Love Inspired Author Missy Tippens Honors her grandmother

Today, Missy Tippens, a newer Love Inspired Author, guests and tells a precious story of love and family. Here's Missy:

"Lyn, thank you so much for having me today. I wanted to share with all of you a little about one of the strongest women I’ve known. My grandmother.

Nanny was born in 1900, and I remember being enthralled to hear about all the changes that took place in her lifetime--the airplane, TV, computers, microwave ovens (which she refused to use!). But in some ways, she was a woman before her time. When she was a young woman (about 18), she decided to go to business school. After a year there, though, she got meningitis and had to leave. Then sometime after that, her father died from the flu epidemic of 1918. That left my great-grandmother with five children, the oldest already married, with his own family, so he couldn’t help out. My great-grandmother wasn’t able to hold her family together, so they had to put three of the younger children in an orphanage. But my grandmother was determined to get her family back together.

Using the limited schooling she had achieved, she took her mother and moved to Jenkins, Kentucky, where she got a job as a bookkeeper for a coal company. Once she was able, she got her youngest sister out of the orphanage and took care of her and my great-grandmother. (The twin boys were nearly old enough for independent living by then.) My great-aunt always praised my grandmother for all she did for their family. And you know, my grandmother took care of her own mother for the rest of her life, even after she married and had a family. My grandmother also helped my grandfather start a dry cleaning business.

Then she opened her own clothing store—where I got all my clothes while I was growing up! Even though Nanny was a career woman, she still made time to spend with her grandchildren. She was only 5 feet tall, but I would sit in her lap while she rocked me in her rocking chair even after my feet dragged the floor, even into my college years. I loved Nanny so much. She died in 1990, and I still miss her.

So during this month of Mother’s Day, I’d like to honor my grandmother for being a strong woman with a brave story. For being a determined woman. And a loving woman."

If you'd like to learn more about Author Missy Tippens, drop by www.missytippens.com OR
www.lifewithmissy.blogspot.com

Drop by www.eharlequin.com and order her latest Love Inspired Romance!



Thanks so much, Missy--Lyn

Lyn's Grandmother-Dee Dee

Today is my day to share another family story. My mother's mother Louise who was called Dee Dee (a popular nickname in my family) passed away when I was in first grade. I remember my mom coming to my classroom to get me at Glen Flora School in Waukegan IL, sad image in my mind. My main memory of my grandma was that often when I would visit her house, she would say, "Look in the oven. There's something for you." I would peer inside and there would be a miniature apple pie! Just for me.

My grandmother lived in a time when a woman had little control over how many children she had. She gave birth to my eldest aunt Alyce in 1912 and then didn't have any more children for nine years after she had an operation to remove benign fibroid tumors. Then she started having a baby every other year until she was 43. So she had a total of 7 live children and one late miscarriage. The miscarriage occurred after she mixed cement BY HAND with her husband to put the sidewalks in around their house at the corner of Washington Park and Lloyd. So there was a four year gap between my mother Catherine and her sister Louise my aunt Dee Dee (I told you it was a popular nickname!)

My grandmother was tireless in her efforts to raise good children and be a good housewife in the bargain. And I honor her for this since she did it without hot running water, a washer and dryer, a dishwasher, convenience meals, pizza delivery (for those nights when she was too tired to cook) and any other modern convenience that we take for granted.

Life used to be more physically demanding and men and women used to literally work themselves into early graves. In spite of all her work, she never lost the zest for fun. When my mother was a child, every Halloween, my grandma would make their house a fun house for her and the neighborhood kids--bobbing for apples in the laundry tub on the back porch. Making popcorn balls at the kitchen table. The haunted house in the parlor. In the summers at the end of long hot days, she would pop popcorn till she filled the same laundry tub and then she would tell her children to go bring a friend. She often suggested they bring the poor "only" children like my unofficial aunt Audrey who lived behind my mom. The children would sit around the kitchen table, eating the laundry tub of popcorn and my grandmother's home-brewed and bottled sarsaparilla.

I've attached a photo my dh snapped a few weeks ago of my grandparent's house, which looks newly sided. My grandfather built the house himself. A carpenter was building his house a few blocks away and my grandfather would go to him and ask how to do something and then he'd go back and do. When he was all done, someone explained to him what a carpenter's level was! So the house may be a bit off-kilter but it's still standing!

And my memories of my grandmother though few are still fresh in my mind!

Cynthia Hickey's Grandmother & The Endless Summer

Today a newer mystery author tells us about her best summer.
Here's Cynthia:


The summer I turned ten-years-old, my parents dropped me and my younger sisters off with my Grandmother in Arkansas. My father was in the army and we'd lived all over, not having time to get to know our relatives. I'd never been away from my parents before, and didn't know this woman I'd spend the next two months with.


The next day was Sunday. Grandma took me to my first church service. I cried through the entire thing, missing my parents, fiercely. My younger sisters went to Sunday School, but I suffered from great shyness and decided to stay next to Grandma while she fanned me with a paper fan that portrayed a picture of Jesus on it. Within a few days, engulfed with my Grandma's love, I realized I had the opportunity for the best summer of my life. Total and complete freedom. To a city girl, the country offered thousands of adventures. Surrounded by a multitude of cousins, we swam, rode horses, and hiked the woods. All that was required of us was to be home by supper, do the dishes afterwards, and dust Grandma's knickknacks on Saturday mornings.

My precious grandmother died several years ago. The little country church where the funeral service was held was so full, people were standing outside looking in the windows. Through these people's reminiscing, I received the opportunity to know my Grandma like I never had before. Although she'd raised eleven children of her own during the Great Depression, and lost one in an accident, her door was always open to anyone needing a warm meal. They'd grown their own food, sewed their own clothes, and even built their home with their own hands. Through it all, Grandma retained a firm faith in God, and a fierce love for family. I had only witnessed her love for family. These dedications only increased the respect I had for this simple woman.

I want to be like her when I grow up. With the church over-flowing with people I've touched.
The female characters in my novels are all caring, strong women.They may not realize their strength at the beginning, but come to realize where their true strength comes from during the course of the story. I often wonder whether I would have come to know the Lord if not for my Grandma's unwavering rule of attending church each Sunday. This firm belief in what is right is what I try to instill in each of my female characters.

In Candy-Coated Secrets, my heroine, Summer Meadows must rely on this same faith and strength in order to save not only her life, but the life of the man she loves."

Thanks, Cynthia
www.cynthiahickey.com

Becky Melby-Her Gutsy Grandmother & a Skinny Angel

Today, we hear from Becky Melby and Oku-san. Becky:


In 1924 my grandparents, Harold and Alice Foght, traveled to Japan. My grandfather, a professor, was there to study Japanese education and give lectures. My grandmother wanted to come along as “excess baggage” and to “cheer and encourage” her husband. It had to have been a heart-wrenching decision, as they left behind a three-year-old—my father.
My grandmother’s--Oku-san’s--determination to go everywhere her husband--Foto-san--visited, caused no small stir in a culture where a woman’s place was in the home. When she appeared at male-only gatherings in her fashionable American sleeveless dresses, she was immediately offered shawls. After realizing that bare arms were considered immodest, she sewed sleeves on all her garments. Another culture shock was the ricksha. My grandmother was not a tiny woman, and, besides feeling silly, was in great fear that rickety-looking vehicles would collapse under her “Western avoirdupois.” Another custom that surprised them was the furo, or common bath, attended by nesans eager to help one disrobe!
On many occasions, this prim and proper white woman ventured out bravely her own. In Tokyo, determined to see the flowers of Sheba Park, she passed women openly nursing babies and workers using the ditches as toilets, and then found that beautiful Sheba Park was crowded with huts of refugees from the recent earthquake. She soon found herself in Zogoji Temple where she reported being “quite overcome by the atmosphere” and would have bowed in reverence to her own God, but “true Anglo-Saxon reticence” stopped her.
Overall, Oku-san left an impression that may have paved the way for a bit of freedom for some of her Japanese sisters. In time, their male companions “confessed somewhat reluctantly to new light on the position of women in Japan.” They wrote the book Unfathomed Japan upon their return.

In my book Dream Chasers, my heroine April Douglas is very open about her fears, especially the two biggest--heights and storms. I have no idea what my grandmother's fears were, but I have to believe that being the first white woman to set foot in many rural areas of Japan was a set-up for some anxiety attacks. The one thing both of these women have in common is their determination to put themselves in risky situations in order to experience life to the full.
Lyn-- I am a third generation author. My father's sister, Thelma Foght Jones, wrote a book about her family called Skinny Angel in honor of Grandma Foght who loved her homemade biscuits and always said that in heaven she'd be a "skinny angel."
I also want to let you know your blog has started something! I'm reading, really savoring Unfathomed Japan as if I were sitting down to tea with my grandparents. My own mother never read it because she thought it was a dry old history book. So here I am, a grandmother myself, finding out that my father's parents were witty, creative, funny, and wonderful writers! There just may be a historical fiction novel in this someday.
My middle name came from my grandmother and I now share it with our youngest grandchild, Lillyanne Alice, who was born on Christmas Eve. I can’t wait to tell her stories of her gutsy great-great-grandma.

Thanks for sharing that with us, Becky. It's quite a heritage that you have from the strong women who have gone before you!

Maureen Lang and Bess

Today I have the pleasure of hosting Maureen Lang, a great Tyndale author who lives in my home county in Illinois, Lake County which on the east borders Lake Michigan. I had the opportunity to endorse Maureen's outstanding story, Oak Leaves.
A memorable and compelling story.

Please welcome Maureen Lang as she tells her story of a Strong Woman!


When Lyn presented the idea to post an article about a strong woman, I thought it would be so easy to introduce readers to one of the heroines from my books. After all, they’re supposed to be strong. If they don’t start out that way, hopefully by the end of the story they’ve grown into someone who’s faced and conquered more than they ever thought they could endure.

But instead I’d like to tell you about my grandmother—a real person rather than one of the make-believe people performing scenes in my head. Do you know what makes a person strong? As the Bible says, it’s testing by fire.

My grandmother came from good American stock. When I was young she told me her family had left Ireland so many years ago one ancestor or another had fought in the Revolutionary War. She also said one of her forebears had been a mail-order bride from Scotland, another story I’d like to explore some day.

My grandmother Elizabeth (Bess as she was called) was born in 1894. The first fire Bess faced was at the young age of seven. Her mother became sick with TB, and one day Bess’s father, a country pastor, dressed in his preaching suit even though it wasn’t Sunday. He told Bess to comb her hair and put on her best dress, too, so she could say good-by properly to her mother. After doing that (combing her hair the best her seven-year old hands could do), her father pressed two silver dollars into her little palm and then took Bess to her mother. She was already gone on to Heaven. It was Bess who put the coins on her eyes, to hold down the eyelids she was told.

Bess’s sixteen year old sister helped to care for her until a few months later when she, too, became ill with TB and died, leaving Bess with her father and brother. Not long after that, two women from her father’s church came for a grim visit: they told him it wasn’t proper for a young girl to be raised in a household of only men, and they’d found a school that would take in girls. And so at seven years old Bess was sent away, to be raised by Episcopalian nuns. She was to see her father and brother only on Sundays for family day.

Bess was well educated there and grew up to marry. As a young woman she lived through the Great War and the Great Depression, bore two boys and a girl. When her daughter was six years old she woke up to another day only to become ill in a matter of hours. My frantic grandmother took her little girl to the local hospital and after waiting and waiting for help, the doctor finally saw them. But Bess was told there was nothing they could do. Her daughter died soon after the doctors examined her, a victim of what she was told to be 7-hour pneumonia. Bess continued to hold her daughter, and the staff was so busy they left her there for many hours, until she cried herself to sleep. As the family story goes, that’s when my grandmother’s dark brown hair turned the pure white she had for the rest of her life.

Bess gave birth to a third son not long after that, but when a woman brought a paternity suit against Bess’s husband demanding he support her and his child, Bess divorced him despite social condemnation. She raised three rambunctious boys on her own, all of whom became hardworking and honest, responsible members of society. Each of them entered the armed forces and she watched them march off to fight in the Second World War. By then Bess had a choice of two men who wanted to marry her, and she chose a First World War veteran who worked as a fine tool blacksmith. But before they could be married he was recruited by Uncle Sam to go to the Panama Canal Zone to work on everything from medical to ship equipment aboard warships passing through the Canal. He reported for duty immediately and Bess soon followed—after a series of nasty shots and medical precautions against malaria. They were married by an American judge in Panama City. For four years they lived there, while one of her sons, my father, was taken Prisoner of War by the Japanese in the Philippines. Bess was given only scant knowledge of what he went through after that initial death march for the three and a half years of his captivity until the end of the war.

Bess and her husband made it back to the Midwest just in time to welcome him home after the camp he’d been held at in Mukden, Manchuria was liberated.

By the time I came along my grandmother was quite settled, still happily married to her retired blacksmith, and living near her three sons. Thinking back on my childhood I have few regrets, but one of them was that I never sat still long enough to listen to more of her stories. She died at age 89, having lived a full and interesting life, tested by the fires that made her strong.

Maureen

Maureen Lang is the author of several novels, including Pieces of Silver (a Christy Finalist) and The Oak Leaves (a Holt Award of Merit recipient). Her books are both historical and contemporary and always include an element of romance with the promise of a happy ending. Her newest book is titled My Sister Dilly, the story of two sisters who survive mistakes and guilt and find redemption after one sister makes a terrible mistake that sends her to prison. Readers can see a trailer about the book at:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5impgRmCNCk

Maureen Lang www.maureenlang.com
http://maureenlang.blogspot.com/
Latest release: My Sister Dilly, Tyndale