K. E. Morgan Designs: My heritage

Ruth Rundle Circa 1950 something

This is my maternal Grandmother. I'm guessing she is probably in her 50's somewhere...kind of like I am now. She was a wonderful lady though I think she probably wasn't always the easiest to live with. She was born in 1900 was married in 1926 and raised my Mother during the Great Depression....she was one strong lady. The other day I got to thinking...I have a feeling she and I were more alike than I ever knew. Though strong isn't necessarily a word I would use to discribe myself. My grandfather was a soft spoken sweet man, not unlike my husband. A man of few words but when he spoke you listened. Gramma on the other hand was the outspoken one, the animated one, the storyteller.(Sound like anybody else you know?) She was born of pioneer stock, she use to say. She grew up on a ranch in Grass Valley CA and she loved to entertain Linda and me with stories of her growing up on the ranch. I think that Gramma was probably a scrapper of her day...I have loads of old photos of my Gramma's all pasted into albums....if only they had a few more stories to go with them. She was an elegant lady....she grew up in an era when women dressed up to go shopping....I don't think she owned a pair of slacks....certainly not a pair of jeans...tho she did have her "Rompers" that she wore in the yard when she did yard work. Gramma taught us to be "ladies" she taught us manners. After my Dad died she and my grandfather tried very hard to make up for his absence. My mother was their only child. They took us all out to nice places for dinner and Linda and I were expected to act accordingly. This of course became difficult if dinner took too long to arrive. I am sure that it was from Gramma that we learned to make "sugar cube trains" with the sugar cubes on the table in the restaurant. She wanted to keep us entertained while waiting for dinner. Unfortunately I couldn't pass this fun game on to my kids cuz "sugar packet trains" just never worked very well. lol

Gramma had her darker side too...and unfortunately looking at myself recently I fear as though I have inherited one of my grandmothers darker qualities...Yell first.....think about it later....I don't ever recall my gramma being upset with me but I can remember my Mom calling Gramma in the middle of the afternoon and interrupting "her show" and Gramma yelling at Mommy and then hanging up on her. You see, my Gramma was a die hard Soap Opera fan....As the World Turns and Days of Our Lives as I recall. My Mom never watched them so she had no clue she was calling her in the middle of something important (well important to Gramma anyway...lol) Of course this was YEARS before VCR's or DVR's so she couldn't see "her show" at a more convienent time....My Mom never could get the times right because I know Gramma hung up on her on more than one occasion. Years later....I became the Soap Opera junkie....only I could record them so I didn't have to hang up on whoever might call. I am sure my children and my husband can atest to the fact that I often yell first and think about it afterwards....it's not a quality I am proud of but one that I continue to keep working on. I often wonder if that wasn't why my grandfather was so quiet...he was just trying to keep the peace in the family...guess I will never know....at least not in this life anyway.

Well there you have it a little bit of trivia about my wonderful Grandmother. One thing I do know for sure she loved her family.She and my grandfather did everything they could for my Mom after my Dad passed away. She was their world. She out lived her husband and her only child. I cannot even imagine that. She was indeed one strong lady.

I am closing this post with a few layouts that I have done of my Gramma.