Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Which Ancestor Am I Most Thankful For?

  From Randy (my newest cousin discovery!!) over at Genea-Musings:

it's Saturday Night - 

time for more Genealogy Fun!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

(1)  We celebrated Thanksgiving in the United States this week, and my thoughts turn to my ancestors.  I pondered, "Which ancestor am I most thankful for?"  

(2)  Tell us all about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a post on Facebook.  

Here's mine:

Which ancestor am I the most thankful for? Wow!  I had to do some hard thinking on this one.  I thought about my mother, of course.  But I don't think of her as an ancestor yet.  Could it be her father, my Pop Pop, who left behind the steno pad of family names and connections that led me to this wonderful obsession? Could it be my newest ancestor discovery - Stephen Hopkins who came over on the Mayflower?  It could be any one of the Tapleys, Ranneys, or Drakes who came to this unknown frontier of a country in the 16th, 17th or 18th centuries and began a new life.  Or someone else entirely...

So after some careful deliberation, I decided that my pick for this challenge is Ethel Irene Ranney Tapley, my maternal grandmother.  

Why did I choose Grandma?  Well, she kept a diary.  I loved getting a glimpse into her life in 1933 and 1934.  (I shared her diary on this blog.  The first post is here.) She also kept a scrapbook with pictures of family members and friends with all of them labeled!  That is amazing right there!  The diary and scrapbook have given me information about her life that I would not have otherwise.  Also information about the times... Grandma was good at mentioning national disasters and other news in her diary.  

In addition, my grandmother demonstrated great strength and courage in her life.  When she was a child, she was uprooted and moved across the country (from Michigan to California) due to her sister's health. She married Hazel, who she had dated for years, only to have him cheat on her with one of her own friends.  That left her a single mother to her son, Bobby.  Just when she found love again with my grandfather, Charles, and had their daughter, Linda (my mom), Grandma became ill. While I do not know all of the symptoms she suffered with, I do know her coordination worsened until she could no longer walk and had to use a wheelchair the rest of her life.  (While she was never officially diagnosed, we believe she had multiple sclerosis or something similar.)  She lost her wonderful mother in 1960 and shortly thereafter was uprooted again and moved across the country (California to Florida to Georgia) because my grandfather, her husband, wanted to go back home, I guess.  

Grandma's sister, Alice, made the move with them.  She helped Pop Pop care for Grandma.  I cannot imagine how that felt for Grandma, to have to depend on others for absolutely everything.  To move across the room, to get in bed, to get out of bed, to go to the bathroom, to take a bath, to eat... everything.  When Pop Pop got sick and went in the hospital, she had to be put in a nursing home because without him, Alice couldn't care for Grandma by herself.  Then came the day we all had to walk in the nursing home and tell her that Pop Pop had passed away.  I believe at that moment Grandma made a decision.  She had the strength and courage to just "give up" and go be with Pop Pop.  She passed gracefully and gently in my father's arms.  On her own terms.

I am very thankful for my grandmother, Ethel Ranney Tapley and the legacy she left behind.