year was really bad for him since he wasn't in good health and very nervous. We had no idea it would be his last Christmas with us.



Our extended family of cousins here in Elba have made sure we keep busy and we've been invited to all of their Christmas celebrations.


I invited them to a Christmas luncheon last Friday (Dec 18) and we've been going to other dinners and parties ever since. Last night we went to Chip and Linda's family gathering for soup and sandwiches (and lots of other goodies) and homemade desserts. It was such a nice time, singing carols, eating, meeting our cousin Stan's fiancee' and her 3 young children for the first time. Her husband was killed in an auto accident 3 years ago and her children are now 5,7, and 10. She is an elem. school teacher in Enterprise and Stan is a coach and teacher in Enterprise High School. They are getting married in April at the beach. Stan's parents, Betty and Bo, are so excited about getting granddaughters - finally. They already have 2 grandsons.


Tomorrow we are invited to have Christmas dinner (1 pm) with cousin Tom and Sharon and their family (Janet & Ed, and Jimmy from Orlando).


We will get up in the morning at our regular time, have breakfast, and then open our presents. I'm sure by that time we will be getting phone calls from the granddaughters in SC and TX. James is gone but he will be here with us in spirit tomorrow, as he was today. And we will have made it through our first Christmas without him. Christmas will never be the same without his "Ho, Ho, Ho's" echoing throughout the house.


James is pictured here opening his gifts on Christmas morning, Dec. 2008, wearing his new shirt with "Best Pals Forever" and Santa on his shirt.

Remembering our Loved Ones at Christmas

Saturday, Jim and I went out 8 miles into the country to New Ebenezer Church to the cemetery to place some Christmas flowers on family graves.

First we put a white poinsettia on our plot and a railroad conductor

figurine dressed in a Santa suit near James' marker. He loved railroads and Santa so this was just for him! This will be our first Christmas in 53 years without having James around to celebrate Christmas, his favorite time of the year.

Our family plot is behind that of my parents, Lawrence and Ruth Wilson . We placed a big red silk poinsettia on their site.

Then I went to the first row of graves and placed a red poinsettia
on Mama and Papa Wilson's graves.

There is a beautiful arrangement on top of their monument and neither I nor my cousins know who placed it there. My grandmother Wilson's father, James Shorter Grimes, was the first person to be buried in this cemetery in 1903. Many of those buried in this cemetery are related to the Grimes families.

The cemetery was filled with pretty flowers and is well kept, with a large American flag waving over the graves on a flagpole donated by Hayes Funeral Home. We visit about once a month to check on the flowers and to pay our respect to our loved ones. We buried our son there to be near other family members.

First Cousins' Christmas Luncheon

I have several first cousins living in Elba now, and my brother Perry. I decided to have a special Christmas luncheon and invited all of them to come.

We are all pictured here in our den, after lunch.
My brother Perry Wilson and his wife Carol live in Elba. My 5 sisters live in MD, NC, and FL so none of them could be here.

The first cousins are all children of my father's sister. One cousin, Billy, lives in NC and he and his wife Lorrie could not be here with us.

The table was set with our Christmas dishes and a pretty Christmas table cloth. I plann the luncheon to include things we had for Christmas when we were growing up on the farm. We usually had chicken instead of turkey.

Our menu included chicken keiv (breasts), butterbeans, fluffy white rice, broccoli salad, apple & cranberry casserole, French rolls, tea and coffee. The most nostalgic item was the Lane Cake, made by my Mama Wilson's recipe and flavored with lots of blackberry wine.

Everybody enjoyed their meal and several had to hurry back to work. We got to visit longer with some of the cousins. I should have been standing on a stool in the back. I think I am the shortest of all at 5'.

Some of us will be gathering at Kathy and Bobby's home for Christmas Eve, after we go to communion at church that evening.

As you get older, it's so important to keep in touch with your family. We are enjoying being with our cousins since our boys and their families won't be coming for Christmas this year. We recently spent a week with each of them so we are staying home for Christmas.

We have been busy going to church cantatas (3 last Sunday!), dinners, and other events. Today we went to a Christmas Open House and later to Lowe's to look at dishwashers. We seem to always have one "ailing" appliance.

Today was a great day - lots of sunshine for a change. But also very cold. It's one of those days that you go about thinking "it's good to be alive and well, and enjoying life".

Oldest Granddaughter graduates from College in TX

We drove to Austin, TX recently to be there for our oldest granddaughter Elizabeth's graduation from the University of Texas on Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009. She got a B.S. in Marine Biology and plans to go on to graduate school in a year. Liz is almost 26. She took 7 years to earn her 4-year Bachelor's degree. Her dad (our son Ron) took the same amount of time to graduate so he couldn't say anything to her! She changed her major from Architecture after her sophomore year when she went to California for a year. She came back to UT and decided to major in something she enjoyed - the water. While in CA she took up surfing and she has always enjoyed camping, hiking, scuba diving, and fishing. I am pictured above with Liz and our son Ron.


We're so happy she completed the first phase of her college. She wants to go to graduate school and can't apply until next Dec. so she plans to work for a year. She will be looking at schools that offer graduate study in Marine Biology. We would like for her to go to a school on the east coast (Woods Bay,MA or Charleston,SC) but I think she would like to go to Hawaii). We'll have to wait and see where she decides to go. In the photo, I am presenting

her with a graduation gift from Jim and me.


On Sat. before graduation we spent the day watching football on the big screen TV in their spacious den with a fire in the fireplace. It was extremely cold while we were there, unusual weather for Austin. We watched AL beat FL, and later TX beat NE. Both were such good games. Our other granddaughter Allison came home from North Texas Univ. for the week-end but we didn't see too much of her. She had to go to San Marcos to get certified for her scuba diving class at school. She hopes to graduate next Dec.


Liz came over on Sat. and made tamales for dinner - from scratch! They were so good, and especially so since we didn't eat until the game was over, almost 9 p.m. Her friend Chad cooked the chicken on the grill early in the afternoon and then she pulled it apart and put some on the tamales and then steamed a big pot for dinner. She made her green verde sauce from scratch. Yummmmm.....


Ron and Cindy have a beautiful home in Glen Lake area, on top of one of the many hills surrounding Austin. The Colorado River and Lake Travis are located at the foot of their hill. Ron is taking a break from work and enjoying being at home. He has a big home office and enjoys his 3-screen computer monitor. He has a deer lease with 2 other friends and spends a lot of time there at their cabin. His wife Cindy is an accountant and her office is nearby, near the bottom of the hill.

We went to the large UT arena for graduation on Sunday afternoon at 2:30. The ceremony lasted about 2 hrs. They had graduation on Sat. also for other groups. After graduation we went with Liz and some of her friends to eat at a place students go to eat. Food was great.

On Monday, Elizabeth came to take me shopping - just the 2 of us. We had a good time. She spent a lot of time with us in the summers when she was growing up. Then we left on Tuesday to come back to Ala. It takes us 2 days to get to Austin. On the way out there, it snowed all morning in LA and the Houston, TX area. When we started home a few days later, there was dense fog and rain. It was a tiring trip but we had a wonderful visit with our son and his family. Just wish we could be with them more often.

Cindy loves animals and they have 4 big dogs and 3 pretty cats, who all stay inside. They have pet doors to go in and out. They took the 2 biggest dogs to the kennel while we were there (great dane and dalmation). Pictured here on the back porch with Cindy are Liz's dogs Luna and Marley. The white/black spot dog is Lily, Cindy's dog. Their animals are all very well behaved. Pictured is Lily carrying her dish to the kitchen which means she wants something to eat. Cinnamon (cat) likes her perch so she can look down on the other animals, and so they won't bother her!

Advent and Hanging of the Greens

Last Sunday was a special day at Elba United Methodist Church. It was the first Sunday of Advent and the Jackson family lit the purple candle. At the close of the service, we sang one of my favorite hymns, "Emanuel, Emanuel".

We returned to church at 6 P.M. for the Hanging of the Greens service. The Hanging of the Greens is a service for the first Sunday in Advent. It is based on the English tradtion of decorating the home with wreaths, garlands, a Christmas tree, and evergreens for Advent and Christmas. In a church setting, it readies the sanctuary (and church members) for the season.

Hymns were sung as various things took place. There were several presentations including, hanging of the greens, lighting of the candles, bringing in the large red poinsettias for two tall stands near the altar, and placing the creche figures on the altar table. The big chrismon tree stands on the left side of the sanctuary near the front. The tiny white lights were turned out and the many white christmon symbols were glowing with light on them.

At the close of the service, all who were present were invited to the fellowship hall for a youth sponsored chili and baked potato supper and lots of desserts. It was a great ending to the special day.

Celebrating Thanksgiving at the beach in NC

We spent Thanksgiving at the beach in Emerald Isle, NC with several of my sisters and their family members.


Gathered there to help Chris and Al celebrate their 50th anniversary - 6 months early.
They weren't sure what they would be doing on the actual date in July and wanted to celebrate early with all of us there.  Chris made an interesting cake which we ate mid afternoon, after the big turkey dinner.

It was fun being together with our family and warm enough to enjoy walking on the beach.


We also celebrated my 75th  birthday (again) while there.

My 75th birthday party

We arrived at our son Bill's home in Florence, SC on Sat., Nov. 19th after spending the day in Lexington, SC, attending our granddaughter Caroline's Mock Trial competition. Her school made it to the final (4th) round but didn't make the final cut. This was the state final so there were so many middle school students at the courthouse that day. Caroline won a very nice award as "The Most Effective Lawyer" in the 3rd round. She was so happy.

We got to spend some time with the other granddaughters on Tues -Fri. On Wednesday afternoon, they planned a big birthday party for me before taking me to dinner at the Outback Restaurant. Bill and the girls decorated the table and put the gifts in place while I was getting ready to go to the restaurant. They wanted to surprise me; and they did indeed. Even had a birthday cake for the event.

I received two big packages. One contained a floor lamp with a reading lamp, which I had told Jim I wanted. The other package was something I needed also, a new portable mixer and a new can opener. When you get older you ask for things you need to replace instead of diamonds!!

Then we all (6 of us) went to the Outback for dinner. We enjoyed a large blooming onion appetizer and then steak. The waiters came and sang Happy Birthday to me and brought me a big ice cream dessert (which I shared with my family).

It was a great birthday celebration and somehow I don't feel like I'm 3/4th of a century old. On Thanksgiving Day at the beach, I was honored again when they sang Happy Birthday to me.

This year I received a lot of cards and had fun reading the messages in them.