Grandma Tanner, Darin's Grandma and the kids Great Grandma, passed away last Sunday night. This past Saturday was the funeral. We headed to Cache Valley bright and early to spend the day at the funeral and with the Tanner family. She sure was an amazing lady. We will miss her, but are happy she is no longer confined to her mortal mind and body.
She had 14 children, 12 of whom lived past infancy and she raised. 58 grandchildren. 113 great-grandchildren. Darin's mom, Marilyn is one of the 14. Darin is one of the 58. And Logan and Ellie are two of the 113. Grandma has lived with Darin's mom, Marilyn for the past nine years. (She recently was moved to an assisted living home and Darin's parents are now on a mission in Kosovo.) Logan and Ellie and the other of the 21 Jones grand children, are the luckiest of the 113, because they have known great grandma their entire little lives, thanks to her living with grandma Marilyn.
We weren't sure how the kids would do with the viewing. But they did fine. Logan was excited to go see her. He is such a sweet boy and multiple times over the week was worried about his grandma Marilyn being sad that her mom died. Which led to him asking me more than once if I was sad that my mom died.
It was pretty much a family reunion all day. Loved it!
The stream of relatives arriving was very long.
At one point I turned a corner in the church and saw this pack coming right at me. It just made me happy! These cousins just love each other and can never get enough time together. It seems so long since we were all together and it just made me smile to see the little rascals in their own little cousins world.
The pallbearers. Sam was an honorary pallbearer, since he is out of the country at present. These are Marilyn's seven living brothers, two brothers in law, and one nephew representing one of the deseased brothers. Mont, Max, Keith(Melanie), Brian(Minta), Brian(Marc), Morris, Mathew, Milo, Marion, and Mike. (Yes, all 14 children started with the letter "M" and grandma loved to rattle off those 14 names!!)
The kitchen help ladies who pulled the massive luncheon off without a hitch. Here they are waving to Marilyn in Kosovo. We all missed Sam and Marilyn all day. Many mentioned the incredible sacrifices they made for nine years taking care of grandma.
Trying to get massive numbers of relatives to pose for a group picture is hilarious!!
Mission accomplished...sort of. Lots are missing.
After the funeral we all migrated to The Plantation. It was weird being there without Sam and Marilyn and poor Heidi had to play host, since she is the present resident caretaker. Never mind that her husband was at work and she has a three week old baby, and had no idea who may show up. Sure enough....people showed up.
The kids helped pick the overly huge produce that nobody can keep up with these days.
I love this sandbox!! 15 kids dug a huge hole and made a big pile of sand. That was almost three days ago and Ellie still has sand in her hair!
We all soaked up this yummy new baby Kaden, and enjoyed the great gab time with the ladies!
I'll never get enough of this fabulous family! I am blessed to be attached to the legacy that Grandma Tanner left.
Post Script: For those interested, here are a few YouTube clips of Grandma on The David Letterman Show. She appeared on the show 12 times. You may have to copy and paste the links.
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