One of the many benefits of being part of a big Mormon family is you can often rely on somebody else to do your genealogy for you. My cousin David compiled some great stuff written by and about my grandfather, Henry Stoddard. My father's parents passed on over a decade ago. Even in life, their geographical distance and diminished mental faculties deprived my siblings and me of the opportunity to get to know them better. That's why I'm particularly grateful for stories like my grandfather's first ride on a train as a seven year old:
"My brother and I were sitting out on the observation watching the country. While we were sitting there all of a sudden everything went dark. We did not know what happened so we went back and asked my mother and she said that we had only went in a tunnel."
Apparently before we had fun car games like hold-your-breath-'til-we-get-through, tunnels were quite fearsome for young children.
I also enjoyed the mental image of Grandpa Henry, then a young, starving BYU student visiting the home of his future bride Dezzie (as witnessed by her brother):
"When he left, [Dezzie's] mother would give him milk, eggs, a loaf of fresh home baked bread, and other things that would help sustain him during the week. (Henry indicated to me years later how important that was to him and how he appreciated what he had been given). He said that on one occasion, having his arms so loaded, he dropped the eggs on the lawn near his apartment. He didn’t want to lose them so he went into a nearby grocery store, got a paper bag, and scooped them from the grass -- thankful that it happened close to where he lived."
Is that lawn debris in your omelet? No, that's just "seasoning."
Stories like that make my grandparents seem less sepia-toned, and more like real people. I'm glad they took the time to write down their recollections. I'm also glad I don't have to pick grass out of my eggs.
