103 Years Ago Today

103 years ago today Holly Mabel Tisdale Hopkins was born in Sherwood, Edens Valley Township, Ward County, North Dakota. She was born the day after her mother, Winnifred Kirkland Tisdale's birthday in a shack on the prairie where her father Fred Tisdale had a homestead claim. Lately I have begun doing a "Life Book" at Heritage Scrap where I am working. There is a fantabulous challenge series going on there that a person can join at any time and when completed have the life story of an individual. I've been working on Grandma.


Since we have been moving in and unpacking boxes in our new home, I have bee thinking of Grandma a lot. I find bits and pieces and reminders of her life and her love as I unpack my books... many of my cookbooks, recipes and information came from her, school resources, reading books and several Bibles. Every once in awhile I discover a new paper... little notes in her writing filled with things she wanted to remember... quotes, ideas, recipes, menus. Grandma Hopkins was definitely a Titus 2 woman in my life. I speak of her so often you might think I idolize her. I know all too well her human side, yet still I don't think I could overemphasize the value of the impact she made on the person I have become. I thank God for her!


3Older women likewise are to be reverent in their behavior, not malicious gossips nor enslaved to much wine, teaching what is good,
4so that they may encourage the young women to love their husbands, to love their children,
5to be sensible, pure, workers at home, kind, being subject to their own husbands, so that the word of God will not be dishonored. (Titus 2)






To honor Grandma's life, I thought I would share some layouts I have created recently. The one above tells a humorous story from Grandma's girlhood and was created using Artful Dreamer's beautifu altered art work at Heritage Scrap.

This will be an opening page and overview of Grandma's life. It was really fun to put together.

Here is Grandma and her SIL, our Aunt Vera Hopkins Rehbine when they graduated from high school, May 1924. The kit is Timeless from Ana Flor and is from Faith Sisters.

Last summer I was able to visit Grandma's house which is now a rental and owned by someone outside our family. While it was hard to see many of the changes, it is nice to see it taken care of. I created this from Morning In My Garden by Dielle Designs at Faith Sisters.

This layout shows 6 generations of my family and the heritage of faith they have given me. Grandma's wedding photo is on the left. The word art and kit come from Faith Sisters but I don't remember which designer, perhaps Eva Lindqvist.

Grandma's Bible is the background for this page with her wedding photo and elements from Digizines by Teri's Faith kit.

This one is so precious to me because it shows my little brother Danny helping Grandma snip beans. She always taught hands on and was never afraid of having children in her way. Kit from Jean Daugherty at Heritage Scrap.

Photo of my Grandma taken by my Grandpa during their courting years. Kit from Kate McClellan at Heritage Scrap.

This was another fun one to do, using more altered art work from Jen of Artful Dreamer at Heritage Scrap. This is Grandma with her little sister Dorothy.

And this is another one from Artful Dreamer using the lace/ribbon from Digizines by Teri. This is Grandma's graduation photo from May 1924 - 85 years ago! We were 6o years apart.

Thank you God for the awesome Grandma and all the memories.

79 Years Ago Today

These are my Grandparents and I believe this to be upon their engagement which was announced at Grandma's parents' Silver Wedding Anniversary January 1930. Here they are, young and starry eyed, though they had been "together" already for 9 years. I used Kate McClellan's A Fine Romance kit to create this layout. Alden and Holly met at the Everett Methodist Church, originally on Colby Avenue, the summer before their Sophomore year when their fathers became friends. Soon the families were going on outdoor adventures together and attended school together. Both Alden and Holly were first borns, committed to their relationship with God and to their families. They seemed a "perfect match" right from the start.

This is the right hand side of a two page layout which I created with components of kits from Bubbly Kori, Digizines by Teri and Veronica Spriggs, all available at Heritage Scrap. The Bible is Grandma's and I have used it on another layout I shared here, but these layouts are going into her Life Book, which is an ongoing challenge at Heritage Scrap (where I work and play). Grandma always told me about the stained glass window at the church which had this Psalm written on it. In her own writing, you can read her wedding date and she also wrote my Aunt's wedding date as she was also married at the same church. Sadly the church burnt down so I have never seen the window, but "Worship the Lord in the Beauty of Holiness" is engraved on my heart. This photo was their official wedding portrait. Grandma said that Grandpa requested her to take her glasses off for the pictures. For some reason that has always rubbed me the wrong way... maybe because I can't see without my glasses and I don't think Grandma could either!

This is the left hand side and the page also inclues a journal and flower cluster from Jean Daugherty. These are the photos that were taken by either Grandpa's father, George Hopkins or Grandma's father, Fred Tisdale. A teacher friend, Dorothy Pease, was Grandma's Maid of Honor and Clifton Tisdale, her brother, was Grandpa's best man. The reception was held in the garden of a family friend in Everett and the pair honeymooned in Skykomish, Washington.

I always think of Grandma in June because of her wedding date and because our birthdays were 9 days apart. She's been gone 7.5 years now, but I see touches of her in my life daily... in the books we use for school, in the recipes I cook with, in her Bible notes and notes she left in books here and there. It's like having a visit from an old friend when I come across her writing. Thank you Lord for giving me an awesome Grandma!

Happy Mother's Day

This is a layout I am making for the Lifebook Challenge at Heritage Scrap led by my friend Vicki of Victorian Rose Designs. A Life Book is a book that tells the story of one person's life in systematic order. We are working on it as a group and people can join in at any time. We'll probably run the challenge cyclically. Anyway, this page is the right hand side of a two page layout and I used a background paper from Veronica Spriggs and blended a childhood photo of my Grandma. The little shoes are from Cari Lopez' new christening kit. The rest of the elements come from Digizines by Teri and Jean Daugherty - I used pieces from several kits to get the look I want. The left hand side of this layout will have the journaling about my Grandma's birth and early childhood... I'm still working on it.

For Mother's Day, I want to share somethign I wrote for the Heritage Scrap newsletter, which ended up not getting done as planned due to wild fires in Santa Barbara where she lives. I've shared a lot about my Grandma Hopkins, so you may have read all this in my blog in the past if you've been around for awhile.

Happy Mother's Day to all the wonderful Moms and Ladies who step in with wonderful mothering cares even if they aren't moms themselves!

"Don't it always seem to go, That you don't know what you've got til it's gone. They paved paradise and put up a parking lot." Big Yellow Taxi by Joni Mitchell

There is a reason that they keep remaking that Joni Mitchell song - probably because most of us learn the hard way! In the last years of my Grandma Holly Hopkins' life, I began to appreciate her more and more. Though she lived nearly 96 years, it was not long enough for me.

Of course I loved her as a child, but I did not consider her my "fun" Grandma. Still some of my favorite memories are gatherings around her table for Thanksgiving and Mother's Day. She always had what she called "surprises" for us, which usually turned out to mean work - our own patch in the garden, building projects etc. She did have a way of turning chores into games like "beat the clock" We called her a perfectionist, but she denied this and called herself an "efficiency expert" instead. Because I was an awkward girl, I found myself to be what I considered the "brunt" of her efficiency efforts!

Just as our parents "grow wiser" as we age, so do grandparents. As a new bride living far from home, one of my layouts was chosen by Memory Makers for publication in their Quilted Scrapbooks book. The title of my layout was "Things I Learned From A Kindergarten Teacher", playing off the famous Robert Fulghum book All I Really Needed To Know I Learned In Kindergarten. It featured a photo of my Grandma in the middle of an Ohio Start quilt block. All around the block, I journaled the things that my Grandma Hopkins had either directly taught me or greatly influenced my interest - foremost my faith and study of Scripture, but also gardening, knitting, creativity, love of nature, reading... The list went on, amazingly long as tears streamed down my face. I realized that who I am now is a direct result of her immense involvement in my raising. It was then that I also realized that when seemed overly critical of me, she was correcting the things she disliked most in her self. Oddly, in spite of outward appearances being so different, I was so much like her!

Sadly for us, 2 weeks after meeting my 2.5 months old son (her first great grandchild), she went to sleep one night and arose in Heaven. She has not yet met her twin grand daughters, but they have met her. In addition to pictures and memories, she lives on in their school books (from her classroom), their toys, the food they eat (her recipes) and in their mom!

Tears come easily as I write now. I would love to share the every day joys of my family with her. But, I can only smile as I crack open one of her books and I see her writing, or a note slips out - voices, memories, words, guidance - from the past. Holly Tisdale Hopkins (1906-2002) was quite an accomplished woman in her lifetime, but her greatest contributions were intangible. Thank God for Mamas! And thank God for Grandmothers who forever change our lives.

Don't wait until paradise is paved over. Tell the woman of influence in your life, how much she means to you. Happy Mother's Day!

Life Book Challenge at Heritage Scrap

Life has been so crazy, I don't know if I have even mentioned that last month I took on a new position as Creative Team Leader at Heritage Scrap, which is a digital scrapbook store and community designed to serve the needs of heritage and vintage scrappers with special emphasis on telling the story!

My new friend Vicki has started the Life Book Challenge, which when finished will complete the entire life story of yourself or a person in your family. I chose to do mine on my Grandma Hopkins. Since I have shared so much about her on this blog, I decided I will post some of the pages here.

This page is going to be the cover or opening page of her book. I blended a photo of her taken midlife with a background paper from Jean Daugherty in the collaborative Old Tyme Rose kit, the wide lace band from Digizines by Teri's Misty Morning Kit and the narrow lace from Annie's Digital Things' Grandmother's Sewing Basket kit. Next up is the birth pages. I think this is going to be a lot of fun!

The Simple Woman's Daybook

Please visit The Simple Woman's Daybook on Mondays, to learn more and find links to other ladies who are participating.

FOR TODAY December 15, 2008...

Outside my window... it's pouring and blowing!

I am thinking... of my cousin Wendy who is celebrating her "first" 39th birthday today!

I am thankful for... my best friend Shelley who lets me sob on her shoulder whenever I need to! :o)

From the learning rooms... Mars 24/7! LOL

From the kitchen... Nothing exciting - I don't feel motivated!

I am wearing... My flannel nightie that has big pink roses all over it!

I am creating... scrapbook pages at my new scrapbooking blog

I am going... insane with a migraine!

I am reading... Reimagining the Church by Frank Viola and Right-Brained Children in a Left-Brained World by Jeffrey Freed and Laurie Parsons.

I am hoping... that God will miraculously heal Jack's cancer.

I am hearing... kids' voices

Around the house... somebody needs to clean up! LOL

One of my favorite things... silence!

A few plans for the rest of the week: starting to bake for the cookies that we take to the neighbors for their holidays.

Here is picture thought I am sharing...

My Grandma Hopkins's home. I journaled about visiting it this summer and how even though it was very familiar it was also very empty because Grandma made this house a home.