Mom said, "when I die, bury me without my shoes and socks on." We asked her why and she replied,"so I can run to heaven the moment I die!"
She ran to heaven on 9/21/12. We will always miss her, but our homes are filled with her wonderful paintings, so she is in our hearts all the time.
She did not want an obituary. No funeral, no graveside, no flowers. We tried to do our best to honor all of her wishes.
If you would like to do something in her honor, feel free to donate to one of her favorite charities:
Boys Town Jerusalem
We think she would like that.
If you would like to contact her children, just click here to email us.
May Jehovah Jesus Messiah bless you daily,
Annabel's children
Saturday, October 13, 2012
Wednesday, March 19, 2008
My children
We had 5 children and they are such a blessing to me. I will let them tell you about their children. Since we moved a lot , we were not around the grandchildren a lot.Currently, the children all live in Colorado. They live scattered except for our son and his wife and their 2 children, ages 9 and 7 who live in Cotopaxi. Nelson's wife , Cruz is my 5th daughter and I love her like my own. Nelson is the photographer, April is my caretaker, Elaine is the computer wizard, Colleen is making silver jewelry, and Jennifer is doing a little bit of everything. They are all very talented and artistic. I won't bore you anymore with all their talents. I am just a loving mother. I am now 77 years old.
Finished blogging for awhile : IT MUST BE TIME TO MOVE AGAIN.
Garden friends
When word spread around that I was going to retire, friends began to ask, what would I do. Of course they all knew I was a 'painter' . I said, "I think I'd like to plant some flowers. "Gardeners are the most generous people that I know! The spring before I retired in 1994. People began to give me flowers and bulbs. Some I had to plant in the snow and mud.
Amazingly a lot of them grew and flourished. There was a small irrigation ditch running through town, behind my property. There were openings for water to be let in and shut off. Every spring the ditch needed to be cleaned. So there were lots of digging little ditches to different flowrs. It grew to be a large garden, and I put many favorite rocks around in the garden. I always had a cat or two to keep me company.
I took pictures and painted pictures of all the flowers ,cats , moutains and cliffs. I had "come and paint" groups every year. It was a busy time, and in Jehovah's great sun and wind and dirt and friends, the hole in my heart healed.
I also fit in some vacations with friends to the great south west, and back to the ocean and then across the country. How great to have 10 years of retirement!
Tuesday, March 18, 2008
Keenesburg, Co.
Keenesburg, Colorado is a farming community north and east of Denver. In 1987, it was a farming community and if you know anything about farmers and their families, they are plain good people. It was a good place to work and live.
The hospital in Greeley sponsored the clinic there as an outreach to the hospital. It was North Colorado Hospital Center at that time. The doctors trained young doctors in a 3 year program to be Board Certified in Family Practice. On Wed. afternoon, I would go to class with the young doctors and listen to lectures by Physicians on various subjects. I would also pick up supplies for the clinic. It was a good place to learn! The rest of the week, I would see people about their various problems, A doctor would come to see patients one afternoon a week.
Before I took this job, Leon and I discussed the pros and cons, It was 150 miles or so from Cotopaxi, and he liked it so well in Cotopaxi, That we rented an apartment for us in Keenesburg and we went back and forth on the weekends. It was not an easy solution but we made it work out.
In 1988 to 1994 , my mother from Indiana came to live in an apartment next to ours. Her greatest regret was missing her cousin that she had lived around all her life, and other friends and not driving a car! Leon would always come and take her to doctor appointments. He was very good to her and with her. She grew legally blind which was very difficult for her . In her last 6 months we had respite care come 24 hours a day. I had told her that I would not put her in a nursing home. My great friend Carol Herold was a great help with mother, and she is still a great friend.
Before my mother died, Leon was having heart problems again . He decided on having some experimental surgery at University Hospital in Denver. He lived 6 weeks. When I told my mother that he was not going to make it. She said ," Oh no, I will die before him" But he made it first.
Six months later, Leon's mother died, and about 8 months later, my mother died. The 3 deaths left such a hole in my heart. Yes, you who have expierenced it, know what I mean. At the end of 8 years in Keenesburg, I retired from 46 years of nursing and bought a little house in Cotopaxi. Home again
The hospital in Greeley sponsored the clinic there as an outreach to the hospital. It was North Colorado Hospital Center at that time. The doctors trained young doctors in a 3 year program to be Board Certified in Family Practice. On Wed. afternoon, I would go to class with the young doctors and listen to lectures by Physicians on various subjects. I would also pick up supplies for the clinic. It was a good place to learn! The rest of the week, I would see people about their various problems, A doctor would come to see patients one afternoon a week.
Before I took this job, Leon and I discussed the pros and cons, It was 150 miles or so from Cotopaxi, and he liked it so well in Cotopaxi, That we rented an apartment for us in Keenesburg and we went back and forth on the weekends. It was not an easy solution but we made it work out.
In 1988 to 1994 , my mother from Indiana came to live in an apartment next to ours. Her greatest regret was missing her cousin that she had lived around all her life, and other friends and not driving a car! Leon would always come and take her to doctor appointments. He was very good to her and with her. She grew legally blind which was very difficult for her . In her last 6 months we had respite care come 24 hours a day. I had told her that I would not put her in a nursing home. My great friend Carol Herold was a great help with mother, and she is still a great friend.
Before my mother died, Leon was having heart problems again . He decided on having some experimental surgery at University Hospital in Denver. He lived 6 weeks. When I told my mother that he was not going to make it. She said ," Oh no, I will die before him" But he made it first.
Six months later, Leon's mother died, and about 8 months later, my mother died. The 3 deaths left such a hole in my heart. Yes, you who have expierenced it, know what I mean. At the end of 8 years in Keenesburg, I retired from 46 years of nursing and bought a little house in Cotopaxi. Home again
Working Part Time
Westcliffe Clinic was going through some problems finding Physician coverage , so I quit all my jobs and was on call every other weekend. This went on for about 3 years and then I filled in for some Nurse Practitioners vacation time etc. It still gave us time to travel a little and explore the country. Above is an old mill south of Creede, Co. It was still in pretty good shape at that time. Creede was a great place to find Creede agate, but gradually the old mining spots were closed to everyone. Some great scenery . We loved the back roads from Creede to Lake City and Lake City to Silverton. I especially remember one tent camping trip in New Mexico where we had a snowstorm. All night long the wind blew, and we would hear one car leave and then another, and another. Finally our tent blew down on top of us and we just snuggled a little deeper in our down sleeping bags. When it was dawn, we were the only ones left in the campground! Monday, March 17, 2008
Leon
One of a family of five brothers and a sister. What a great family they have been and still are. They are all great story tellers. When someone begins a story, it is not long until all the grand kids and nieces and nephews etc. are trying to find a place to set and listen. You will have to come and visit for those stories!
Early in our marriage, we decided not to have television. A few of us manage that. Of course the first thing our children bought when they left home was a t.v. We always had books, and even moved books, on all our travels. Leon read a lot in encyclopedia's and remembered what he read. He also had a technicals library on building , mathematical equations, engines etc. And we studied the Bible.
A college professor said " he could talk to anyone on any level about any subject".
He loved kids. On Halloween, he always came up with something different. One year he took a jar of peanut butter and spead it on bread while the kids were watching and then tried to put it in their goodie sack. Then he would say something like"Dont you like peanut butter and jelly?"
And a delightful picture I have of him is when he had taken the Bible from a Jehovah Witness and was explaining the scripture to him!
When we traveled, he would know about the towns we passed through. He was like a personal travel guide.
I have not said much about him, but I could not have done better for a life companion.
Early in our marriage, we decided not to have television. A few of us manage that. Of course the first thing our children bought when they left home was a t.v. We always had books, and even moved books, on all our travels. Leon read a lot in encyclopedia's and remembered what he read. He also had a technicals library on building , mathematical equations, engines etc. And we studied the Bible.
A college professor said " he could talk to anyone on any level about any subject".
He loved kids. On Halloween, he always came up with something different. One year he took a jar of peanut butter and spead it on bread while the kids were watching and then tried to put it in their goodie sack. Then he would say something like"Dont you like peanut butter and jelly?"
And a delightful picture I have of him is when he had taken the Bible from a Jehovah Witness and was explaining the scripture to him!
When we traveled, he would know about the towns we passed through. He was like a personal travel guide.
I have not said much about him, but I could not have done better for a life companion.
Saturday, March 15, 2008
Back to Cotopaxi-Westcliffe.Co
Home Again ! and I went to Westcliffe to work as the school nurse, the public health nurse, the Family Nurse Practitioner, and started a Home Health Program along with a well child clinic, and I was on call again! Never a dull moment. I was interviewing an LPN to work in the Home Health Program when I asked her if she wanted a cup of coffee or tea. She replied," no thanks" I said are you a Mormom? and she said she was! How funny, I had just left the Mormons.
Someone said one day," How terrible that we have so many different churches in this little town.". I said , " No it is wonderful" . It has been a great lifetime to live where we have had freedom to worship as we please. When else in history has this occurred? I'm afraid that the freedom will end when the Moslem's take over. Hopefully, I will not live to see that!
It was in 1980 that our son gave us our first SLR camera and I began to learn about taking pictures. Westcliffe is a great place to take pictures and to paint pictures.
Yes by 1983, I was developing the popular "burn out" in my nursing so I took a class in Drawing. Of course I could never draw as someone told me when I was about 12 years old. "You can't draw" I looked at my picture and her picture and decided she was right. I could not draw.
Whenever the children wanted to know how to draw, I said, " Ask your dad"
I had taken a nursing class in teaching people to use the Right Side of the Brain after strokes, so I bought the book"How to draw on the Right side of the Brain" by Betty Edwards. And I followed all the lessons in that book and I learned to Draw. Then I began to take classes in Pastels, then Oil. Then I joined Brush Marks in Canon City for critiques on my art work. That was the best training. One of the group challenged me to paint a picture in watercolor and after 3 times, I painted it. That was when I fell in love with the WC. I did continue to paint and draw for 25 years. Some of my best friends were artists. Oh, and there was an occasional wierd one, besides me.
Why was it so hard to be "on call" I think for essential things it would be OK, but not everything was even close to essential. It is not easy to get up in the middle of the night at 40 below 0 and see someone that was OK by the time they got to the clinic.
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