My last surviving grandparent passed away after a BIG life Monday nite. Celia was near her 99th Birthday in Lake City, South Dakota. She drove until she was 96. She had 12 children ~ 10 of whom survived her: 9 boys and 1 girl. She came from a family of Pioneers, literally…born on November 12, 1911; her family like my grandfather’s were 1st generation Americans having emigrated from Austria/Hungary in the late 1800’s. As they learned English they learned Lakota because that’s what their neighbors spoke. Imagine all she has seen in her lifetime.
She has 24 grand children and they have a big ole passel of kids themselves that I cant get my hands around to count right now. She hated my tatoo’s but loved my attitude. Especially that time I got her neighbor at the lake to clean up their mess they left on our lakefront lot of old house parts, that was ruining her view. Most of her children and grandchildren have gone into teaching and coaching as a career path. So her influence is felt by tens of thousands of students across the country.
Celia knew how to put you to work when you came to visit and kept herself busy with a huge garden and honey bees and playing canasta with the ladies on their beloved Clear Lake. She was the last of her friends to stop driving and had been the one to gather them together to get their hair fixed in town once a week. She followed the Vikings for football and the Twins for baseball religeously and dished out smack to opponents with the best of them!
I hope to be half the woman she was and live just as long.
Thank you for giving us your heart Grandma and for every loaf of zuchini bread and poppy seed bread you ever baked!
I love you.
