She was scanning some old family photos from my dad's side of the family recently, and she found two matching little postcards stuck in them that my Grandma Helen had collected during her travels as an army nurse during WWII in Europe. This was almost like finding gold. Better than gold.
My grandmother died, before I was born, from complications of Multiple Sclerosis, and so I never got to meet her. In this life anyway. I think I knew her before I came, because she seems so familiar, but that's my own personal feeling, not anything solid.
She was the one that was responsible for getting my dad's family to join the church. When she was in Europe during the war she became friends with the general's wife that she served under, and they just happened to be LDS. She learned about the church, but she came home, married my grandpa, and didn't ever talk about it.
However, she must kept what she learned in the back of her mind because one day, on the "spur of the moment", she arranged for them to stop in Nauvoo while on a family road trip vacation (my dad's family is from northern Illinois) and talk to the missionaries there. And the rest is history.
So I owe her, not only for the fantastic priesthood holder that my dad is, but also the life that I enjoy because of his membership in the church. The fact that he met my mother at BYU, that I grew up with the gospel, that I met my husband in Provo, that my family enjoys the gospel, all goes back, in part, to her testimony, and being the impetus for their family to buck tradition and small-town opinion, and join "them weird Mormons."
For some silly reasons that aren't worth going into right now, our family has been largely left out of the history and keepsakes that have been passed around. So when my sister found this postcard, she decided to snag them both and get them identically framed. Archivally, of course. And she sent me mine for my birthday. AWESOME!!
So now we each have our own little piece of history hanging on the wall. Something concrete that links us to our grandma, and her legacy, and to each other.
