Our Memorial Day!

I know that this should be our 4th of July post, due to the fact the 4th of July was over the weekend but I am a little behind. I wanted to post about our Memorial Day. Every year around Memorial Day, me, my mom and my sister, Marion all take a drive up to Brigham City to see my mother's parent's graves. Their story is very tragic. They died at a very young age.

My grandpa, Ruel at 28 and my grandma, Betty at 26.

My grandparents were very in love. They loved to go do things together. One October day, they decided to go hunting for the day. It was warmer during the day so they didn't dress warm. While they were hunting up Spanish Fork Canyon (in a totally different location then they told people they would be) a blizzard struck. Their truck got stuck and couldn't get it out. My grandpa thought he knew the direction to town and so they set out on foot. Like I said, it was warmer that day and they were not dressed warm. Because the blizzard was so bad, they got lost and both died of hypothermia. My grandmother, Betty died first and my grandpa, Ruel carried her for quite some time before burying her with pine boughs under a tree. He still tried to get out of the canyon but he too died. When he passed, he fell face down in the snow without a struggle. They left four children behind including my mother.

I can't believe how much my sister, Marion looks like our grandma Betty!

This picture was taken a little over a year before they passed.

My mom was a daddy's girl! She is the one in her father's arms. My grandma at this time was pregnant with their 4th child, my uncle, Ruel.

Here are the 4 children at the time of their passing.

LtoR: Kathy age 8, Shirley age 7, Ruel age 6 months and Christine age 4. Christine is my mother. She goes by Chris.

Back when my grandparents were dating and were first married, they loved to hang out at a cafe called Idles Isles Cafe. I also found out from reading my great grandfather's history, he took my great grandmother there on their first date.

That Cafe is still around up in Brigham City.

We love to go and have lunch there and go to all the grandparent's graves at the cemetery there. It is our Memorial Day tradition. We usually go there the day after Memorial Day. And that is what we did this year.

This is what the cafe looked liked from the outside when our grandparents used to hang out there.

This is what it looks like today!

It has been there since 1921.

The coolest thing is that the inside pretty much looks the same as when it opened.

This is what it looks like when you first come in.

It has the original walls, ceiling, benches and counters.

Here is the waiting bench.

Same bench they had back then.

Here is the original espresso machine put in a case.

You can see the old Coke machines they use to use in this picture.

They also have other dinning rooms too. So cute!

Here is Ayla running to our seats!

We like to sit in the original booths there.

We like to think about how we could be sitting wear our grandparents had sat before. In my mother's case her parents. It helps her feel close to them.

And of course one of me with Ayla!

Ayla got to color!

My mom with the menu.

Here is the story about Idles Isles.

You might need to click on the picture to read it.

We not only love to eat there because it is the place our grandparents and parents hung out at but the food is very yummy! It is all made from scratch. They have yummy rolls with homemade apricot jam.

After lunch, we headed to the cemetery.

They are buried at the Brigham City Cemetery.

Here is my grandparent's - Ruel and Betty.

We always leave roses on their graves.

This is my great grandparent's who went to Idles Isles on their first date.

They are Ruel's parents. Their names are Truman and Winnifred. I loved my great grandpa, Truman. He was the only real grandparent I knew growing up. My dad's parents were both gone too. Though I do have a great aunt named Marion. She was the closest thing to a mother my mom had growing up. That is who my sister is named after. I call her my grandma, Marion. She has always been my grandmother.

Here are Truman's parents.

This is my great uncle Bruce, my grandpa, Rule's brother. He died at the age of 23.

He was in the Air Force and was in Korea around highly radioactive equipment. A plane blew up one day upon landing, and Bruce was blown through a corrugated wall of a quarantined building. His body was full of fine particles of metal that for months kept working out to the surface of his skin. My Grandpa Truman would pull the pieces out with sliver pullers. Bruce later developed cancer and the doctors theorized that it was from that accident he had and the radiation he had been exposed to. The cancer developed in his lymph nodes and spread. It then struck his liver which eventually took his life.

Here is my mom looking at their graves.

And of course Ayla was trying to play with every thing on all the graves there. I had to share the picture of Ayla with the flag!

We had a great Memorial Day experience. It always is when we do this. We look forward to doing it every year. This experience helps us feel close to my grandparents. We love them so much!