I remember Grandma's Swedish pancakes ---how one of them completely filled her big iron skillet. Mom never made this kind of pancakes so they were a real treat to us. Two more of her specialties were her Christmas cakes and puddings. On a planned day in the fall she would walk across the street to our house, hair freshly done up in a bun, a clean apron covering her house dress, ready to put the holiday goodies together. Each one usually took the better part of one day.
After she died, Mom continued on alone. It had become a family tradition. Those cakes and puddings were the very best in the world. I have never tasted any that were any better. We kids would often go over to her place to take milk or fresh butter, or freshly baked bread or the mail and she would often ask us to stay and eat with them. We were shy and would usually say 'No, we were not hungry', then Grandpa would grin and reply, "Any day I'd rather feed a man who admits he's hungry than one who says he isn't. The one who says he isn't hungry always eats the most."
Grandma was an avid reader. She would read by the hour while Grandpa was working in the garden and the yard. He always arose about four or five each morning in the summer time, and then by seven at night, although it was still very light outside, he would be in bed. Grandma would sit up until late every night reading, doing some handwork and listening to the ten o'clock news, and then she'd sleep until ten the next morning. She had cataracts on both eyes, had surgery to have them removed and suffered a great deal from this. But the suffering didn't disturb her as much as the fact that she could no longer read with ease. For much of the time she had to be content with just listening to the news on the radio. Sometimes she struggled to read with a big round magnifying glass.
Her beloved Etudes (music magazines) would sit stacked up in the front room on a chair or on top of her music cabinet and gather dust --- magazines she had spent so many hours pouring through when her sight was better. She had some sort of infection, probably sinus, that caused her severe headaches. She couldn't tolerate cold air and remained inside the house a good deal, especially in the winter time. This was in the last years of her life.
It was very hard for Grandma when Grandpa had his stroke. It happened in July of 1939. He and Grandma had just finished entertaining their Johansen friends from Cardston area, and had sung several duets for them. The company had barely left when Grandpa began acting very strange and was forced to lie down on the living-room couch. The doctor was called and we were told he had suffered a stroke. Weeks later he got so he could walk over to our place but his left side never fully recovered. His leg dragged, his arm was unsteady, and his face, mostly his eye, was affected. Suddenly, after years of being waited on by her husband, Grandma now found the tables turned. It was now necessary for her to do the "waiting" on him. We always thought Grandma would be the first to go because she had had so many health problems over the years.
By Christmas time he was completely bed-ridden and finally passed away on the 24th of January 1940.
Grandma had been so involved in helping Mom take care of him she was heard to say at his passing,"I hope the Lord will take me fast when it is time for me to go. I don't want to linger and have to have loved ones wait on me day and night. I don't want to be a burden on anyone." She was given her wish. One afternoon that fall she went to her garden to gather potatoes for her dinner. She was carrying them in her apron. As she walked up her stairs to the back door, she suddenly fell forward. Gen, who lived in the other part of her house, and a neighbor, John Kimball, carried her into the house and she was pronounced dead by the doctor when he arrived shortly afterwards. In death she looked so beautiful and peaceful, just like she was sleeping.
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