Compassionate Service--When You are in the Service of your fellow beings. . .

Lately it seems my time is spent assisting others and serving them. My day started out yesterday with a call to help make dinner for someone who needed my attention. It felt good, and a dejavue of sorts of when I was Relief Society President. I spent the afternoon on Monday shopping for dinner, a nice Stouffer's Lasagne casserole style, fixings for salad and a loaf of fresh French bread. I managed to get Tuesday's and Wednesday's dinners taken care of too. It takes time to plan and organized and I said a prayer of gratitude for the ability to have had everything go together so smoothly. I made several calls and had a lot of cooperation.

Tomorrow I get to go down to Tana's and stay with the grandkids overnight, then bring them over on Friday after school to stay until Sunday. We will probably go to a movie Saturday, since there is a movie they want to see, "August Rush." That movie really speaks to me and how people are very connected and don't realize it until it is almost too late. It has music, and a great story which is what I like about it. It has Spirit and goes beyond the norm you see in so many blah, blah, blah kind of films.

Family History Sharing Time--

This one could very well been from some of my past "talk times" with my children. We had talk times often before family prayer. These times turned out to be like extended Family Home Evenings. I am pleased that many if not all of my children do talk time with their own now.

My grandmother spent many hours if not days in giving her time and service to me and my brothers and sisters. She was always there when my mother had a new baby. She would take my older brother Charlie when he was just a toddler with her down to Brownsville from San Antonio and spend time with her when my mother was expecting child number two. She even came to California when Linda Ruth was born, she came for Charlie's, mine and Marty's graduations from Chicago by train and spent two weeks with us.

I have fond memories of my grandmother and recall her vivacious personality. She loved to sing loudly and dance and laughed a lot. She was about having a good time.

Photo of Anita and husband, Mr. Wallace, we called him Pompa Wallace, they lived in Corpus Christi, Texas, near the the Gulf of Mexico. Taken in 1947 or 1948. I just noticed the larger version of this picture and see "Gypsy" their Toy Manchester just to the right of my grandmother. You can only see part of her body except the head of that little black dog. She was trained to do tricks by my grandmother.

My maternal grandmother, Anita aka Goma used to take us three older children to the movies at the Chicago Theater. She didn't have a car, but we took the "EL" to downtown Chicago. It is much like a subway but above the ground, elevated, thus it is called the "EL."

We went to the movies and saw double features, which back then we paid only a quarter to get in. We also went when my Dad would drop us off there while he went to do a cookware demonstration. He would stop at "White Castle" a fast food of its day, and order a few dozen 3" hamburgers and take them to the movies to eat while we waited for Daddy to come for us. We would sometimes see the movies twice. I liked it and still like to see movies over and over.


Charlie, Robert, Anna Maria and Goma 1947
Photo with Goma in San Antonio at Breckenridge Park when Marty was born. My mother was in the hospital when this picture was taken. I was almost four years old when Martha was born a few weeks before my birthday that year.