I hope you are still taking comments about Grandma Gardner because I have so many memories of her. I used to stay with her often at night and remember many nights walking the long block from our home to hers in my jammies. She had the most quaint wood stove and oven ever seen and she always prepared a huge breakfast. If I didn't feel like eating she would give me a big dose of paregoric.

She always told all of the grandbabies how "lazy" we were and was known to "wash our mouths out" with homemade bars of soap. I remember her making this soap with huge vats of "fat" and lye. She was the first person I saw kill a chicken with her bare hands and that was gruesome! Something you just can't forget, especially when it is fried up for dinner.

She wall papered her house so many times it was pulling off the walls but this was her yearly spring cleaning. When we slept at grandmas we slept on feather beds and had to shake them out every morning and make-up the beautiful brass beds. She always offered food when we entered her house and it was usually very stale cookies. She would always dye her hair and it could be very unusual colors of pink, purple, blue.

She would make us either hide in the closet or on the feather beds when there was even a hint of lightening. She always wore a beautiful hat to Sunday School on Sunday and there was always a crocheted hankie tucked in her waist belt. We had fun dressing up and wearing all the hats, some even had netting over our face. She loved listening to her old radio--especially basketball especially when it was her grandsons and BYU. I think it was Vern or Delos who bought her first TV and it was sports or Ed Sullivan.

I could never imagine someone having 13 children but she loved them all as her favorite and always sent her grandchildren a birthday card--until there were so many of us she couldn't keep up. She taught me how to crochet, do laundry with a wringer, mow the lawn with a push mower and laugh! I have some wild stories and Lea Rae helped me make some of them like sneaking out of the bedroom window because she made us go to bed so early.

She was very political and that is when I heard my first swear word when she spoke of "Damn Cats". She was very firm in her beliefs and I am pretty sure that is where most of us learned to argue. I never saw her back off a good debate. She had a great sense of humor and I remember her laughing so hard she had tears in her eyes.

Grandma had a picture of her husband in her bedroom and she often talked of her love for him. She was so proud of her children and her heritage. She had so much love for all of us and even though she could be stern and crotchety, I loved her. Her children took such loving care of her and each other.

She always kneeled down at her bedside at night and gave thanks to her Heavenly Father and asked for protection for her large and growing family. She had a very strong belief in her religion and a strong testimony of being with her loved ones in the after life. Sometimes I hated walking the long, cold block to spend the night with Grandma but now wish I would have taken note of those good times more carefully. Joane

I was also afraid of Grandma. I remember a time that we stayed with her in Afton and she fixed clam chowder. I hate clams, so I wouldn't eat it, and she got mad at me for being a "picky" eater. I learned to stay close to Vernie, and then she was much nicer to me. She's the only person on earth that I know of that had some kind of control over my dad. He surely loved her. Though I didn't really feel like I had a personal relationship with her, I grew to love and admire the life she lived and the wonderful family she produced. Karen

Pulling an egg from behind me and saying I laid an egg. Gary

I remember her staying with us when I was a kid and her getting after my mom (Beatrice) for letting me eat potato chips after I came home from school - Darrelyn