Update about blogCa

Monday, February 23, 2015

Happy Birthday Gummy

My grandmother, Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers, was born on this day in 1886, 129 years ago.  She lived until 1964.  She was quite a lady...and all her grandchildren remember her fondly.  She spent some time with her great grand children who also lived in Houston where she lived the last 24 years of her life.

She gave birth to 6 children, all except the youngest born in Galveston, TX, where she grew up herself.  But she was born in San Marcos, TX. Her youngest son was born in Fort Worth, Texas.

I wrote about her life in a lot of detail last year for her birthday HERE.

I've been showing some still photos taken from some home movies including my grandmother.


Considering these photos were taken about 1943-46, she didn't look much different to me the last 20 years of her life (but then again, I was much shorter than she was when these were taken!)

The summer of 1949 my parents, my grandparents, my Uncle Chauncey, and my cousins Claudette and Sandra and my sister and myself drove all the way from Houston to Stevens Point, Wisconsin, in two Studebakers. One had a board built across the back seat for us children to play on, or lie down for naps. That's 5 adults and 4 children.


Poppy wanted to see some of the places the Rogers family came from, including some Civil War sites...so the trip was a bit convoluted.  We also went through the Smokey Mountains to see some of the Tennessee sites where the Rogers had originally settled.  The cars over-heated several times in the mountains.  We stayed in small little motels, sometimes each room a tiny little cottage.  There are still some of those little stone buildings standing, but not in business any more.

We also wanted to visit Principia, the school in St. Louis for Christian Scientist children.  It must have impressed my parents, because we moved there to attend that school the next summer.  I met my cousins, Pat and Chris for the first time in Wisconsin, but don't remember many details.  I was only 7 that summer.

Strength and humor are the words that best describe my grandmother, as I remember her.





1 comment:

  1. I remember the cars that overheated so quickly. Especially when we traveled through the mountains the atmosphere, altitude, messes with everything back then.

    ReplyDelete

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