Its common knowledge that people throughout your life shape you into the person you become. Its not necessarily something you dwell on, its just a fact of life. Life goes at such a fast pace nowadays that its hard to acknowledge how amazing their lives are in the moment. My Nana was an amazing woman. She experienced some of the most turbulent and transformative times in modern history. Jean Batterman was born at the end of the First World War in 1918. At the age of 17, she went to college at The University of Wisconsin - Stout. When you put it into perspective, thats only 15 years after women gained the right to vote in the US. She was an independent woman who ended up raising both my father and uncle after her husband died of cancer in 1963. It wasnt easy, but with her education and perseverance she was able to get a job as a home economics teacher. She could be a tough and a no nonsense kind of lady, but at heart was giving and thoughtful. She spend most of her time in retirement making childrens blankets for local hospitals, sewing dolls for children in need, and designing holsters that would attach to wheelchairs and walkers for the elderly. She taught me how to sew, cook, love adventure and travel, and how to brush myself off when things got difficult. She would always have change in a music box that my brothers and I would divvy up whenever we came to visit. You could always count on a dish of M&Ms somewhere. There were countless afternoons with Nate and Ian combing through her 70s shag carpet in the basement for pins that would fall out of her sewing projects. I remember Christmases, jammed on a pull out couch waiting for Santa to deliver presents. All of these things seem simple in retrospect, but they were some of the best moments of my childhood. To a woman with a great sense of humor and a streak of mischievousness. To a woman who wanted to be called Nana because she though Grandma would make her sound old. To a woman who lived 96 amazing years and was a fighter until the end. I love you, Ill miss you, and will do everything in my power to honor your spirit each and every day. Forever in my heart, rest in peace Nana.
Posted on: Tue, 02 Sep 2014 06:50:22 +0000
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