Lu Penrose Bond - 28 October 1912

Today would have been Gma Lu's 100th birthday!  What a marvelous milestone!!  Yet, she would have been unfazed.  Haha!  She was a very regal woman, and just took things as they came. I miss her.

Lu Penrose Bond - 1983

I lived with Gma for a year in 1991.  I want to quickly share the story of that came to be.  I was going through a time in my life where things were not going the way I was hoping they would.  I was kind of stuck and I wasn't sure what I should be doing.  I was living in Tucson, AZ, going to school at the University of Arizona.  I had been praying about what I needed to be doing, and one day, as I was walking to work, I was in the middle of an empty parking lot, outside an abandoned building, and I heard a voice say very clearly, "move to Fresno."  I was so startled and I looked around to see who had said it.  There was no one anywhere.  It would never have occurred to me to move to Fresno!  I thought of Fresno as, and I quote (keeping in mind that I was young and stupid), the "armpit of California."  Nevertheless, I got to work, and called Gma Lu.  I asked her if I could come to stay with her.  She said yes, and within two weeks, I had finished everything up in AZ, and moved to Fresno.  I know I was supposed to be there, with my Gma, for that period in time! 

I joked for a long time that all my friends in Fresno were little old ladies, as I took Gma to DUP, The Silver Belles get-togethers, etc..  We would sit at her dining room table and I would ask her questions, and she would tell me stories, and I wrote them down as quickly as I could.  She told me about her youth, about her parents, about her marriage.  All wonderful memories to be preserved.

I remember that she always had a "round robin" going with all of her siblings.  They would send a manilla envelope with letters and photos in it from one person to the next.  You would read everyone's things, add your own, and take out what you had put in previously, then send it on to the next person.  I thought that was so cool, and wanted to do that with everyone when we got older, but by then there was email and digital photos, etc., and it didn't seem as necessary.  Kind of a shame.

For me, it was the WAY she told stories. I have very specific phrases that come to my mind, and I hear them in my head in HER voice.  When I am having nasal issues, I hear her voice saying, "By dose is rudding a streab."  She told the story about her father who always had such amazing sandwiches in his lunches and one day (at the other man's request) traded sandwiches with a co-worker. As he bit into the peanut butter sandwich he had been given, he yelled out, "Help!  I've been poisoned!!"  I remember how she called people "ding-a-lings" when they did something she didn't like.  I loved it when she told me the story of how after she and Gpa had gotten married, he shaved his mustache.  When he came out of the bathroom, he asked, "How do I look?"  Gma said, "Clean."  He said, "Yes, but how do I look?"  She looked at him harder, trying to figure out why he kept asking, and said again, "Clean."  As she was telling me the story, Gma took her hand and waved it over her head and said, "Woosh!"  That just cracked me up!

I remember sitting watching her paint her nails.  I always thought her nails were so beautiful, always long and thin.  I remember how she always sat up straight, no matter where she was.  Even sitting on a couch.  I remember what a prolific reader she was!  Always reading something!  I remember giving her two rolls of Certs for Christmas one year, and she treated them as if I had given her something very important.  I remember the "ACK!" sound she would make when she was telling a story where she had been surprised or startled.  I remember how the air felt and smelled and I would step out of her house onto the back porch.  That is how Fresno is supposed to feel and smell.  I can't describe that any other way.  

Last year, I did a post about her birthday as well, which can be seen HERE

Gma Lu was a special lady.  An old friend of Gma's calls my oldest daughter, "Little Lu".  I am glad to have that frequent reminder in my life of how much she meant to people.

I hope that we can always continue to share these wonderful stories of our family members so they continue to live on with us!

Happy Birthday Gma Lu!!  I love you!

Direct Line Ancestry: Lu Penrose Bond --> Kathryn Bond Berkowitz --> Lora Marshall Nehring