This will be the first of several posts about my Grandmother who died 1/2/2010.

My Grandmother died on January 2nd. She was 83 years old. It was her 66th wedding anniversary. She was incredible.

And by incredible, I mostly mean extraordinary and hard to believe.

She was born in 1926 to a very poor family in Nicholasville, KY. My great-grandfather decided he was called to be a preacher and went back to school, beginning in the eighth grade, in his 30s. He moved his family - my great-grandmother Jesse who was half Cherokee, and his three children, to Wilmore, KY to attend Asbury College. It was the beginning of the Great Depression and there was practically no money, a reality that was to inform my Grandmother's world view until the day she died.

As the middle child of three, a brother and sister on either side, I think my Grandmother always felt like she was overlooked. She had an amazing devotion to her father who went on to be a preacher and found a large church. By all reports, my great-grandparents were not demonstrative people - my great-grandfather was puritanical and my great-grandmother was deeply reserved. As a result, my Grandmother was determined that her family and those around her knew they were loved and adored.

Of all of the things I loved about my Grandmother, I loved her stories most. I have a strong affinity with anything related to the 1930s and 40s because of the vivid descriptions of her childhood. She was determined that I would know the names of the people who were part of her history, and how the branches of my family tree were connected. She wanted me to know her story and the lessons she had learned.

Coming of age during the Great Depression and as a teen during World War II, she was profoundly affected by the events of her time. She often recounted a story of being in the first grade and needing to go to the dentist. Preventive dentistry was unheard of in those days, and she needed to have teeth pulled. The dentist informed her father that numbing the affected teeth would be $5. Even as a little girl, she could see the crestfallen look on his face, $5 being a week's wages. So she passed.

Not on the tooth-pulling, but on the anaesthetic. She had her teeth pulled without it in order to spare her father the staggering bill. He was so grateful, he took her to the candy store and bought 25 cents worth of candy, something that she never had before or after. Counterintuitive by today's dental standards, but the teeth were gone afterall.

In those days, marrying early was de rigueur. There is a picture of her standing next to her best friend around 1940. Both 14, the are dressed in Sunday best with orchid corsages and complicated hats. It was a day they were both going to sneak out and get married. Some Kentucky hilljack boys had proposed and they were practically spinsters. They were going across the county line to wed