My paternal Grandmother died today. She’s been not well for a while now, but I thought there was a little more time and was planning to try and get out to see her in the next couple weeks.

I’d actually been thinking of trying to see her again for a while, but “life” always seemed to get in the way. You know how it goes; we’re all just so busy. Now I find myself wondering if the last time I spoke with her on the phone, did I really tell her that I loved her? Had she noticed that I hadn’t called for a while?

Elyse recently asked in her blog: “Are Genealogists Meant To Lack Answers?” and I’ve been thinking about that since I read it. In this case I don’t know that there are any answers I lack. I do wish I’d recorded conversations so that others could hear the stories in her own voice. And I’m sure there are some she never told, and never would. But I do know that I’ll be doing all I can to make sure her stories get passed along and her memory lives on in her great-grandchildren and great-great grandchildren who never got the chance to know her as well.

As for the grandkids, we’ll all miss you GMa.

What follows is an inadequate accounting of a life well-lived.

(Note that loading might be slow due to pictures.)

Berea Iona Dill McMullen

Berea was born in March 1917 in Baxter Springs, Kansas, to Harrison Lloyd and Effie Edith (Griffin) Dill; she was the third of nine children. She was raised in Columbus, Kansas, and graduated from the local high school in 1935. She taught high school for one term after her graduation, but then worked in a local store since you were only allowed to teach a short time unless you went to school to receive a teaching certificate.

She met Mac on a double-date. Only problem was that they weren’t dating each other. Berea was with Mac’s cousin, Bill Skinner. Mac knew right away that Berea was the girl he wanted to marry, but it took three years for him to convince her since, according to Berea, “I really wasn’t interested in getting married, I was having too much fun”. Mac eventually won out and they were married on 04 June 1939 at the Presbyterian Church in Columbus, Kansas. Grandma would always lament to anyone within earshot that they got married at 7:30 am as they had to catch the train to go to Kansas City. In the wedding photo Mac is beaming, Berea…not so much.

After honeymooning, they returned to Columbus to live. Their first two children, Phil and Jim, were born in Columbus. The third, Mac, was born in Smackover, Arkansas, because they happened to be out for a drive when Berea went into labor and Smackover was the nearest town. Grandma always joked that she “had the old ‘bittys in town counting on their fingers” when her first son Phil was born.

During WW II, Mac served in the military, enlisting on 22 March 1944. He completed a course in Field Artillery and served as a surveyor in Europe. His company was in Italy shortly after the fall of Mussolini and he got a ride back home on the Queen Mary. Berea held down the fort in Columbus with the three young boys, ages 4, 2 and 1 at the time.

When Mac returned home from service, the family journeyed to Colorado to visit his mother and sister, Ida, who were living in Lakewood at the time. Once out there, Mac found a job and the family decided to stay. They lived with Mac’s sister for some time before moving to Idledale; a small town in the mountains and, at the time, quite isolated. After overcoming fears of winter hardships, the house in Idledale would serve as home for quite some time as the town grew up all around it.

As a child, I would get to go and visit my Grandma and Grandpa. Often my parents, brother and I would go down on the weekends, have dinner, and watch the Wonderful World of Disney. Grandma had some seriously wicked cooking skills; I don’t think I ever saw her use a measuring cup or spoon. After her kids were grown, she got a job working as a cook for the local school district and it’s probably not an exaggeration to say that her lunches were famous. Everything was done as though she were making the food for her family, only in slightly greater quantities.

Sometimes I would get to spend time just hanging out with my grandma. She would curl my hair and help me get all “dolled” up. (Her granddaughters were the daughters she never had.) She also had the greatest closet of clothes in the basement where she would let me play dress-up (and go through the boxes of treasures and old “stuff”). When I got older we would go into Denver and go shopping. I remember how she seemed so worldly to me when we did that (I grew up in a REAL small town).

Grandma never gardened much that I recall, but there were amazing sweet peas that overwhelmed the white picket fence at the front of the house. And I know my love of lilacs comes from the large bushes in her yard that would explode with fragrance every summer (nothing blooms early in the mountains of Colorado). In late summer, we would hike down the very steep hill behind the house and pick wild chokecherries. From her I learned to make chokecherry jelly—a skill she’d learned from her mother—and divinity at Christmas time (again with the mad cooking skills).

Christmas time was special at my grandparent’s house as all the kids and grandkids would gather there on Christmas Eve. I remember on at least a couple of occasions, running around outside with my cousins looking for Rudolph and Santa’s sleigh overhead. Obviously the grown-ups had had enough of us and kicked us all outside, but to me it’s a fond memory. In addition to the divinity, Grandma would make her trademark (or so I hear) red velvet cake. I actually don’t remember it, but have seen the pictures. And the recipe. It called for something like 3 bottles of red food coloring. It’s a wonder any of the family survived that.

Mac and Berea lived in Idledale until they retired. In 1977, they begin making regular trips back to Columbus, Kansas, to care for Berea’s mother, Effie. In 1980, they sold the house in Idledale and made Kansas their home once more. When Effie died in 1986, Mac and Berea decided to stay in Kansas (partly I think because Mac had the same fishing bug as his mother).

They lived in Missouri for a while and then moved to West Mineral, Kansas, not too far from Columbus—or the pits; man-made lakes created by strip mining and excellent fishing holes. I visited them in Kansas a couple times when I was in college. After college I made a trips to visit when my oldest was two and again in July 2003 when a family reunion was held. I’m very glad that I had those visits and that she, and my Grandpa, got to know my sons and they got to know their great-Grandparents, at least a little.

Mac died 06 June 2005 at their home in West Mineral, Kansas. For all Berea’s initial reluctance about marrying, they had 66 years together and loved each other very much. Berea died 05 May 2010 in Columbus, Kansas, with family with her. She is survived by 4 siblings, 3 children, 6 grandchildren, 13 great-grandchildren, and 3 great great-grandchildren.

And if I have anything to do with it, they, and all their descendants, will all know what a wonderful, loving people both she and my Grandpa were and how much they are missed.