Day 60 of no TV and More About LouElla Jones Bronson and Lilac Holman

305 days left. Today I am going to the Dentist and the Gym.

(later, same day)

My Aunt Ethel told me about Grandma Bronson watching soaps when she was folding those mounds of laundry in her home in Salt Lake. I know the soaps back then were very different then in our time. (Weren't they originally called 'soap operas' because they attracted all the housewives doing laundry?

I've been reading the articles Grandma Bronson wrote for the paper in Junction Valley. She had an amazing mind. I know how much I go nuts if I have to do boring tasks without SOMETHING for the right side of my brain. I came by this attribute honestly!!! I'm proud of figuring out a way to overcome the mundaneness of things but still get them done.Thanks Grandma!!! In a small way, she made it okay. I remember Lilac's rocks. She collected them and created a 'rock garden'. I always wondered about her lovely name. She was labeled a beautiful, sweet smelling flower. I was named after an all-day sucker.

hmmm

I AM rather sweet. he he he

Speaking of which...

I remember Lilac's licorice cupboard. Long shoelace licorice. Candy in the cupboard seems so amazing to me. At my house, candy was kept hidden on the shelf in your closet and only lasted a few days after Christmas or Halloween.

I LOVED milk in tin cups. It was so good and cold and seemed to chill even more in the tin. I also loved going out to milk the cow with Lilac's son, Ladd, later to be the wrestling coach who I was secretly in love with from back in the days when I sat in a corner as a four-year-old and he squirted warm milk straight from the cow across the barn into my open mouth.

I loved the order and the love in Lilac's home. When I visited her in the nursing home in Delta a few months before she died, she told me how she came about doing foster care. She was the foster mom of one of my dear friends. Lori often spoke fondly of Lilac. I know what a difference Lilac made in the life of many young people who had no where else to go. One social worker in Delta told me that when they couldn't place a kid anywhere else, they sent him or her to Lilac and she had them straightened up within a few months. Lilac simply expected us to be wonderful, so we were.

I know that Dad paid her to care for us, but as a child, I just knew that we were loved when we were with Lilac. I remember swimming with her and watching her float on her back and just enjoy the water. She wasn't the least bit self conscious about her elderly body and visibly enjoyed being physically active and swimming. She taught me how to float.

She told me that she started doing foster care because the county people came to her and asked her to do it. Her husband didn't want her to initially but she insisted because they could use the money. I wonder if it was hard for him to share her with needy kids. Yet I always think of Brother Holman, sitting in the background, taking in all her activity and being like a solid Grandpa for us.

Good ole' Earl. What an amazing man to be the solid rock for an amazing woman.

Thanks again, God, for Lilac.
And thanks for Earl too.