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Sharon Kay Cullers McChrystal 3/1/2003:
My mother's family had a habit of never going by the names they were given. My mother was named Kathryn Waller and went by Kay and Kitty. When she married my father and applied for a passport in 1952, she was told she had to have two first names so she chose Mary. Officially she became Mary, but it was never a name she used except for legal purposes.
My mother died on January 1, 2003 and my father had her cremated. He wanted to bury her ashes in her mother's plot ( Carpinteria Cemetery, Carpinteria Santa Barbara County CA) and so we did on 3/17/2003. This is the eulogy I wrote for her:
We have all been part of this family for many years and each of us has our memories. We know mom was a woman of great inner strength who grew up in poverty, a poverty so abject that they would rent their beds out for people to sleep in during the day, The family made their homes in abandoned houses they wallpapered with newspapers for insulation. What some people here might not know is she was an honor roll student in high school, captain of the state championship basketball team and editor of the high school paper. The first car she bought was a symbol of what she had achieved and her independence. It is why she was adamant about buying a car for my brother and me when she inherited Aunt Ruth's money.
She married, had her family and grandchildren and moved more times then anyone could imagine. She was an incredible hostess. She would plan elaborate thematic dinner parties, even going so far as to make her own fortune cookies She taught me enduring values always reminding me I wasn't better then anyone else and to treat people fairly and of course never to leave the house without wearing clean underwear!!!
Family above all was everything to her. My mother, who hated to write with a passion, wrote me a 4-page letter every week for the 4 years I was away at college. I have kept them all. In one of her letters from 1970 she was responding to my agonizing about the meaning of life and what I should do with my life.:
"You see we aren't are alike. I could argue all day about the "good life" because I feel that I have found my happiness with a husband to love and cherish me and my home and children. To me that has been my "calling", to be as a good wife and mother as I had the ability to be."
And she was.
I read these words, ones I felt she would have said:
Weep not for me though I am gone
Into that gentle night
Grieve if you will, but not for long
Upon my soul's sweet flight
I am at peace, my soul's at rest
There is no need for tears.
For with your love I was so blessed
For all those many years.
There is no pain, I suffer not,
The fear now is all gone.
Put now these things out of your thoughts,
In your memory I live on.
Remember not my fight for breath
Remember not the strife
Please do not dwell upon my death,
But celebrate my life.
Her grandchildren, Mark and Lynne contributed these thoughts:
From Lynne:
I will always remember Grandmother as a thoughtful and loving woman. I knew that every time we visited, there would be a bowl of snickerdoodles waiting on the
counter because she knew that they were my favorite cookie. She called me
"Lynney" in a special way that no one else can imitate, and during my first year
away at Notre Dame, she took the time to write me a note and send me a card even though her handwriting was shaky. She loved me and she told me that she was proud of me, and I miss her dearly.
From Mark:
I think that I am very fortunate to have had a grandmother who always did her best to take care of her grand kids. I can remember her taking care of me from several camping trips to always having chocolate chip cookies and usually humoring me with a spaghetti dinner when I visited. She also liked my curly hair, which was nice. She picked up the qualities that made us unique and supported us in her own way. I will miss her and am glad to have had her in my life.
In my mother's container that contained her ashes I put the little football charm, she had been given by Freddy, her fiancee who was killed in the last battle of the Philippines. He always held a special place in her heart.
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1921 - 2003 (81 years)
