Identity – Childhood Memories Alphabet – G

G is for God

    My family believed in God and started taking me to church when I was about six weeks old and basically took me every Sunday after that. Church was always a part of my life. We attended the Halsey Christian Church. After I had left home, the church was changed to Grace Bible Fellowship. Both of my parents had responsibilities in the church, Daddy was Sunday School Superintendent and eventually was one of the elders and Momma taught Sunday School. By the time I was in high school I also taught a Sunday School class and sang in the choir. The people at the church were like a second family. During the summer, when there was no school, church became a time to see other children. My mother read Bible stories for many of my bedtime stories. At age 11, I made my personal commitment to God and Christ and was baptized. So began my life as a Christian which I am still trying to live each day. God is so all-powerful and awe-inspiring.

G is for Grandma

    While I was growing up I had three grandmas: Grandma Albertson, Grandma Falk and Great-grandma Smalley.

               Grandma Lucie Rachel (Smalley) Albertson.

    When I was born, my family lived on the farm which was rented by my Grandpa Albertson. Grandpa and Grandma Albertson lived in the bigger house and my folks and I lived in the smaller house. I have some every early memories of going to Grandma's house (just across the yard) and sitting on her lap. When I was about 7, my grandparents moved to Eugene and my family, including my younger brother, moved into the bigger house. Grandpa and Grandma lived on Columbia Street on the eastern side of Eugene. My aunt and uncle lived next door to them. Since Eugene was about 30 miles away we did not visit too often. There were two things I remember about visiting Grandma. She had a large salt and pepper shaker collection. I did enjoy looking at all of them. Eventually I would inherit them after her death and discovered that there were about 150 pair. The second one was that there always seemed to be orange slices in her candy dish and she would let us each have one.

                     Grandma Florence Edna (Bond) Falk

    Grandma Falk lived closer to us, but we still did not visit too often. One of the things that I found fascinating about her house was that when I was young she had a rain barrel next to her back porch. Also she had a pump organ that was kept in a part of the house that generally was closed. Since I started taking piano lessons in the third grade I thought it was really fun to get to try to play the organ. But a special thing at her house was a room which I remember as being next to the living room where there was a box of toys. It was there for us to play with when we were visiting Grandma and was kept put away until one of the grandchildren came to visit again.

             Great-grandma Rosa Ella (Shipman) Smalley

    My Great-grandma Smalley lived in Kansas. When I was about 10 months old my family took a trip to Kansas. I can remember seeing the picture of me with my Great-grandma along with my parents and Albertson grandparents. Also there was a picture with her and two of my second cousins who were about the same age. In 1995 we had a Smalley family reunion in Kansas and I got a picture of me with the same cousins. Great-grandma would write letters to our family and according to one of my first cousins she and great-grandpa came to visit us in Oregon when I was about 5 or 6, but sadly I don't remember that. I do remember that when I was in high school my Dad had to make to trip to Kansas and my great-grandma was still alive. He took a picture of her with his movie camera and I really enjoyed seeing that of her at age ninety. She died a few months later.