Grandma of the Great Cannon

On September 28th my Grandmother Cannon passed away. She was and is such a wonderful woman, I feel truly blessed and honored to be a part of her legacy.

*Much of this blog post was actually written by my sister Libby that I borrowed from her blog. She worded so much of the same feelings I have in ways I never could*

The viewing was special.  There was a program with the cousins and my grandmother's kids at 5ish.  Each child stood up and shared a 1-2 minute thing about Grandma. My dad said she was the smartest person he ever knew, even smarter than anyone in that room, which is saying a lot.  My uncle George and his son were both #1 in medical school at the U of U, and all of my dad's brothers were doctors or lawyers or had an MBA.  Anyway, and my grandma was the smartest one.  We were reminded how she was Valedictorian at BYU when she graduated.  It was just so neat. Then cousins could share a neat story about my grandma.  One that stood out to me was a story about my cousin Eric having a water gun fight with all his friends on the field of grass in front of my grandma's house.  They quickly ran out of water and since they were right by my grandparents house, he said they could fill up their guns at my grandparents house.  Then while the kids were all playing on their front lawn, probably trampling flowers and one kid was climbing a tree, my grandparents came home.  Suddenly it dawned on Eric that this may not have been a good idea to not ask for permission first, but my grandparents were so excited to have his friends over.  Then minutes later my grandma and grandpa had brought root beer floats out for everyone to share.  That was my grandparents.

My grandpa served on the 1st Quorum of the Seventy when I was a little girl. He and my grandma served missions in the Philippines and Hong Kong during this time. I remember going to visit them in Hong Kong the summer between my 1st and 2nd grade year. My grandparents also served as the Salt Lake Temple President and Matron for 3 years. So for both of my grandparents' viewings there was a special time set aside for the General Authorities to attend. Elder Oaks, Elder Perry, Elder Nelson of the Twelve Apostles came. President Uchtodorf of the First Presidency came. Elder Bowen of the 70 came. Unfortunately I missed all of them since I was in the kiddie room wrangling Tanner.

All of the children, grandchildren, great grandchildren and spouses.

All children and their spouses.

During the actual funeral, my cousins Christine and Cori spoke, along with my Aunt Mary and Uncle George. Elder Zwick got a note with permission to leave a General Authority training to come and speak as well.  It was the day before General Conference, so they were all very busy. But he said that there was not anywhere else he would want to be than with our family honoring our sweet grandmother. It was so neat to hear everyone's thoughts.  My favorite story that my cousin Christine shared was how she bought these cheap plastic bracelets for my grandma one year for a birthday because that's all she could afford.  Christine said how she would see my grandma wearing those bracelets all the time, and they were probably pretty ugly.  My cousin Cori shared a story of when she lost the election for something at Highland high school and her parents were out of town, my grandma was at her door step and let her cry in her lap (or maybe she called on the phone.)  My Uncle George said how my grandma was so smart and could have done anything in this world, but she chose to be his mother.  That was really sweet. Elder Zwick shared some stories of my Grandparents from their mission and shared how they were some of the finest people he's ever known. 

There was also a musical number where all of the grandchildren and great grandchildren sang I am a Child of God. I remember as we were all walking up to the stand it seemed the entire chapel emptied because there are so many of us. While singing, I was not able to keep the tears from flowing and I had to lip sync almost the entire song. I don't know what it is about that song but it is very hard for me not to cry while singing it. Even when I have sang it to Tanner at night I have gotten choked up. 

(I don't know why these pictures won't rotate, sorry!)

After the funeral, we walked through my Grandma Cannon's house for one last time and took a ton of pictures.  It was really sweet to walk through with my brother, sisters, and the baby girls.  We had such a wonderful time thinking of all memories, and then it was time to move on.

Sorry that many of the pictures are blurry. My camera phone is hard to focus indoors.

I believe this was from when they lived in England.

The family tree wall.

from the other side

Many memories in this backyard and on that swing set.

The basement.

This wall is a big cork board filled with family pictures.

This was the second kitchen downstairs. I remember doing crafts in this room with my grandma when I was little.

I will always remember this wallpaper in the downstairs bathroom!

Isabel fell asleep on Becky's back. So cute!

The old player piano.

All of those mugs have all the names of my grandparents, dad and aunts and uncles on them.

Those plates and mugs have been on the wall in the kitchen for as long as I can remember.

We would have races sliding down those stairs as little kids. It's amazing no one ever got hurt.

We found some amazing treasures in their home. This was Heber J. Grant's hymn book.

He would mimic people's signatures. These are the signatures of the people that wrote the hymns.

Book of Mormon from 1866. Both this and the hymn book have now been donated to the LDS museum.

These chairs have been out on their front porch for probably longer than I've been alive.