Elizabeth’s Journal

Grama Sprong’s Birthdays

As everyone knows, I scanned loads and loads and loads of old Sprong and Ensign (Grama Sprong’s maiden name) documents and photos the week before coming up here to Kansas—a little more than 750MB worth of stuff. A couple of photos of Grama Sprong that I loved were one of her on her 21st birthday and one of her striking a silly pose with a college friend of hers.

Yesterday, on Monday the 23rd of June, Jonathan and I went with Mom and Dad to see Grama for her 96th birthday. Although I have always delighted in saying that even though she was in her nineties and still going strong, unfortunately that is no longer the case. Her recognition of people has slowed down greatly, and a couple of times she tried to introduce me to her daughter—my mom, who of course needs no introduction to me. It was just because she didn’t realize I was her granddaughter and thought I worked there. Grama has always been so proud whenever I or Mom or my cousin Carol has visited, and she would introduce us to everyone we met in the hallways and the dining room; this was a continuation of the same thing except that this time she was trying to introduce her granddaughter to her daughter. It was also quite unusual to see Grama without her wiglet. I have always loved her hair and remember when I was little and spending the night with her and Grandpa that I would sometimes get to brush her hair out at night, and I’d always ask her why she didn’t wear it down, because I thought it was a beautiful silvery color and it was long. Well, she wears it down now; the nurse had brushed it out beautifully for our arrival (although sometimes they braid it for her, which probably also looks nice). As you can see from the picture, she looks her age these days and has lost quite a bit of weight—her wedding ring, which has always fit quite tightly on her finger, is pretty loose now. But she did enjoy seeing her great-grandson Jonathan, who wanted to push her very fast in the wheelchair (I put the brakes on that!) and who also gave her a great big cuddle and helped her blow out her birthday candles.