Grandparent Story

For an assignment in my English class, we were each supposed to interview some 65+ about their life. Then we were supposed to make it into a story. I interviewed my grandma. She is 69 years old, and right now she's serving an LDS mission in Mongolia with my grandpa. It was a really fun experience since I don’t get to talk to my grandparents very often. So getting to talk to my grandma for a while was really cool. It’s also way cool to hear about what your grandma did when she was your age or younger. Like, I wouldn’t have ever guessed that my grandma liked to listen to Elvis when she was younger. It really helped me feel closer to her. My story is a little long, but I'll post part of it:

Joan Ellen

“Okay, we have some things here that Grandma and Grandpa sent from Mongolia!” My mom calls out to the people in our crowded family room. Soon everyone is admiring their new purses, ties, dolls, cards, and other Mongolian goods. As I take my purse, I love it already. It’s dark blue, and it has a long strap so I can hang it on my shoulder. The intricate stitching on the front is blue and white. It makes Christmas Eve even more special getting something from the grandparents I haven’t seen in months. I can tell that Grandma really thought about what everyone would like. She’s always been that way.

Before they left for Mongolia, my grandparents lived in Ukiah, California. It’s always been hard finding the time to drive down there to see them, but my cousin and I have flown down there a couple times during the summer. I love getting to see my grandma. She has short brown hair, glasses, and a kind face. You can tell she cares about you by watching her face when you talk to her. When we were at her house my grandma always worried that we weren’t having a good enough time and that we might get bored. So when we were there she always made sure to spend lots of time with us. She played games with us, took us places, and just talked to us about our lives. It was so easy to see that she really loved us.

She especially liked to find fun things to cook with us. I love my grandma’s cooking. Her food is some of the best that I’ve ever had. She also took us to the swimming pool nearby on extra hot days so my cousin and I could swim together. It’s a lot of fun there, and an ice cream truck comes by every hour. It was something we always got excited about. Another thing that we grandchildren love about her house is their ice cream. I’ve lost count of how many Schwann’s ice cream bars I’ve had over the years. She and grandpa always have some stocked up in their freezer.

For someone who grew up without having to do very many chores, my grandma keeps her house very clean. It’s one of the neatest places I’ve ever been in. What she learned as a child was other skills, like how to play the piano. I love playing the piano in her house. It’s a grand piano right by the window. My grandma is the reason why all her children learned the piano, and she also encourages us grandchildren to keep learning it too.

Another thing my grandma was supposed to be as a child was a good student. Her parents always expected her to learn and do well in school. And she did. All the time I’ve known her, my grandma has been a math teacher at a junior high in Ukiah. Whenever I have math questions, I can just ask her and she can explain it to me. She also just finished her Master’s Degree a year ago. You can really tell that education and learning matters to her.

Sometimes it’s hard imagining my grandma when she wasn’t already a grandma. But Grandma grew up in Chicago, Illinois. She told me that she lived in a “richy” kind of neighborhood where people had money. Her house had two stories and three bedrooms; one for her, her parents, and her younger brother Scott. She says that she loved her bedroom because it had a little porch with a railing on it. At night she liked to sit on the railing and read by the moonlight. In high school she went to a school with 1500 people in it. She was their in the Elvis Presley years. She and her friends liked to go listen to his music during lunch.

After high school she went to Brigham Young University. During her trips to the library she met Wesley Stevens, who was working there. They got married, and she says that marrying him was one of the best decisions of her life. They had seven children: Bonnie, Marjorie, John, William, Wendy, Suzanne, and Cheryl. Grandma loves spending time with her kids—and her twenty-two grandchildren. I love having a big family because there are always cousins around when the family gets together. Family is one of the most important things in the world to my grandma.

Something I’ve always admired about my grandma is that she makes a plan and sticks to it. Right now she’s in Mongolia serving an LDS mission with my grandpa. She said it was kind of hard learning the language, but she is really glad they went. She likes that she knows more about the Asian world. They went on a trip to Hong Kong a few weeks ago, and she says that she really liked the people there. I’m proud of my grandma for showing that she cares enough about her religion to spend eighteen months in Mongolia.

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My grandma is one of the biggest role models in my life. She's always set a great example for me because she's such a great person. She always seem to make the right choice, and she really cares about her family. I really can't wait until the end of this year when we'll finally get to see her and my grandpa again. I care about them a lot, and I really miss them. But I really admire them for being so dedicated to everything that they value.