- the old to the new
- the porch to a night on the town
- the comfortable rather than the fashionable
- the familiar rather than the unfamiliar
- paid in full instead of monthly installments
- the past and present over the future
* * *
As a little girl, my grandmother, Zelma Lois Cranfill Beights Valentine, traveled around Texas in a covered wagon, but before she turned sixty years old, she watched men land on the moon. All in one lifetime!
* * *
Granny Valentine made over a quarter million biscuits- one small pan at a time- during her life. She started at around eight years old when her mother was bed-ridden during one of her pregnancies. Zel stood on a box so she could work at the counter while her mother instructed her on how to make biscuits.
* * *
"A loving family, a beautiful home, & getting to watch the Spurs... it doesn't get any better than this."
- Isla Ruth Beights Casey, 2010,
grandmother to Van, Jenna, Vanessa, RJ, Kyle, Lance, Graham, Gary, Allee & Isla
great-grandmother to Audrie, Finn, August, Brooke, Morgan, & Justin
* * *
"They installed a Sears Diehard battery in me."
- Isla's comment on her pacemaker operation, 2000
* * *
PaPa Chock Valentine only paid seventeen dollars interest
during his lifetime. He paid cash for everything else.
He and my grandmother lived modestly, but they were debt free.
And they still left a substantial legacy
of land and money to their children.
* * *
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