Know Your Farmer...

As the saying goes: Know your farmer. So (if you're curious or interested) this will help you get to know me a little better. 

This is my Grams, Myra M. Holloway Moffett, in the picture with me. The picture was taken on my high school graduation day in 1983. Grams was born on March 30, 1924 in Goshen Township, Ohio. She was born into a Quaker family and her mother passed away when she was only 3 years old. Grams was a practicing member of the Friends Church in Salem, Ohio until her passing. She was a gentle and kind yet strong woman with deep faith.

She wasn't a celebrity and she didn't have a "career" or a paying job outside the home. Her family was her priority and she showed that daily and in virtually every choice she made, even though she was often criticized and mocked for it. NOTE: NONE of what I have written should be construed to mean that I think women who work outside the home are not needed or valued. We are ALL NEEDED. We are ALL VALUED. Both she and my grandfather were so proud of my military service AND when I began working outside the home as a young wife and mother.

My grandmother's life was not easy and she endured many struggles--of which the people who mocked and criticized her knew nothing. Yet she didn't complain--at least not to her grandchildren or in any public way that I was aware of. She just did what needed to be done every day and she LOVED with grace, patience, kindness, forgiveness, commitment and the biggest kind of love I ever knew.

She was the single most important positive female role model in my life. If she were still alive, on Saturday, March 30, 2024, we would have celebrated her 100th birthday. How I wish she could have been here and I could have given her a grand birthday party celebration. I was her eldest grandchild, and in May this year I will turn the same age she was in this picture of her with me.

Oh, I miss her so.  Despite the loss of my Grams from this life, as the years have passed I feel certain I've grown much closer to her. Her words have brought comfort to me in my most difficult moments and they have helped me overcome other tragic losses. She taught me so many wonderful things: Baking, sewing, quilting, how to love and forgive; and how to do my best & keep going no matter how hard life feels. She was a quilter and made a quilt for each of her children and grandchildren. I still have mine though it is tattered from years of loving use--a source of comfort always.

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She was also famous in our family for making the most delicious rolls from scratch for every family gathering/holiday meal. Even to this day, my cousins in Ohio still lament her big family holiday meals and her most wonderful rolls. Ohhhh, yes. I absolutely did make some homemade rolls on her birthday in honor of her legacy of kindness, goodness, patience, creativity and love. This I do each year, but  this year was especially special to me: Her 100th Birthday.

The best I can do is share her love, her example, and the goodness she shared with me. I celebrate the LOVE that is and was the essence of Myra M. Holloway Moffett, my grandmother. 

One more little tid-bit related to my grandmother. Her father was a farmer in Ohio--so it literally *is* in my blood.

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