Its been a few weeks since my Grandma Gregersen passed away and I feel like I would be extremely ungrateful if I didn't say a few words on the blog about her.
We were very lucky to live only an hour or so from my Dad's parents which gave us to opportunity to go down and see them quite often. I remember when we were little kids we would spend many of those visits making cookies with Grandma and playing games such as Polley-anna and Cootie Bug. As we got older we moved on to more outdoor activities such as hockey and riding motorcycles. Grandma was always so happy to see us. In all the time I spent around her I don't ever remember her getting mad or saying anything bad about anyone. She was a great example of loving a people unconditionally. I was on my mission when Grandpa Gregersen died nearly 15 years ago and wasn't able to attend his funeral. After Grandpa was gone Grandma was even more happy when we'd stop by to visit her. I'm grateful that Heidi's family lives in Hyde Park which gave us a lot of opportunity to stop and visit Grandma and we traveled between my visits to my family and Heidi's.
Even though it is hard to see her move on from this life to the next I am happy that she was able to live such a wonderful life and be such a shining example to everyone she came in contact with. I'm also happy that after 15 years alone she was able to reunite with my Grandpa and all his family and with the members of her family who have passed on before her. I'm grateful that she was able to pass quickly without being sick to long or suffering to long. She had just renewed her drivers license only weeks before she passed and was only in the hospital for a few days.
I'm going to try and imbed a video my cousin posted on facebook. This is Grandma around her 90th birthday giving advice to her family. Hopefully it works.
The funeral was really quite excellent. All my aunts & uncles & dad spoke about grandma. They all did excellent jobs. A few things that stood out to me. Grandma grew up in the depression and her family was very poor. A story was told about how when she was in school there was a boy in her class whose family was even more poor than hers. This boy didn't have any shoes so he came to school one day wearing his mother's shoes. Kids being like they are teased him about wearing his mother's shoes and my grandma was among them. When she got home after school she told her mother about it. Her mother told her something that changed her life. She said don't ever think that you are better than someone else and don't ever think that someone else is better than you. She ended up befriending the boy and for the rest of her life tried to make others feel like they were loved and important. I hope I can take her example and try to be more like her and be a friend to the person who might not have any. She was also extremely grateful for the things that she had and the blessings the Lord had given her. I hope I can be more appreciative of the blessings I receive.
I know that Grandma is in a better place, that she is with Grandpa and many other loved ones and that she is happy. I also know that I will see her again someday and I look forward to that time and hope I can live my life in a way that will make her proud of me.
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
Gwen T. Gregersen (1920 - 2012)
PRESTON
- Gwen Naomi Talbot Gregersen, 92, passed away Tuesday, Aug. 21, 2012,
in Preston, Idaho. She was born in Preston, Idaho, on Aug. 10, 1920, the
oldest of 12 children born to Henry Leon and Alice Naomi Seamons
Talbot.She grew up in Winder, Idaho, in a home where music was an important part in the lives of her large family. She had a beautiful voice and performed for the first time in public at the age of 6. At 18 she began working for the GlenDora's, a musical theater group that performed in towns throughout Idaho and Montana and on the radio.
She married Ernest Gregersen on May 18, 1939, in Pocatello, Idaho. Her marriage was solemnized in the Logan LDS Temple on Sept. 9, 1943. She and Ernie lived in Banida, Idaho, where they farmed and raised seven children, Gayle (Jay) Hansen, Joyce (Scott) Mullikin, Lee (Corine) Gregersen, Carmen (Kim) Loveland, Michael (Roxie) Gregersen, Von (LaDee) Gregersen and Blair (Rhonda) Gregersen.
She graduated from Utah State University and found great joy in teaching elementary school in Weston and Clifton, Idaho. She was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and faithfully served in numerous callings throughout her life. She and her husband served in the Iowa Des Moines Mission and were ordinance workers in the Logan temple for many years.
She is survived by her seven children; brothers, Eugene (Joyce) Talbot and Neil (Sharon) Talbot; sisters, Dona (Glen) Sayer, Audrey (Wayne, deceased) Vail, Dora (Gordon, deceased) Oxborrow and Janis (Howard) Thatcher; 39 grandchildren; 77 great-grandchildren; and 15 great-great-grandchildren.
She was preceded in death by her husband; parents-in-law, Frederick and Maren Gregersen; 11 siblings-in-law and their spouses; brothers, Henry Leon Jr. (Clara), Keith (Mable), Kenneth (survived by Djon) and Gary; sister, June (Dean) Handy; and granddaughter, Tricia Gregersen.
Funeral services will be held at 11 a.m. Saturday, Aug. 25, at the Preston North Stake Center, 310 N. State St., with Bishop Alan Atkinson conducting. Viewings will be held from 6 to 8 p.m. Friday, Aug. 24, at Webb Funeral Home, 1005 S. 800 East, Preston, and from 9:30 to 10:30 a.m. Saturday at the stake center. Interment will be in the Preston Cemetery.
Memories and condolences may be shared with the family at www.webbmortuary.com.
Published in Logan Herald Journal from August 23 to September 6, 2012
Not Good Bloggers
More than a year has passed since the last blog post and so so so much has changed. I finished school in May and after 5 semesters on the Dean's List graduated with a 4.0 overall GPA. We were really hoping that I'd be able to find a job that would allow us to stay close to our families. Unfortunately that is not what the Lord had in store for us. So after applying for jobs from Alaska to Texas it came down to a job offer in Las Vegas. We ended up moving in June. If you ever move somewhere hot don't do it at the beginning of summer. We spent the first three months wondering why in the world we moved to such a hot place. Luckily summer is over and things are starting to cool down a bit. Hopefully the nice winter will make us willing to endure another summer here. The three months here have been a real roller-coaster. After about 4 weeks Heidi left to go back to Utah/Idaho for a family reunion. So I had the pleasure of spending all of July by myself in a city where I knew no one. I flew up to Idaho at the end of July for my sister's wedding. It was very nice to get out of Vegas and be with my wife again. I hope we are never in a situation where we have to spend that much time apart again. If she hadn't come back with me after the wedding I'm pretty sure I would have just abandon all our stuff and stayed up there with her. I can honestly say if I would have known leaving my last job and going to Idaho State was going to eventually lead us to Las Vegas I probably would have stayed in Salt Lake and kept working. Being in Las Vegas has been incredibly difficult, especially after two years of living so close to our families. Of my family I am the only one who married someone not from the Blackfoot area. I am also the only one who has lived outside Idaho (besides missions & military service). So I guess I am meant to be the wanderer of the family. We are starting to enjoy Vegas more but hopefully we'll be able to find a way to move closer to our families sometime in the not to distant future.
We'd been home from the wedding only a couple weeks when we got a very unexpected call. My Grandma Gregersen who we'd seen just weeks before at the wedding and looked like her normal cheerful self was now in the hospital and not expected to last much longer. She went into the hospital on Thursday and died the following Tuesday. It was very difficult to be so far away at a time when so many of the family were sad and mourning. At a time when we were really not happy to be in Vegas the passing of my Grandma seemed to be just one more thing that added to a miserable situation we didn't really want to be in. I was really questioning why we had ended up in Las Vegas and what purpose the Lord had for us here. We had been praying and fasting and going to the temple seeking comfort to help us feel better about being in Vegas and guidance as to what we where here for. The night Grandma passed away I was about as low as I've ever been and I offered up one of the most sincere and heartfelt prayers I've ever said. I still don't know why we are in Vegas but while the passing of Grandma was difficult and we will miss her I now look at it as a gift. Her funeral was the weekend before Labor Day weekend. We had thought about going to Idaho for Labor day because I was scheduled to have 5 days off for the holiday. My work offers a week of funeral leave so with the timing of the funeral I was able to use one day of vacation and get 12 days off from work. I don't know if it had anything to do with me but I've heard there are no coincidences but at a time when I felt the weakest my dear Grandmother made it possible for us to be in Idaho and Utah with our families for nearly two weeks. It still wasn't easy to leave at the end of the two weeks but I've felt better about being here than I ever have.
The time we spent in Idaho and Utah was so great. Oh how I miss nights that actually cool off and how I miss waking up in the morning and having it be so brisk. We spent the first weekend in Hyde Park so we could go back and forth to Preston for the viewing and funeral. The funeral was so good. I'll write about it in a separate post. The first Sunday we were able to go to the farwell of Heidi's cousin and spend time with her family. Monday we went and test drove cars and ended up getting a new to us 06 Nissan Altima. After driving Old Pukey (my stratus) for the past 10 years the Altima feels like a real race car. I inherited Heidi's old car and she gets the Altima. The mailbu is a big step up from Old Pukey. Hopefully these will be good cars and will last a long time. We went up to Idaho on Tuesday and I spent the next couple days helping dad with grain harvest. We were supposed to go camping but the weather wasn't great and there are tons of fires in Idaho and not everyone could go. We ended up just hanging out with the family and going to the fair which was pretty fun. We went back to Monday afternoon and the next day drove back to Vegas. So now we are back and just trying to get into a routine. Heidi started a new job today and I was supposed to officially start mine but we got rained out. Hopefully it won't be a year until the next blog post.
We'd been home from the wedding only a couple weeks when we got a very unexpected call. My Grandma Gregersen who we'd seen just weeks before at the wedding and looked like her normal cheerful self was now in the hospital and not expected to last much longer. She went into the hospital on Thursday and died the following Tuesday. It was very difficult to be so far away at a time when so many of the family were sad and mourning. At a time when we were really not happy to be in Vegas the passing of my Grandma seemed to be just one more thing that added to a miserable situation we didn't really want to be in. I was really questioning why we had ended up in Las Vegas and what purpose the Lord had for us here. We had been praying and fasting and going to the temple seeking comfort to help us feel better about being in Vegas and guidance as to what we where here for. The night Grandma passed away I was about as low as I've ever been and I offered up one of the most sincere and heartfelt prayers I've ever said. I still don't know why we are in Vegas but while the passing of Grandma was difficult and we will miss her I now look at it as a gift. Her funeral was the weekend before Labor Day weekend. We had thought about going to Idaho for Labor day because I was scheduled to have 5 days off for the holiday. My work offers a week of funeral leave so with the timing of the funeral I was able to use one day of vacation and get 12 days off from work. I don't know if it had anything to do with me but I've heard there are no coincidences but at a time when I felt the weakest my dear Grandmother made it possible for us to be in Idaho and Utah with our families for nearly two weeks. It still wasn't easy to leave at the end of the two weeks but I've felt better about being here than I ever have.
The time we spent in Idaho and Utah was so great. Oh how I miss nights that actually cool off and how I miss waking up in the morning and having it be so brisk. We spent the first weekend in Hyde Park so we could go back and forth to Preston for the viewing and funeral. The funeral was so good. I'll write about it in a separate post. The first Sunday we were able to go to the farwell of Heidi's cousin and spend time with her family. Monday we went and test drove cars and ended up getting a new to us 06 Nissan Altima. After driving Old Pukey (my stratus) for the past 10 years the Altima feels like a real race car. I inherited Heidi's old car and she gets the Altima. The mailbu is a big step up from Old Pukey. Hopefully these will be good cars and will last a long time. We went up to Idaho on Tuesday and I spent the next couple days helping dad with grain harvest. We were supposed to go camping but the weather wasn't great and there are tons of fires in Idaho and not everyone could go. We ended up just hanging out with the family and going to the fair which was pretty fun. We went back to Monday afternoon and the next day drove back to Vegas. So now we are back and just trying to get into a routine. Heidi started a new job today and I was supposed to officially start mine but we got rained out. Hopefully it won't be a year until the next blog post.
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