Some Memories from Grandma Roylance


In November 2003, I had a chance to sit down with grandma and ask her questions about her life.  For a couple of hours, I asked questions and then typed as quickly as I could to try and capture her answers. 

-- Sean Roylance




GROWING UP

What were some of your chores?

o Cleaned the whole house each Saturday. Scrubbed the floors on my knees (bathroom hallway, kitchen, bedrooms, stairs)

o Helped out with dad’s garden on occasion. It was a beautiful garden.

o Mowed the front and the back lawn.

o One kid when dancing asked, “Clarkson, do you ever work?” I showed him the stains on my hands from peeling peaches and said, “What does that look like?”

o Picked pie cherries. We would get 10 cents/pound for picking cherries. My mom would make “foldover” pastries.


What is your favorite teenage memory?

o I did not do a lot of dances—I was afraid to go because I didn’t feel comfortable. One fellow asked me and I said no.

o I loved going to dances in the Church. We had a nice little orchestra to play for Church dances. We would have a dance when missionaries would go on a mission.


AS AN ADULT

How did you and grandpa/grandma meet?

o On mission


How did you become engaged?

o “We just got engaged.”


What was your wedding day like?

o Very simple. Very quick and simple.


Hardest job?

o Working on the back of the spud combine. Pulling vines and getting dirt all over. Merial (niece from Bremerton) helped with Joan one time picking out the vines and rocks, etc. One time, they started laughing and hopped off the combine and sat on the ground all dirty. Bob looked back and didn’t have anyone doing the work. Those two were just sitting there laughing at how dirty they were. They were laughing so hard they couldn’t do it. Bob wanted to get the work done and didn’t want to stop. Bob would get the tools out and fix stuff, but would be in such a hurry to get going again that he would leave the tools on the ground.


What jobs on the farm did you enjoy?

o Driving the truck—but it was hard. I got too close to the combine some of the time. So, the load was uneven.


What were your favorite memories about being a mother?

o Every day living with and enjoying my family. Lots of good days.

o Worked in the bean field and spud field weeding and stuff.


What are some funny memories of your kids?

o Mark was pretty good—he was my good boy.

o Keith was a character. He went 90 mph around some 35 mph corners in the mountains.

o One time I was late to Bob’s football game and just got to the field. Bob had just got the football and was running to make a touchdown. I ran beside him cheering. Joan said, “That’s my mom.”

o Grandpa had bet $10 on a game. One of the players ran the wrong way and scored a TD for the other team. Grandpa was running hard after him to tell him to go the other way, but the player didn’t stop. Grandpa lost the bet because of it.


OTHER

What would you want your grandchildren to know about you?

o I have been able to paint a lot. That has changed my life quite a bit. I am thankful for my artistic ability and how I can use that to help the Church. I did lots of art work to help in my Church responsibilities.

o I really enjoyed picking all the flowers around the house and taking them to Church every Sunday when the flowers were there. Sometimes, I thought I picked them all and there wouldn’t be any for the next Sunday, but the next Sunday there were always more flowers.

o I developed a good friendship with Glenn and picked him up to take him to church. He was in a wheelchair and he could communicate only with a little typewriter. He sure loved going to Church with me.


CHURCH

What Church calling have you enjoyed the most?

o I was secretary for a long time. That was a detriment because I never went to class.

o I worked with the Young Women including Young Womens president in Eltopia. We had programs and learned dances together that I taught. One time the Mia Maids were having a very serious class and bearing their testimonies. Keith and some boys found a dead rat outside and threw it into the room. There was screaming and yelling. One of the girls was madder than hops about it. The girl didn’t think I should be in the Presidency because of it.

o Relief Society President—it was a lot of travel (hour of travel and cross a ferry to Richland). I went and got a lot of groceries for one family. I arrived after dark and they were in bed. I went in the open door and put the meat and cheese in the fridge and food on the table.

Tell about your favorite prophet and why?

o Heber J. Grant (not favorite) called me on a mission. I marveled at the way he improved himself over his lifetime. He couldn’t throw a ball hardly but he practiced on the side of the barn and became a really good pitcher. He couldn’t write well be he practiced and practiced until his writing was beautiful.

o President Lee came to my school and taught my seminary for a short while. He came to a meeting in our Church. I sat right at the front next to him. I had to talk. I said to him “I’m so scared”. He said, “Just take a big breath”. He wasn’t an apostle yet, he was the head of the seminaries at the time. Years later, I went to the Church office building and saw him in an elevator. He looked so Holy. I wonder why he was taken so soon. I think he must have been needed on the other side.


What about your mission?

o I’m glad I went on a mission because I ended up meeting Grandpa.


What is one of your favorite scriptures?

o [When I asked this question, without hesitation Grandma immediately quoted James 1:5-6] “If any of you lack wisdom, let him ask of God, that giveth to all men liberally, and upbraideth not, and it shall be given him. But let him ask in faith, nothing wavering. For he that wavereth is like a wave of the sea driven with the wind and tossed.”

o [She also likes Matthew 3:13-15. She talked to me about this before my mission to make sure I knew this scripture to teach people about the importance of baptism] “Then cometh Jesus from Galilee to Jordan unto John, to be baptized of him. But John forbad him, saying, I have need to be baptized of thee, and thou comest to me? And Jesus answering said unto him, Suffer it to be so now: for thus it becometh us to fulfill all righteousness. Then he suffered him.”

o I went with the missionaries one time to a home. The person asked why do you have to be baptized. I quoted Matthew 3:13-15. [Mark said]: Mom was a great missionary in Tonasket. She was always planning on how to introduce neighbors to the gospel by doing things like taking them goodies, etc. Anyone who came to the house, she would tell about the Church.


Favorite quote by a prophet?

o President Grant: “That which you persist in doing becomes easier not because the nature of the thing changes but because our power to do increases.”


Random notes from our conversation:

Mark remembers that Grandma loved nature, working in her yard and appreciating the
beauty.

Grandma picked all kinds of berries and made punch and jam with them. She made apple-butter with crab apples from the crabapple trees.

When on cattle drives, Grandma would cook a nice meal and bring it to all of the workers.

Grandma’s Mom & Dad were sad when she and Grandpa moved up to Idaho to farm. Their other children had experienced tough times on farms. They didn’t want their baby girl doing farm work. Grandpa earned $500 to make a down payment on the farm. Grandma’s dad loaned Grandpa the money. He paid it back as soon as he could. He bought some basic furniture and put it into a trailer to take it to Idaho. When he got to a one hill in particular, he couldn’t pull it up over the hill with his car. He found a neighbor to pull it up over the hill with a tractor. When they got to the farm, there was an old log house. It had been a place where they took the sheep to lamb. They lived there. After living there just a little while, Grandma was coming up from the canal (where they got their water in empty 10 gallon cans of milk--grandpa on one side and grandma on the other), there was a snake on the ground. She said “you can’t get up there with my kids”. She got a hoe and would jump and yell and swing at the snake. She missed several times by about a foot. Finally, she got closer and hit it. Later, she went into the house and found one on a wooden stoop. They found them in their garden and everywhere. When she got brave enough, she would go around the side of the house when it was hot and they were sunning themselves. She would grab the hoe and go after them and see how many she could kill. They had a bathroom outside. Sometimes she would run outside to it and open the door. There would be a snake and it would jump and she would jump. They were in the chicken coup, too. Grandpa would step right down in the middle of a bunch of snakes with his water boots on and chop them up with his shovel.

Grandma didn’t mind the farm life. It was hard to get along with her mother-in-law. Her first winter it was 35 degrees below 0. They still had to wash and would bring the water in from outside and heat it up to put it into the tub. We have it really easy these days.

Biggest conveniences in her lifetime: clothes washer and dryer. Bathroom and tubs with heated water. She used to put the clothes through a ringer to squeeze out the water and then hang them on a clothesline. Another convenience is an electric hand mixer.

Grandma had two guys come and cut the front of the house off to extend the family room. It also added to her bedroom so she had a big closet. The two workers were 7th day Adventists. They were trying to convert Grandma, and she was trying to convert them. It ended up really good.

Sometimes Grandma and Grandpa would go down to the jail and get convicts out of the jail. She would take them home and feed them and take care of them.

She loved going out the back door, down the steps, and onto the lawn to look over the whole view up on the hill. Beautiful place.

One of Grandma’s favorite memories was when they had a birthday party for Grandpa in the barn in 1992 just before he passed away. They took the carpets from the house and their two favorite chairs up into the hayloft in the barn. They lifted them up to the loft in the backhoe. They lifted Grandma up with the hay loader too. They had a chance to sing and dance and talk about good things about Grandpa since it was his birthday.

There was a big hill near the house with a big field. She called it her “Sound of Music” hill and would sing “the hills are alive with the sound of music” song.

After Thanksgiving dinner, the kids would go and cut down a tree and put it on their cars. Grandma would watch out the window and watch them drive away with the trees on top. That was a lot of fun.

She walked to church as a little girl (about a mile). It didn’t seem like a bother. That is just the way it was. They went to Church in a small building that they called “the chicken coup”. One of the kids started a fire in it one day. Earnest hit the kid right in the class. His mom & dad got mad and they almost had a fight out in the road. They said “why did you do that”. “Because he had no business starting a fire in the Church.” Mom didn’t go to morning Sunday school, but she always had a wonderful lunch ready when they got home. She cooked wonderful potatoes and gravy and meat, and Yorkshire pudding with gravy. Made out of egg and milk, etc—kind of like puffy pancakes. Grandma’s mom and grandma had a bakery shop in England and made lots of pies & pastries.

She got a pretty porcelain doll for Christmas. It was her favorite. One day, a little kid dropped it and broke it.

She had 2-3 Cherry trees on the west side of the house and liked to climb them lot. There was a chicken coup that she would climb on top of to sing and eat apricots that grew on the tree right next to the chicken coup.

There was a big music room in high school. One time, the teacher kept having them sing over and over while the teacher looked for a particular sound. It was her voice—a high soprano.