Thoughts of Grandma are sure to bring to mind a warm flood of memories and sweet\u00a0experiences. These memories form the basis for many of my own deepest aspirations and\u00a0values, making it difficult to articulate what my grandmother meant to me. But I believe she is\u00a0here in spirit today and because of that I hope to pay tribute to the depth of difference this\u00a0remarkable woman made not only in my life but in the lives of all who had the privilege of\u00a0knowing her.<\/p>\n
To begin with, a brief outline of her life is in order. Clarissa Anna Milligan was born on June 2,\u00a01918, in St. John\u2019s Hospital in Springfield, Illinois to Clarence Wilbur Milligan and Katherine\u00a0Becker. When she was a little girl just learning to speak, Grandma had difficulty saying her own\u00a0name and found it easier to call herself \u201cTiss.\u201d Thereafter her family and friends knew her as\u00a0Tiss or Tissie.<\/p>\n
Grandma attended Blessed Sacrament Elementary school as a girl. She recalled those primary\u00a0years as ones filled with joyful physical activity. She took tap dance, toe dance and, her favorite,\u00a0gymnastics. One of her keenest childhood memories consisted of swinging upside down on the\u00a0hanging bars outside of Blessed Sacrament and being embarrassed when someone told her her\u00a0underpants were showing.<\/p>\n
As a child, Grandma also enjoyed beautiful clothes and good fabrics. Some of her strongest\u00a0memories are of the clothes she wore on different occasions. For example, when she was six, a\u00a0dressmaker made her a smocked dress out of pink crepe material that Grandma never forgot.\u00a0She remembered the long blue gown her mother bought her for her first dance, and she also\u00a0remembered the tapestry material used on another long dress gown. Grandma\u2019s mother also\u00a0loved beautiful clothes perhaps passed on that interest to Grandma.<\/p>\n
In her senior year of high school, Grandma transferred to Springfield High School and enjoyed\u00a0having classes with boys in them. Thus began her dating period. Grandma enjoyed dating lots\u00a0of different boys. A classmate of hers once commented that Clarissa was the only girl she knew\u00a0who had pictures of two men on her wall and who married them both.<\/p>\n
After Grandma graduated from National College with a Bachelors in Education specializing in\u00a0kindergarten education and art, she married Ralph Colby on July 20. By that point, Ralph Colby\u00a0was a West Point graduate and a lieutenant in the army. Together the couple moved around\u00a0from Springfield to Nebraska to Alabama and to Georgia and then to Florida. During this period,\u00a0they had two daughters, Katherine Ann Colby and Dell Siscine Colby.<\/p>\n
In August of 1943 Grandma received the devastating news that Ralph had been killed in action\u00a0as a Darby\u2019s Ranger over Palermo, Italy. Later in a small ceremony, Grandma was presented\u00a0with a silver star honoring Ralph\u2019s heroism.<\/p>\n
Soon thereafter, George William Cullen sent Grandma a letter of condolence. They began to\u00a0correspond, and George proposed over letter. Grandma wrote back her acceptance, and they\u00a0were married on July 20, 1944. In the next five years Grandma gave birth to three more\u00a0children: Georgia Anne Cullen, Mary Cullen (who died the same day she was born), and\u00a0Stephen Cullen. After Steve was born in December, he was placed under the Christmas tree\u00a0along with all of the other gifts that year.<\/p>\n
Grandma\u2019s child raising years were busy ones. Aside from school, swimming lessons, and dance\u00a0lessons, there were cub scouts and girl scouts. Grandma gained some notoriety when she kicked her own\u00a0daughter, Dee, out of girl scouts. Grandma also made all of her children\u2019s clothes and cooked\u00a0delicious, often gourmet meals. She also was a member of the Junior League of America,\u00a0Supper Club, the Stitch and Bitch Club, the president of the Ceramics and Craft Club and\u00a0assisted in the publication of the Junior League Cook Book\u00ad\u00adthe one we all like with Abraham\u00a0Lincoln on the cover. She was also active in Community Chest, Red Cross and was the Vice\u00a0President of the Sangamon County Lawyers Wives. In the midst of all of this, she managed to\u00a0also win prizes at the Illinois Sate Fair for her silver jewelry and a leather dress that she made.<\/p>\n
When her children were grown up, Grandma still stayed busy, swimming regularly, baking\u00a0bread, hosting grandchildren, meeting with friends, and volunteering regularly at St. John\u2019s\u00a0Breadline and Minnie O\u2019Brien\u2019s nursery.<\/p>\n
Somehow Grandma managed to do all of this despite significant setbacks to her health.\u00a0Between 1951 and her death in 2016, Grandma survived twenty surgical procedures. In the face\u00a0of those trials, Grandma always stayed positive and upbeat. After the death of her second\u00a0husband, Grandma lived as a widow for almost thirty years and constantly maintained her\u00a0positivity and optimism.<\/p>\n
My own personal memories of Grandma are so numerous and personal that it would be\u00a0impossible for me to convey them all here. But even so I will try to share a couple recollections\u00a0that are especially sweet to me. For a long time, experiencing Grandma also meant\u00a0experiencing her house and the warm, regular routines that governed her existence there. The\u00a0smell of yeasted bread always seemed to linger in the air of her home, and I always knew that a\u00a0stay at Grandma\u2019s house included toasted homemade bread and newspaper cartoons for\u00a0breakfast. I remember staring at the glinting sunlight that filtered into the sleeping porch through\u00a0the brawny branches of the trees outside, and I remember how cold the floor of the porch was\u00a0when I finally ventured out of her clean, crispy sheets.<\/p>\n
It was only at Grandma\u2019s house that I could do puzzles, read, craft and watch cable television to\u00a0my heart\u2019s content. When I grew older, I would spend a week or two at her house each summer,\u00a0and in memory, each of those stays felt like a long stretch of sunlight and leisure. It was\u00a0Grandma who taught me how to embroider flowers with stem stitches and French knots. It was\u00a0Grandma who taught me how to bake bread, pie crusts, and profiteroles. It was Grandma who\u00a0introduced me to quilting stores as we searched for the perfect fabric for a quilt I wanted to\u00a0make. Almost ten years after my interest in that quilt waned, Grandma presented me with the\u00a0glorious, finished quilt as a present when I graduated from school. I think of her every time I look\u00a0at it.<\/p>\n
I remember that on one stay I determined to finally get Grandma\u2019s story out of her, and she\u00a0would indulge my questions as we took long walks around the neighborhood. I remember her\u00a0answering my questions, but it always seemed like no matter how determined I felt to hear\u00a0her story, the walks would always end with her listening to mine. She was a perfect\u00a0listener.<\/p>\n
I could go on and on, but I will conclude with how I felt connected to Grandma in the final years\u00a0of her life. After Grandma got sick two and half years ago, I took up blogging again, this time\u00a0knowing that Grandma would read and care about stories that probably wouldn\u2019t interest anyone\u00a0else. Every time I posted pictures of my children, I knew Grandma would look at them and\u00a0actually love them. One of my life\u2019s dreams was to have the lives of my children and\u00a0grandmother intersect, and I count myself blessed beyond measure to have had that dream\u00a0come true.<\/p>\n
In closing, I feel certain that Grandma would not have wanted any remembrance of her to take\u00a0place without also honoring those who cared for her in the last years of her life. As her own\u00a0ability to care for herself declined, the goodness and love she emanated for so many years\u00a0returned to her in the form of attentive, dedicated service from all of her own children. In\u00a0particular, I would like to mention the way, my mother, Georgia, has lived with and lovingly\u00a0looked after my grandmother for the past two and a half years. Along with my mother\u2019s near\u00a0constant attention, Grandma also enjoyed especially close relationships with my cousin Suzi,\u00a0who would stay nights with her in the hospital and looked after her every Sunday while my mom\u00a0was at church. Barbara was also an invaluable, constant source of help and love.<\/p>\n
I also know that every time Dee and Bill or Steve and Pam visited, my mom called me with\u00a0noticeably uplifted spirits. Their love, support, wisdom, and help have sustained not only\u00a0Grandma in the last chapter of her life, but have provided needed support to my mother as she\u00a0fulfilled her role as a caretaker. Finally, the lifelong friendship Grandma enjoyed with Lois and\u00a0Eleanor continued to enliven and delight my Grandmother to the very end.<\/p>\n
We need look no further than the abundance of goodness evident in Kay, Dee, Georgia and\u00a0Steve to glimpse the meaning of Grandma\u2019s beautiful life. She has passed on to her children,\u00a0grandchildren, great\u00ad grandchildren, and future posterity a legacy of love, service, health,\u00a0kindness, friendship, and beauty. The incalculable effects of her well\u00ad lived life will certainly be\u00a0felt for generations to come.<\/p>\n
I will hold her memory forever in love, as I know she will be held in love by everyone who had\u00a0the great privilege of knowing this extraordinary woman. That we may collectively remember in\u00a0joy often with each other and to our children is my great hope.<\/p>\n
I love you, Grandma.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Thoughts of Grandma are sure to bring to mind a warm flood of memories and sweet\u00a0experiences. These memories form the basis for many of my own deepest aspirations and\u00a0values, making it difficult to articulate what my grandmother meant to me. But I believe she is\u00a0here in spirit today and because of that I hope to … Continue reading A eulogy for my darling Grandma<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-9642","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9642","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=9642"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/9642\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=9642"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=9642"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/abeandlily.com\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=9642"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}