Sunday, December 31, 2023
In the late 1940s, my mother Carolyn (Elise’s sister), dad and my brother Jimmy and I spent a lot of time visiting at Grandpa and Grandma Harrington’s house and Jimmy and I also stayed with them in the summers while my mother worked, and Elise and her sister Dorothy would take us to the little wading pool and later, when we were older, to the big swimming pool near Grandma’s and entertained us so much.
Another memory was at Christmas every year Elise would always do her Christmas shopping on Christmas Eve and when our family arrived at Grandma’s on Christmas morning, Elise would have my brother and I wrap gifts to be ready in time for the family gathering at 11:00 a.m.—talk about pressure!
In 1952, our family moved first to Shawnee, OK, and then to Texas now having 2 sisters (Mary and Kathy), but we all still came home for Christmas and the gift wrapping tradition continued. My husband Bill and I married in 1961 and had 2 daughters(Valerie, 2.5 and Melanie, 5 mo.) when Don and Elise married in 1965 and she moved in with him (go figure), so, although we still came to Tulsa for Christmas , we no longer wrapped her gifts—maybe Don inherited that job.
In the next years we didn’t always get to Tulsa for Christmas, but Bill, our 2 daughters and now our son Kenneth got to Tulsa to visit and were hosted royally there as well as traveling with them to their cabin at Beaver Lake where we also got to spend time with their daughter. Katie— skiing, swimming and eating Elise’s good cooking.
She was a wonderful woman with so many talents she shared with so many people. We could write a whole book about her. We loved her and will miss her so much. We cherish these and so many more memories of wonderful times together. She made life fun!,
