Grandma Anne

I’ve been collecting my thoughts and memories about my Grandma Anne. I’ve decided not to repeat the ones that I mentioned in my Grandpa Russell’s post even though some of those were definitely of them as a couple. Once again, I’ll just share my thoughts in vignettes instead of trying to tie them together.

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Every Christmas Eve I was sent over to Grandma’s early to help her set and decorate the many tables that were needed to host everyone for dinner that night. Throughout the years we found which tablecloths, centerpieces or glasses went best with which table and it was fun to try to recall together which ones were the best. I always helped her make the frills for the crown roast and was often put in charge of other little things to help the evening run smoothly. It was something I looked forward to each year. Perhaps the year we had 18 people for Thanksgiving in our one bedroom apartment in Durham was not intimidating to me because of the time setting up at Grandma’s.

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I don’t know if I believe in tone deafness, but if there was anyone who was, it was Grandma Anne. Grandma and Grandpa began having an annual caroling party with their neighbors across the fence the Handys. We had a huge group with the two of our families and a pretty talented group at that. Each year we’d switch off between the houses and carol around the neighborhood. Grandma loved it. She was always singing just as strongly and proudly as everyone else in the group. At the end of each song, if she hadn’t made her way to the front of the group already, she would march up to the door to personally wish the neighbors a Merry Christmas and give her personal greeting. I remember watching her with such great joy, never embarrassed that she wasn’t matching the harmonies that were being created. We weren’t there to be a choir, we were there to spread Christmas cheer and Grandma was perhaps the best at it.

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When I was young, each year at Christmas time Grandma would recite the Grinch from memory and donned her handmade Grinch costume as she told the story. I didn’t get to see much of Grandma’s directing or acting in my lifetime, but this was a small glimpse into her passion and service.

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Grandma Anne was the queen of make believe and helped make my childhood quite magical. I remember watching the Mary Martin Peter Pan with her and as Tinkerbell was dying from drinking Hook’s poison, she looked at me and said, “Clap. You’re a Rasmussen and Rasmussens believe in fairies.”

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Memories of Grandma don't come without some quirks. Many of us (if not all of us) have some funny story of Grandma. But so often those quirky stories are so endearing because they come from a place of sincerity even though sometimes frank. These stories are often humorous, but sharing them in family's company is necessary, because it doesn't always paint the true picture of who we remember Grandma Anne as.

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When I was little, Grandma Anne dressed up as a witch each Halloween. Now when I say she dressed up as a witch, it was not just a dress and hat. Her teeth were blackened, warts added and skin yellowed and greened. When we went to visit, we were told that Grandma had switched places with this witch for the night. I don’t remember the whole dialogue of where Grandma had gone, but it was convincing enough for a few years. Each time someone would ring the doorbell, Grandma would fling open the door and cackle giving children quite the scare. I was the coolest kid on the bus the day after Halloween since everyone had been scared by my Grandma the night before.

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My love for Harry Potter is almost directly tied to the relationship it gave me with my Grandma. Because my birthday was in July, and the new books were released each July, every year she would take me to get my new book for my birthday. When I would drive with her and Grandpa down to Cedar City or other trips we took together, we’d always have the audio books going in the car. When my Grandma grew tired of her Halloween tradition, she decided to dress instead as Professor McGonagall and hosted an annual Harry Potter Halloween party. Each year there was a great activity. The three I remember most being the Mirror of Erised where we all shared what we saw in the mirror, the Pensieve where we shared our most treasured memories and my personal favorite, the Boggart we had to banish.

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I grew up in the same ward (congregation) as my grandparents. We always sat on the third middle row and my Grandma always preferred to be right under the pulpit. Every Sunday my grandma commented on how we were matching that week. She went to sometime absurd lengths to make it happen talking about how her green skirt was the grass and my flowered dress were the flowers above the grass and her yellow top was the sun shining over both them. But anytime I sat next to Grandma, she’d pull out a pencil and we’d write on the program of the day filling every blank space with her beautiful cursive as she asked me about all the youth that were helping with the sacrament or giving talks. Or sometimes the questions were about me or more general matter. But the scribbling didn’t stop until it was time for the closing song.

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Every summer my family went with Grandma and Grandpa to the Utah Shakespeare Festival. In order to prepare us for the week, we would have a family evening where we would act out the plays on their back patio. It familiarized us with the works and was always a highlight of the year. We loved dressing up and my Grandma's excitement was contagious. There are so many little memories I have of the festival with Grandma. Every year I didn't get a Harry Potter book for my birthday I got a souvenir from the festival. The morning after each of the plays, the festival holds a seminar to discuss the previous evening's performance. I loved going with Grandma to go listen to the seminars. They'd discuss directing choices, insider information to performance glitches and general reviews to previous productions along with all sorts of other discussion. I was so often the youngest audience member there but I just loved it all. We'd so often discuss our opinion of the play on the way there and then have fun seeing what had changed due to what we had heard, or just complaining about the ridiculous comments some people felt necessary to share.

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Grandma and Grandpa were good at giving us kids experiences as gifts. Whether it was a ride on the Polar Express, tickets to plays (the time just us older grandkids got to go to Westside Story together was soooo fun!) or even something that was just meaningful, like the blankets they sent us from Philadelphia, I almost always felt an additional meaning behind what they would give us.

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When I dated and married John, I quickly fell second to Grandma Anne's attention. I think this is partially because John has an amazing ability as a listener but was greatly due to the fact that they share the same birthday. John would tell her, "Only the best looking and most intelligent people are born on March 16th." She loved it. We made sure she got a call from her birthday twin every year and I loved the special relationship John had with her. The last time I met with Grandma, my family had gone together on Christmas afternoon to sing her some carols. Even from my visit two weeks prior, she wasn't able to really recognize what was going on. But when she saw John, she said, "Oh, what a surprise!" I love that two people whom I love so much found such a bond.

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I remember visiting Grandma Anne at Temple Square on her mission. Then we got the opportunity to also visit them while they served in Philadelphia. She would always tell me, "We served on Temple Square for Russell and we served in Philadelphia for us." She was a woman of great and unshakeable faith. It was important to her to bear testimony to us of the salvation that comes through Jesus Christ. Her love of her family gave her the greatest joy, and because of that it was also sometimes her greatest concern. But she always found strength and comfort in the message of the redeeming power through Christ.