Saturday, September 22, 2007
If you want to know a little more about Grama, this is the history we wrote up for her 100th birthday party:
Myrtle Jane Beers Leiler was born on St. Patrick's Day, March 17, l907, in Edmore, Michigan.
Her parents were Angeline and Ernest Beers. Angie had been a cook in a lumber camp in Northern Michigan, and had two sons by a previous marriage. Myrtle grew up in Sturgis, MI with 4 younger siblings, two brothers and two sisters. Two are still living in that area. Edna is 93 and lives alone in a big old farmhouse and just got her drivers license back. Chester (Chuck) is 91 and also lives alone. Myrtle lived alone in Elkhart, Indiana until she was 91and then came to live with her daughter-in-law in Durham, CT.
Myrtle went to Business School in Elkhart when she was 18, and married William Henry Leiler when she was 22, in 1929. They borrowed a tent and camped in the Wisconsin Dells on their honeymoon.
Myrtle worked as a bookkeeper for Auto Specialties during the Depression, while her husband and many others couldn't get work. He later became a foreman in a factory that made train windows and sashes. While he was away on a hunting trip to help feed the family, she saw a small four room house that she could rent for $10 a month, or buy for $1600. She and her sister Edna left Bill a note on the door and moved into the house. Her Dad was with Bill when they found the note and said, "Jumpin’ son of a b , how you gonna find her in this big town?" They found her, and they bought the house in 1932.
They had one son, Gordon, who served four years in the Navy, graduated from college and became a Metallurgical Engineer for Wallingford Steel Company in 1957.
When I first met Myrtle I was amazed at how capable she was. She could do anything, even drive in the snow! She helped a friend lower her living room ceiling...used a big juice can to protect the wires to the overhead light. She helped the same friend make Barbie doll clothes to sell. She had her own power saw and she and her sister would tackle and repair anything.
She read a lot and did crossword puzzles, and genealogy. When her father had colon cancer and a colostomy, she moved in and cared for him. She wasn't happy about them sending him home so soon, but I was proud of her for rising to the job. She helped her Mom, who lived alone until she died at the breakfast table at 90 years old.
She was executor of a friend’s estate. She helped make quilts in her church's Sewing Circle.
She lived in that same four-room house, and saved anything one might want. One thing I'm glad she saved was the weekly letters I wrote her when the kids were little. It is fun to read the cute, smart things they did and said, while watching my grandchildren do cute, smart things!
When Myrtle was 88, she told us on the phone one day that her lawn mower starts better since she changed the oil in it!
She was still living alone at 91 - still helping fold bulletins at church, and still helping make Braille books for the Lutheran Braille workers one afternoon a week.
Five years ago she fell and broke her hip. She amazed us by doing so well in rehab at Wadsworth Glen that she was walking and got home in 7 weeks.
Myrtle and Bill gave me a wonderful husband. Gordon loved God and his family and worked hard to provide for us and his hobbies. He was a reader, liked woodworking, photography, tennis, golf, traveling and volunteering. He helped rebuild homes in St. Croix after Hurricane Hugo in l990. He died in l995 at the age of 65.
Gordon and I gave Myrtle and Bill two grandchildren, Steven and Rennye. She taught them to pat their chest when asked, "Where's Grama's Sweetheart?" They would do it before they were a year old.
Steve and April gave her three great-grandchildren, Sadie, Elsie and Henry, who all learned to do "Where's Grama's sweetheart?"
Her granddaughter, Rennye, has enjoyed many games of Aggravation with her over the years, and they still play a little. Since Myrtle’s been at Wadsworth Glen, we’ve kept a tally. But
