Every year at this time I really think about my Grandma Burton, I think it is because her birthday is October 23rd and with Halloween I have a lot of the "fun size" candy bars at my house and "fun size" candy bars make me think of her and smile. (I have had this post on my mind for about 2 1/2 weeks I am just slow getting some pictures scanned). Anyway I thought I would post a little blog tribute to her so that my memories are written down somewhere... This picture above is of my Great Grandparents on my mom's side ( my grandma's parents) Howard T. Burton and Leone Risley Burton. This picture was taken at Lake Powell, I think sometime in the 60's. Is he not the cutest?? Give her hair some slack she had been camping, I love this picture, it is one of my all time favorites...
This is my Grandma's school picture I don't know the year for sure, it was taken when she lived out on the salt flats so my guess is about 1918 or 1919. She is the one closest to the teacher on the left (looking at it) and 2 of her sisters are the 2 on the end on the left side. It is funny that she seems to be a tall person in this picture because she was very tiny. She would always tell me stories about living out on the Salt Flats, and how their school did not have a bathroom so you would have to run home to go... My Grandpa Burton lived in the Grangerish area, he told me that when he was little they would ride a hay wagon to school, like it was the school bus. I thought that was just amazing, they then took us to ride a haywagon at Wheeler farm.... I don't know if he took us there because we loved that story or if that is when he first told me the story, either way I loved it. When my grandma was little she was on a family trip (about 9 or 10) at Utah lake, and her dad got sucked under water by an under toe and drowned while she watched. She said they dragged him out and rolled him over a barrel to get the water out of him. It was such a tragic thing for her that she blocked it from her memory for years.....Then as an adult she was out fishing and her grown son dove into the water and the sound of the splashing etc brought a sudden flashback of all the memories she had suppressed. She got sick and they had to go home. She would tell me this story a lot, also of how for Christmas they would get Sarsaparilla and an orange. Can you imagine our children now being excited to get that!!
This is her with Maddie when Maddie was about 8 weeks old. She was great she made blankets for us when we were little, she called them drag around quilts. She even made Maddie one when she was born. These blankets were my favorite "my blue blankets" when I went into the hospital to have Maddie I told Tom to sneak and throw them away while I was gone, I had slept with them my whole life and figured they might be dangerous with all the dangling parts for a new born. I wish some nights I had one of those blankets. You would know on Christmas morning when she came over with big garbage sacks that you were getting new drag arounds and it was great!!
When Maddie was born we had 5 generations in our family this is a picture of it after Maddie's blessing.... It is my Great Grandma in front on the left, then my Grandma Marilyn Hughes on the right. In the back is my mom Kathryn White on the left and me with some serious bangs holding sleeping Maddie. This summer that Maddie was a baby, my grandparents went to Alaska for the summer and asked me to keep an eye out for my great grandma. We only had one car so Tom would drop us off on his way to work, and then pick us up after. It was great!!! I am so glad I had that summer, the stories she would tell me, the things she taught me.... we would sit and go through all her pictures and I would write on the back who the people were and she would tell me stories about all the pictures. I wish I had some of them to show there was this really cute one where she and some friends had gone swimming. Their suits and the cute 20's hats are so cute. On that day their is a picture of my Great Grandpa in his swimming suit too, which I never saw him without long pants on, he was born with the skinniest ankles ever I don't know if their is a name for that or what but he did not walk for a long time because he couldn't his legs were too skinny. You could see in the picture they are like pencils I can't believe he ever did walk. She also taught me that summer how to make her famous orange crisp cookies, they are made with a cookie press into these cute little flower shapes. A family party was just not the same without these cookies. She then gave me the cookie press which I still have and use every once in awhile. It is great strictly from the 50's my favorite thing about the cookie press is the box it is in because it has her handwriting on it. I don't know why but I love to look at her writing. They were great people. My mom and her sisters would tell me how their grandpa would take them to Zellerbacks and would roller skate around the warehouse with them. What a fun Grandpa to roller skate with you don't you think??? I remember he always bought doughnuts from the Salt Lake Doughnut Co. and when I was little he would take me to the Paris where my mom and my great grandma worked to pick them up, what I thought was sooo cool was driving up a parking garage while we waited why I don't know but it was super cool when you were that age. My mom and grandma were in charge of gift wrapping at the Paris. My mom can wrap a present like nobodies business. (I think that is why I am so bad at it because she could do it super fast and it would look great so I always had her do it) Another thing I remember about my Grandpa Burton is he seemed to always be joking around and laughing, he and my grandma loved each other more then I ever remember seeing in another couple.
That is another memory that is kind of sad, I remember when he died and she just layed on him before they closed the coffin lid and she just sobbed and sobbed I will never forget that. She then lived another 12 years and talked about him every day!!! One funny story they would both tell is when he asked her for an orange and she said "Where will you have it?" He pointed to his eye and she threw it right at his eye giving him a black eye. She said everyone gave them a hard time that such a tiny person could beat him up like that. I can still picture that twinkle in her eyes that she got when she smiled telling this story. She loved to go to the cabin that she and her husband and my Grandpa & Grandma Hughes built. I loved going to the cabin with her... she would get so excited when she would see a moose or deer etc. (Whats your excuse Nat) I remember Christmas dinners at her house, picnics with both sets of granparents, and going to the hockey games with them, or the ballet (the 2 together isn't it ironic) anyway I picture both my grandma's in their little scarfs over their hair waddle walking down the street arm in arm together. On one of those trips is when I sat next to my Grandma Birdie as we called her and she opened her purse which is this great black purse that Zarley now brings her dance shoes to dance in, anyway she had a bag of fun size candy bars, she asks me if I want one of course I do its a Baby Ruth, I open mine cock my head back and throw down the whole thing in one gulp, I look over at her and she is taking bites not just one or two, but like 3 and then she starts to wrap it back up..... she probably saw my questioning face and she says "I'm just saving some for later" it was a fun size you know I ate mine in one bite probably without chewing!~ This might be why the most she ever weighed was 105 pounds and that was on a Tuesday and she had a baby on Thursday. Which reminds me.... when she had my grandma she had some kind of problems, I don't know what, but they told her she would never be able to have anymore children, so 7 years later when she had her second child, they did not tell my grandma they were having a baby until she actually had him because she did not want her to be disappointed she had wanted a baby brother/or sister so badly!! I think about this too when I want another baby, or when I had been trying so hard to have babies, I would think of her saying sometimes you just don't get what you want, she would have liked more children also. Because of the complications they had a lot of hospital bills that just going into the depression had a really hard time paying, she told me about this and also about a table they had bought before everything crashed, she then would tell me about how my grandpa would go and pay what he could when he could, and out of honor would not let any of these debts go unpaid. I wish we had that kind of honor now a days!! She also told me of how they would go to bed really early so they wouldn't realize how hungry or cold they were because they did not have food or money to heat their house. That generation just saw so much and was so amazing. I find it very sad that they are all leaving us and these kind of stories will now just be in books (we hope anyway who knows where our country is headed maybe that is aonther reason she has been on my mind). I was very blessed to have known my great grandparents as well as I did and for my Grandma Birdie to have known 2 of my children here. I miss them terribly and wish I could just sit down to one more Thanksgiving or Christmas dinner with them all there. I think I shall make some orange crisp cookies tomorrow and share this memory with my younger kids who never knew them.
P.S. fam share a memory if you have one!! I left some out for this purpose
