Grandma loved to laugh

One of the sounds we miss most is Grandma's laughter. Grandma was always laughing, most of the time it was at herself. She found so much joy in simply living and she expressed this in laughter. The following are stories of our funny times with her in our own words…

When we were little we were going to Grandma’s house after church for one of her famous mouthwatering pot roast meals. We kids decided to go home with grandma and grandpa because Mom and Dad had choir practice. It was a cold winter day and grandma was wearing a long down coat. When we got into the house grandma took off her coat and we were all shocked to see her standing there with only a blouse and a slip. Grandpa made a comment that I can’t remember (I think something about running out of her skirt) and she looked down and let out a scream. She grabbed her coat back on and we all laughed until we cried. After she put on some different clothes she called my dad at church. She laughed so hard when she told him she lost her skirt at church and could he look for it. The laughs continued when my dad brought home someone else’s skirt from church!!! Who could imagine two people loosing their skirts and church on the same day!

Holly Wadsworth Avery (second child of David Wadsworth, first child of Nellie and Cecil Wadsworth)

I had been at Grandma’s house for her to alter yet another article of clothing. She had me try on the clothes so she knew what she had to do and then she would alter it then have me try it on again. After a half an hour with her, helping her sew, I realized that she had her shirt on inside out. Neither she nor I had noticed previously and we laughed non stop for about 15 minutes with tears streaming down our faces.

Sunny Wadsworth Tangren (third daughter of David Wadsworth, who was first child of Nellie and Cecil Wadsworth)

I remembered being there up on the farm one day and there were about eight of us missionaries and we were cutting wood or doing something for them up there and Grandma came up and said to us “Oh there’s this other place on the property that I want you to take care of too” and we said “Ok, where is it” and she said “Come follow me!” and she took off running. We took off running too and we couldn’t keep up with her. And then I realized what we must look like; eight 20 year olds running after an 80 year old woman. I just had to sit down and laugh.

Unnamed Missionary

I remember a time when grandma was watching us and we were in her car (the Toyota that she called her “Toy” a play on Toyota). While we were driving around she saw a man in a pick-up truck that dropped a piece of plywood out of the back of his truck. She was determined to find this man and tell him that he’d dropped the wood and whipped around corners and down streets trying to catch him while we all sat in the back seat crying “Where’s the beef” because there had been a commercial for Wendy’s that had an old woman not big enough to see over the steering wheel driving around wildly while two other old women were in back sliding from side to side and the punch line of the commercial was “Where’s the beef” She just laughed and laughed, us along with her. She never was able to find the man who lost part of his load but we had so much fun trying to find him.

Sunny Wadsworth Tangren (third daughter of David Wadsworth, who was first child of Nellie and Cecil Wadsworth)