Remembering Grandma

One hundred years ago today, Edna Ruby Schroeder was born in Clay County, Neb. My dear grandmother, who passed away in 2000, was a special part of my life, and rarely does a day go by that I don't think of her.

Grandma was born on the family farm and grew up during the Great Depression, something that shaped the way she lived her life.

Grandma was a woman of deep faith and conviction. She began to teach Sunday school at age 10 and finally retired three-quarters of a century later, when she was 85.

Her family moved to Sterling, Colo., where she graduated from high school in 1926. She married Lee Otto Schmalbeck in 1931 in Kelly, Colo. She graduated from Colorado State College of Education in Greeley in 1950 and later attended West State College of Education in Gunnison, Colo., as well as the University of Washington. She was a primary school teacher in Colorado and Portland before she and Grandpa moved to Seattle, where she taught for 27 years before retiring in 1973. She loved to write poems and plays. Grandpa died in 1976. For more than 20 years, she missed him terribly.

I have only wonderful memories of Grandma. Because Mom was their only child, Joe and I didn't have to share Grandma with cousins, and she doted on us. She lived in south Seattle, only an hour away from us, so it was common for us to see her at least one weekend per month. Easter, Mother's Day, Independence Day, Thanksgiving and Christmas were usually spent at her house.

I often spent at least a couple of weeks each summer at her home, much to her happiness - and no doubt my parents'. Whenever I would show up, it wouldn't take long for Grandma to get out the Scrabble board, and we would play several games.

She loved to travel: She went to Egypt, Israel, Russia, Australia, Fiji, China and Europe. She'd try to get back to Colorado annually to visit family in Grand Junction. Grandma always took pictures on her trips, then would put together slideshows. A special treat for me was to get out the slides and spend a couple of hours looking at them with her. I have all those slides and plan to convert them to digital format one of these days.

Grandma lived near Lake Washington and enjoyed walking along the shoreline. She especially loved going to the Oregon Coast. I'm not sure when she and Grandpa started traveling there, but Mom thinks it might have been in the mid-'40s. They went nearly every year, a tradition that continues in our family even today. She loved walking along the beach, picking up sand dollars. I seem to recall we took her to Cannon Beach as late as 1998.

In 1993, Grandma began to have troubles with her memory. Indications were that she had Alzheimer's. About that time, Mom and Dad moved her to Bremerton to live in a care facility. She died at 6:10 a.m. Jan. 15, 2000. My brother, Joe, was with her, holding her hand.

Exactly one week after she died, I was awoken at precisely 6:10 a.m. in our home in Kennewick. I distinctly heard my grandmother's voice calling to me from the hallway outside our bedroom, saying, "Hello, Andy." I don't know what to make of this. Was my mind playing tricks on me in my grief?

I prefer to accept this as a gift, as a fond farewell from one of the kindest people to ever walk this earth.