Grandma Wilson

I have found myself thinking a lot about my Grandma Wilson this Christmas season and thought I'd blog a few of my thoughts about her to pay tribute. She passed away back in the spring of 2005 due to breast cancer that had metastasized to her lungs.

I'm thinking of her in particular this morning because I just mixed up a batch of her famous Cinnamon Roll dough for us to enjoy on Christmas. She and my Grandpa did not own a house for the majority of my lifetime. Rather than stay in one spot and have people come to them, they made it their mission to go out and help others. They had a white Toyota pickup truck with a big trailer attached (I guess like an RV) that they would travel in. They took many trips around the US in that thing as well as a number of trips to AZ and Mexico where they served at various mission sites. When they weren't serving at a mission, they would rotate between their 6 kids' houses, visiting each for ~3 weeks to a month. My Grandpa would expect a list of projects to work on once he arrived. For our family, I remember him helping build our fence, cementing the back patio, painting the exterior of our house, building cabinets, remodeling the downstairs to create a bedroom for Lani, and building book shelves for us kids.

Meanwhile, my Grandma would keep herself busy inside the house, cooking, cleaning, doing the laundry and playing with us kids. My mom admitted recently that it bothered her at first, that her mother-in-law was doing all the housework because she thought it meant my mom was not a good enough house keeper. But she soon realized it was my Grandma's love language to serve and she always wanted to keep her hands busy helping others.

I think Grandma really wanted to make sure her granddaughters knew the basic skills of cooking and sewings so she would frequently bring projects for us to work on. She taught me to sew a couple of different stitches by hand and to cook. Her specialties were homemade cinnamon rolls and pies. I now credit her as playing a huge role in developing my love of cooking.

We would always ask Grandma for her top secret cinnamon roll recipe. She would tell us that she didn't follow a recipe, she just would put a "scoop full of this and a spoonful of that." We never knew how big of a scoop or spoon to use so finally we had her measure out the ingredients so her famous recipe could be passed on. I've made the cinnamon roll recipe that she wrote out a number of times, but they are never quite as good as hers. She was always so cute because she knew that I liked the gooey middle rolls so she would use a huge pan for my batch (the bigger the pan, the more middle rolls!) But my Grandpa loved his cinnamon rolls crusty so she would make a special small pan for him that were all crusty.

At Christmastime, Grandma would use her same cinnamon roll dough recipe to make "Christmas Tree Bread." She would create strips of dough (each on a bit shorter than the other) and then line the strips up into the shape of a Christmas tree. She would frost them with green frosting and sprinkles and then use red hots for ornaments. I had my first attempt at making Christmas Tree Bread without her last year and hope to try it again this year for Graham and I to bring to work on Christmas Eve. I hope I can keep this tradition going in my family.

Grandma Wilson died a couple years before Graham proposed but I am so thankful that we were dating at the time and she was able to meet him. He was in nursing school during the time as she grew sicker (in addition to the cancer, she had a stroke that compromised her right side) and so I think he was able to be a comfort for my Dad's family as he was able to explain what a lot of the medical terms meant.

Recently, I came across a card that my Grandma wrote (in her very best left-handed penmanship)to me not too long before she died. In it, she commented about Graham, that he was a "very special boy" and that she was glad to know him. I think she knew deep down that he was right for me and that we would get married. Even though I really wish she could have been at our wedding, I am so thankful that I have this card to cherish. I know she approved of him.