Inheritance

Wanna walk down memory lane with me? Great.

My lane of memories involves Cle Elum Washington, Mohar Road specifically, where my grandma lived. Her name was Ella Mae Rothlisberger Morrison.


That's her on the right, my dad and my Aunt Cathy make up that motley crew. I assume it's my mother behind the camera.

My grandma was a very big part of my childhood.

Both of my parents worked and so we spent almost every day in the summer with her and a lot of days after school as well.

She handled it pretty well I think.

I know we were a handful but her willingness to watch us so that we never needed daycare was pretty phenomenal.

She was the perfect cook for 3 young kids. Waffles every morning, Macaroni and Cheese for lunch, and noodles and sauce for dinner.

Not to mention the sips of coffee she would give us and the never ending supply of mini cans of 7UP and Coke.

She also took advantage of a new technology at the time called the Microwave.We had many a microwave cake and boy did they taste good.

My favorite memories of her are funny to me now, but she knew how to keep us entertained.

She would let me shave her legs with her electric razor. She was my grandma, so it wasn't weird or gross to me, it was fun.

She would always let us comb her hair the day before she got her hair done at the local beauty salon. It was always once a week and she would always fall asleep in her chair as we took turns combing it.

My grandma was also the funnest person in the entire world to scare. Now, I know that sounds mean, but she scared so easily.

We would wait outside the bathroom with our noses right next to the door, she would come out, her arms would fly into the air and she would scream, and usually pee her pants a little because she was laughing so hard.

We would scare her every chance we got, sometimes dozens of times a day, she always screamed, always laughed afterward and never got mad at us or asked us to stop, I think she honestly loved to be scared.

She would play card games with us all day if we wanted as well, usually falling asleep during a lengthy game of War.

Days spent at her house were magical. Everyday we walked across the field to my great grandmother's house. We would walk thru the back gate into her garden where the flowers were as tall as I was.

We would play in the barn, chase the peacock around, feed baby lambs on the front porch and stand by the fence and pet the top of the sheeps heads.

My great-grandmother had several old cars in her field that we would play in for hours. T.V. wasn't a huge part of our days.

We would pick wild roses along the road as we walked back to my grandma's house sometimes watching people jump into the canal just down the road.

There was a field between my grandma and great-grandma's houses. It was chock full of grasshoppers. We would catch them and feed them to my grandma's cockapoo Ginger.

Poor dog.

We would swing from the branch on the willow tree until my grandma finally got too nervous that we would fall and kill ourselves, so she cut it down.

At night we would cuddle up and watch Wheel of Fortune with her.

I have so many memories of her. She really helped to raise us in many ways (sorry mom and dad, but it's true.)

She died in 2004 of dementia. And I still miss her.

But I have little reminders of her.



She had this cuckoo clock for many many years. When we would spend the night I would hear it in the middle of the night chirping it's little "cuck-oo, cuck-oo".

So now it hangs in our house, in my bird room. We're still tinkering with it to get it to work but I love it, and it brings with it such nostalgia that even if it never tick tocks again I won't care.

My grandmother never had much money, but she certainly gave me an inheritance. An inheritance of rich memories, and a few precious possessions to always remind me of a blessed childhood and a grandma who loved me.