Plans for 2017: Ancestor of the Month

Hello, 2017. My goal is simple: get acquainted with my ancestors one month at time. That's it. For January, I wanted to start with my paternal grandmother, Anna Carver Olsen. But before I tell you a bit about her, I have to tell you why I've chosen her to be my first "Ancestor of the Month". Reflecting on 2016, we have much to be thankful for but the last two months of the year sure were rough for me. In October, my husband and I were bee-bopping along, happy in our jobs when Bryan got headhunted for a job. We thought that only happened to computer programmers and engineers not middle-aged paramedics. It was a great match for his experience, education and skills as well as a pay raise. I was reluctant to even have him go for a new job because we've been through a few job changes since moving to Missouri in 2008 and I just didn't want to go through it again. We also knew right off the bat that the job would take Bryan out of town for an extended period of time. So, with faith, we took the job offer and on the last Sunday in October, I put my husband on a plane to Phoenix. Now, being the wife of a part-time firefighter, I'd had nights alone before when he would work a 24 hour shift. Occasionally, a 24 hour shift would turn into a 48 hour shift and I'd be on my own to take care of our kids and our home. But this was different. As hard as the months of November and December were for me to take care of our kids, our home and go to work, I couldn't have done it without the Lord and without the things I learned from my grandma. When I was 20, I left Missouri and moved to Farmington, Utah to live with her and go to school. In 1995, she'd been a widow for 19 years. She was a very independent woman. She was active in all kinds of activities through church, the community and the DUP (Daughters of the Utah Pioneers). A few months after moving in with her, my maternal great-grandmother passed away. The funeral was to be held in St. George, UT which is about 5 hours away from Farmington. I was all set to hop in my 1993 Nissan Sentra and head down to Utah's Dixie. My mother and her sisters just didn't want me to make that long drive alone. It was February 1996 and I had just turned 21. Why couldn't I drive 5 hours by myself?! I was annoyed and Grandma Olsen said something to me that I'll never forget: "If I did what people thought I should do, I'd never go anywhere!" She was right. After my grandpa died she traveled cross-country in her motorhome several times to come see us. Often she was by herself or had one of my younger cousins with her but she was pretty much on her own. So I drove to St. George. Alone. It was the first of many trips I would make to southern Utah to see my maternal grandparents. Looking at my grandmother's life, it was no wonder that she was so active and independent in her widowed years. Anna Carver Olsen was born September 12, 1924 in Preston, ID to John A Carver and Ellen LaVerne Olson. I'm sure she wasn't much different than any other child, but her upbringing was slightly different. Her father, an attorney (and later a federal judge), had been blind since childhood. She and her siblings had been taught all of their lives that there was never an excuse not to do something. She graduated high school at 16 and at 17 she enrolled as a freshman at Brigham Young University. In late 1943, she went to work as a secretary at the Judge Advocate's Office at Hill Field (now Hill Air Force Base, Clearfield, UT). In February 1944, she met my grandpa, Lee Evan Olsen at a dance on the base. They were married April 28, 1944 in the LDS Salt Lake Temple. They had four children. Later, she went back to college and earned her Bachelor's Degree in Education. She and my grandpa taught in the Davis County, UT school district for many years. She was the happiest, most positive person I've ever known. She never met a stranger in her life. She was friendly and talked to everyone. EVERYONE. No matter where she went, from California to Washington D.C. (where she and grandpa served an LDS mission in 1981 at the Washington D.C. Temple visitor's center), she always managed to find someone from Idaho. In her later years she suffered a couple of strokes and struggled with dementia. In 2004, when she went into an assisted living home, we gave her a jar of marbles so that if anyone asked if she had lost her marbles she could show them that she knew right where they were. She would often say, "there's nothing wrong with me, I'm just losing my mind." Even in her assisted living facility, she found ways to stay busy and social. She pushed her walker out to the driveway everyday to get the mail and then distributed it to the residents. She rejoined my grandfather and left this earthly existence on December 15, 2007. I miss her dearly but she is always with me. It is because of her strength, her independence, her positive attitude and her faith that I was able to make it through the last months of 2016. The most important thing that I learned from her is that you go and do; you don't sit and stew. I learned so much from her that the only thing I could think to do to honor was name my daughter after her. I pray that I can pass her legacy on to my own children and teach them the way she taught me.