My heart is heavy right now as I type a few words about my maternal grandma. Today on August 10, 2015 Ruth Brinton Hiatt went home to heaven, a place that welcomed her I know!! One week ago, 5 days to be precise. Grandma suffered a massive stroke. She was in her most beloved place.....Pine, AZ. Her home away from home. It was the Hiatt reunion. I have missed very few of these reunions, and this is one that I missed. If regrets must be told. I regret not going this year. I don't have any other regrets as far as my grandma goes. I feel like I loved her and I feel like she knew it. I visited her as much as I could. I sent her packages and cards. One Sunday just a few years ago grandma called me out of the blue and we chatted for about 2 hours. That is one Sunday that I will treasure. She wanted to catch up and talk about my kids and my family. She talked a little about what was going on there in Mesa. A couple of times she and grandpa came to visit in Safford and we were lucky enough to host them. Scott and I cleaned our room, "general authority clean" and put little candies on the night stands and tried to make it special. Grandma mentioned how nice it was and that she would like to come back often. When I would see her in Mesa she would apologize that she wouldn't be able to make the drive to visit with us in Safford anymore, she was just getting too old. I loved how she loved to visit. She would lean in and give a smile to show that she was really interested in what was being said. When Scott and I got married she was so excited to give us her gift. It was a 6 x 6 inch tv. It was very small, but it served us well. I remember when we were living in St. Johns grandma and grandpa would come and visit, and I would beg and beg to spend the summer with them. Grandma would help me beg my mom as well. She really, well she at least pretended to really want me to come and live with them for the summer, but my mom would miss me too much she would say, so I would stand on the porch and cry as my grandparents drove away. Grandma spoiled me rotten. When we would go to Mesa, she would take me clothes shopping. She had good taste in clothes and so I would spend the whole time in the dressing room and she would gather things in her cart and hand me a bundle. She would sit right in front of the dressing room and I would come out and show her each item. She didn't every mind opening the door and exposing me to the people who might be in the room and she never minded talking loud enough for every one to hear. My favorite place to shop was Fashion Gal. I really felt like I had made it when we shopped there. I was the oldest granddaughter and so I got to shop at all of the cool shops. It was later in her life when she started to hit the thrift stores. I was so happy when grandma talked my mom into letting the older kids go to Lake Powell with them. We had a blast. I was so amazed that grandma had the best food to eat. She prepared everything at home and then froze it and then brought it to serve there at the lake. I'm talking lasagna and stew, and green chili etc. She was an amazing cook. I tried getting her to give me recipes, but she didn't' really have any, they were all in her head, so I would just go over, when I lived there and cook with her. There is where I learned the add, taste, add method. She loved for people to be comfortable when they were in her home. She was a very thoughtful hostess.
Oh my grandma, to me she seemed like a mama bear, don't mess with my kids kind of grandma!! She was fun and spunky and feisty and fiercely loyal. She was a cut above kind of woman. She was classy yet down to earth. She loved her children, grandchildren and great grandchildren. She prided herself in knowing all of their names, which is a lot of names. She loved talking about our ancestry, and wanted us to be aware of who we were and what stock we came from.
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