DEATH OF COUSIN DENILE..AND GRANDMA

I was just a little girl. Just tall enough to hang on to the window ceil and look outside. This one Sunday I was standing at the window as a jelopy came down the road. It was just the frame of a car, 4 wheels and the steering wheel. As many boys as the jelopy would hold, that's how many boys were clinging on to the car. I thought, "oh! oh! someone could get killed." They had just passed our house and a boy fell off and was run over and killed. The little boy was my cousin Denile Williams. I remember attending the funeral. Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Levi sat huntched over and looking so sad. I was such a little girl but I felt so sad for them.

Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Levi sold everything they owned and moved to Delta, CO thinking if they moved to a new area they would get over losing their son, but they didn't. Forty years went by and I didn't hear anymore of my Aunt and Uncle. I was living in Las Vegas. Our home was open to the missionaries and one day a pair of missionaries came to our house. One of the boys was from Delta, CO. So, I asked him if he had heard of my Aunt Lizzie and Uncle Levi. He had. The couple had lived across the street from them for many many years. He said in order to avoid seeing anyone, my aunt and uncle would do their work at night. They were known for their beautiful vegetable gardens but no one ever saw them work outside. They hadn't changed in all those years. They suffered over the loss of their young son 'til the day they died.

I want to write about my Grandmother Williams. We lived only 8 miles from each other but not having cars in those days, we could have lived on another planet. I remember being at her house one Christmas Day. She made sandwiches for us to eat. We had a few short minutes to gether and I showed her my baby doll Santa had brought me. Another time it was summer. Grandma and Grandpa's family had all gathered at their home to celebrate what we called Decoration Day. The women sat in the kitchen and made tubs of paper flowers. We all went to the cemetery and decorated the graves. Then we met at Grandma and Grandpa's house and ate dinner. The adults ate first and the children last. I knew Grandma was sick and she was in her bedroom but I never got to see her. I would hear the adults talk about Grandma and the big egg shaped cancer she had on her head and how she suffered. Spring came and Grandma's illness became worse. It was mother's Day. I stood out by their gate in the front yard and watched my uncles and aunts scurry around in so nervous. I could hear the screams of Grandma from the pain she was in. Uncle Henry, her oldest son, gave her a blessing and soon all was quiet. She was gone. She had passed away. By keeping out of sight and watching I stored all the happenings of the day in my mind and I'm able to write about the events today.

I have to tell you about Grandpa. He was finally able to buy a car. A big long Dodge. On this day that the family gathered to celebrate Decoration Day, Grandpa drove the entire 8 miles to Maeser to get our family and bring them to the farm. Grandpa wasn't much of a driver. He drove like a snake crawls. Weaving from one side of the road to the other. Finally, we arrived and Grandpa had to drive up a little incline to get in the yard. Try as he did, he couldn't give the car enough gas to make it. Finally, the car rolled back wards across the main highway and down into a gully. By then, my dad had lost it. We could hear some blankety blank cuss words from his direction. I was sitting on a coffee can behind the drivers seat and was I scared. After sitting in the gully for a while, Grandpa finally got us out of our perdicument.