Today was a bittersweet day.
Today I paid my last respects to supergram.
None of you would know who supergram was so I'll tell you a bit about her.
Although I can not put into words all that she meant to me and to a whole community, perhaps you will get a glimpse of this remarkable pioneer woman.
Supergram was my first playmates mother. But she was so much more then that. To every kid who stepped a foot in her yard she was family, because she accepted all as such.
She loved children. So much so that she gave birth to 14 of her own and acted as mom for many more. In over fifty years I never saw the lady mad or sad or without her warm smile.
But growing up next door to her and her family I got only a few glimpses of what her life was really about and there is no doubt in my mind that I saw only a very small glimmer of the hardships she took in stride.
This was Supergrams home when I first met her and her family.
I know she was born in 1920. The daughter of a European fur trader and a local native woman. I don't know what happened to her parents. No one ever mentioned them.
I know that at 20 years old she was a widow with two small children to raise and I know that she remarried several years later and over the subsequent years gave birth to and successful raised 12 more children with her second husband all while acting as mother and grandmother to any child who entered her life. Plus she acted as stand in mom to all who even entered her yard.
Supergram, Laura and her second husband Charlie.
But even that was not all there is to her story.
It was a big part of what earned her the title of supergram but there was much more. There was her sunny nature, her gentle spirit, her courage in the face of adversity that most today could not even comprehend.
And there was her love for her community and her neighbors.
I don't believe the lady ever had a unkind thought towards anyone.
Like a said, I don't know much about the hardships she endured but I do know a bit. The little I do know would fill a book so I won't say much about it here.
I will say that more then one bear made the mistake of wondering into her yard when she was alone with her children.
I know that money was hard to come by for everyone back then and her family was no exception.
I know they and we, lived off the land as much out of necessity as choice.
I know she buried one daughter and saw one of her sons become a paraplegic, the result of a motor vehicle accident. I know another of her sons was shot but survived.
And through it all she never let on she felt anything but love and joy.
Today the hall was full and overflowing. The service was held at the community hall. It is the largest building in the district, and it very nearly was not big enough.
And I guess that as much as anything is what made her supergram.
It was the many lives she touched.
In her 95 years on this planet she accomplished more them most because she changed lives for the better. A lot of lives.
The world makes a big deal over celebrities when they die but the outside world takes no notice when someone like supergram comes to the end of their journey.
In a way that is sad. Sad because that celebrity did it for fame and fortune while people like supergram did it for love.
But it is also sad because the outside will never know what a special person supergram and people like her were.
Thank you supergram for being you.
A few months ago. Supergram celebrating her 95th year on earth.
Supergram earned her wings
Linear Mode
