Memere DeLaBruere

My grandmother recently passed away after an 11 year battle with Alzheimer's disease.  I am thankful that I had the opportunity to go home and spend a few days with my family.  They helped to remind me about the amazing person that my grandmother was.  Memere was all that you could hope to have in a grandmother.  I was most impressed to remember (or perhaps learn) how strong her faith was.

I wanted to share some memories that I have of my time spent with Memere.   I've uploaded a few photos that mom had taken out of her albums.  (Sorry that the quality of some of the pictures isn't the best.)

Mom pulled this out of her albums at my request.  This was the first picture that I thought of when I thought I  of spending time with Memere. Since we lived in Texas/Oklahoma/Alabama/Massachusetts/Maryland and she lived in Vermont we didn't get to spend that much time with her, but the time that we spent together was special.  

I remember arriving at her house after a long road time.  She always had Schwann's frozen individual pizzas ready to fix for us.  I always think of her when I see a Schwann truck.  


I remember gardening with her.  She taught us to find the potato bugs and smash them up.  Oh and the beet greens!  This summer I had the strongest craving for some of her beet greens.  Someday I will have my own garden and plant beet seeds simply to eat the greens.  


Apparently she didn't know much about cooking when she got married, but after having raised 12 kids she was quite a cook by the time I came around.  Actually, I remember her for a lot of her baked goods.  It seemed like she always had a cookie tin with date squares or chocolate chip cookies on the kitchen counter.  Grandperes.  (Grandperes are made by pouring Vermont maple syrup in the bottom of a baking dish and topping with biscuit dough.  Bake.  Serve warm with vanilla syrup. Mmmmmm!)  I remember sitting on a picnic table in front of her house and her carrying out a hot pan of grandperes.


She had crystal sun catchers hanging in her windows.  She liked the rainbows that they cast around the house.  


She would walk us down the road to the library.  We would borrow books for bedtime stories and see the stuffed animals (as in, once living now stuffed animals).  The two headed calf always seemed the most interesting.  

They the biggest set of closets in their basement.  I remember going through them searching for going ice skates to use on a frozen puddle by the garage.  She also had a seemingly endless supply of cross-country skis.  I remember learning to ski at her house and going out to ski in the pastures behind her house.


I also remember her folding laundry and watching The Young and the Restless.

That is my Memere DeLaBruere in a nutshell (or a blog post if you want to be technical).  I'm thankful for the time that I got to spend with her.