On the Corner of 5th and Grant

The Kraen house was the Kraen house for 51 years. It actually stayed the Kraen house when my sister Judy Kraen inherited it after Mom died in May of 2008. For a settling year, it stayed empty - as a silent monument to Mom? Because Judy didn't want to sell it to just anyone? Because it was waiting for the right family? We can probably nod "yes" to all of those questions. But, as of May 13th, one year to the day that Mom left us, her house officially belongs to her granddaughter, Emily, and will be a "new" 92-year old home for she and her two boys. I think Mom would approve.

Emily has already taken out a wall that Mom and Dad put up in the late 1950's to make a more definitive living room. Mom hated the open floor plan of the original house, and wanted a living room separate from the dining room. A handy friend spent a day putting up a paneled wall that stayed up for over 40 years. Emily wanted it back the way it was in the beginning, so the wall came down and carpeting came out. When the refurbishing of the house is complete, there will be polished hard (and soft) wood floors everywhere upstairs but the kitchen and bath and an open living room/dining room area.

Another change that Mom made was to enclose the front porch for warmth during the raging Wyoming winters. Emily wants to have the old porch removed (the floor is catty-wampus) and have it rebuilt the way it was when I was still at home. Sitting on the porch in the summer was one of my favorite things to do. Watching the cars go by, catching an odd cool breeze, keeping track of the neighborhood squirrels, getting a whiff of the blooming lilac bush... just a few of the entertaining diversions available while porch sitting.

As my daughter prepares to contact workmen to replace the furnace and roof, remove old siding, sand floors, replace windows in the living and dining rooms, and rebuild the porch, I get to reminisce about my childhood on the corner of 5th and Grant, and rejoice in the fact that my grandsons get to do most of their growing up in the same house that I did. You can't tell me that their Great-Grandma Kraen didn't have a little hand in bringing that about.

Missing Mom

A year ago today in the wee small hours of the morning, Virginia Bates Kraen took her last breath in this life and went back home -- to her husband Herman, her parents, Rose and Claude, her two sisters, Alice and Thelma and three brothers, Lyle, Dayle and Kink. They had all gone before her, and she was ready to go too. It was reunion time in heaven.

Her six girls and 15 grandchildren and 8 great-grandchildren were not ready for her to go - after all, Mom was the hub of the wheel, the strong glue, the safety pin --that held her far-flung family all together. But, there's only so much a worn-out body can take before it says, "no more," and Mom came to that point in her 88th year on Our Lady of Fatima Day just after 1:00 am.

As I look back on this first year without Mom in our midst, it amazes me how fast the time has gone and how many significant happenings occurred. In the Kraen family, there have been 3 retirements, two engagements, three weddings, one baby, three cross-state moves, three graduations, several new jobs, and an honorable discharge from the Marines. There have been trips made to New York City, Lake Tahoe, Denver, Montenegro, Serbia, Las Vegas, Argentina, Connecticut, and Hawaii, to name a few.

It seems appropriate that today, May 13th, 2009, Emily signed the papers to buy Mom's house from Aunt Judy. The other day when I picked Taidje and Orion up after school, Orion (who just turned 7) said, "You know Grandma Bumpy, we won't need any of Great-Grandma's things to remind us of her, because we will be living in her house and that will help us always remember her." What Orion didn't realize is that she is also living within each of us --as close as a thought -- or a smell of Estee Lauder perfume or the gooey, carmelly taste of sticky buns, or the sound of a Strauss waltz or a grandboy practicing a loud burp like Great Grandma taught him.

Mom called Emily in the afternoon of April 30th last year, the day before she went to the hospital the last time. Mom knew Emily had stayed home from work that day because Oggy was sick. Molly had sent Mom a box of goodies from Hawaii (usually good Hawaiian coffee and macadamia nut and chocolate candy). She asked Em if she could come over right away because the mailman had left the box on the porch and some of the squirrels (that Mom had fed for years) had smelled those nuts in the box and were attacking it. They were chewing the corner out of the box and Mom couldn't reach down to get it. Emily's last good memory of her Grandma was her standing behind the screen door supported by her red walker giving that squirrel heck for chewing on her box of nuts! What a better memory could you have than that?

We miss you Mom. See you before you know it!

Love, Jolyn