This past week in Memphis was a whirlwind. It was a very emotional and busy week. We were planning, preparing, cleaning, cooking, organizing and of course, still playing with the boys!
I was able to go with my mom to help her plan the funeral. My grandfather had purchased a package at the funeral home years ago that made the process much "easier". The funeral turned out so beautiful, my mom had beautiful pictures all over and several sweet people sent beautiful flowers. My mom spoke during the funeral service and she did an AWESOME job - I have posted her speech after the pictures if you would like to read it, you can learn a little more about my sweet Grandmother Rose. Colt and Allison also read scripture at the graveside and did a good job too! The service was very beautiful, but very sad and hard for me. I am going to miss her and selfishly wish she was still here... I especially wish she was still here for my grandfather. She was a big part of my life and brought a lot of joy and laughter to it!
It was nice to see our family and friends and I want to say thank you to everyone who came, called, emailed or texted. We also appreciate all of your prayers, they were definitely felt! I also want to give few special shout outs to Colt, my mom's friends, Jamie and Jenna and Colt's parents who drove from Birmingham to be with us, to help with the boys, and did so much more.
Michele gave Parker a fun bubble bath time!
Grandaddy Jere and Parker
Uncle Taylor, Mom and Uncle Jere - Siblings
Aunt Tisha and Uncle Taylor
Pictures that were up at the funeral home
Mimi and Beckett
Carolyn, Dwight, (Cousins) Beckett, Aunt Tisha and Mom
Aunt Tisha and Beckett
Brooke (a friend of my mom's) and Parker
(Parker called her 'surprise' all weekend - it was so cute)
Grandaddy and his children
Mom, Ashley and Grandaddy
Joseph, Allison, Allie and Ryan
Joseph and Allison
My Mom's letter to honor my Grandmother Rose:
I am Sally the youngest of Rose and Jere’s three children. I have been blessed to be born into a family that has so much love to give. The five of us are a bunch of tender hearted souls. I want you to see my father Jere and my brothers Jere and Taylor. What a lucky girl I am to know these fine men. They might not be perfect, but each of these guys, my family, love their wives and I am honored to know them, to love them and to be loved by them. My parents were married for 25 years, I can without a doubt tell you that my daddy never stopped loving and caring for my mom in everyway. He understood her like most couldn’t, and I didn’t until this past year. You see God had mercy on me. He gave me the time and opportunity to see our mom in a new light, to see our mom for exactly who she is.
Our mom, Rose, is God’s precious daughter. She is his special treasure and the apple of His eye. As most of you know our mom is a princess. She would never tell you that, but mom had a way about her that had just about everybody eating out of her hands! I never met anyone who didn’t love our mom and think she was just about the “sweetest thing.” I’d always think, she is sweet alright, but you don’t have to live with her!
As most of you also know our mom had a lot of difficulty, confusion and strife in her earthly life. That was caused by the hands of a horrible person when she was just a small child. Mother didn’t let that stop her, she never stopped moving forward. She managed to raise three beautiful children and enjoy life to the best of her ability.
I want to tell you just a little bit about her life:
Our mom, Rose Parker Voegeli, also known as Momma, Mother, Rose, Rosie, Grandmother Rose, Grandma and my Aunt Gertrude often referred to her as “Whistle-britches,” whatever that means. I think she was referring to mom’s often spunky personality. Aunt Gertrude would also talk about how mom could Sha Shey into a room and something about her “tail-feathers!” Some how mom could always enter a room and steal the show, one way or another she could do that!
Mom was born on June 18, 1927, in Carbondale, IL. Her father, Hartwell Parker worked for the railroad. Her Mother Louise Wootten Parker, we called her Weezie, owned a photography studio. She had one older sister, Jayne. All three of them went home before her. I can just imagine how they welcomed mom when she arrived. Together Weezie, Jayne and mom were such cut ups! I can hear their laughter now! I can just see them getting dressed up, high heals, lots of lipstick, drinking a hot totty and headed to the cotillion! While we sit back listening to their squeals of laughter, excitement and joy as they exit for the party! Those women loved each other and loved to have a good time! They were all really smart, but when they were together you wouldn’t think they had a brain between them.
You are going to hear a lot about lipstick today. Mom never went anywhere without her lipstick on, no kidding, she didn’t even go into the bathroom without it on and it was usually bright red. (After I had finished writing this, Jamie a friend of Ashley's that she cheered with at Alabama, came by the house to see us. Jamie had met mother a hand full of times. She walked in with four pink bags one each for my girls and I. Do you know what was in them? Lipstick for each of us! Even Jamie who didn't spend that much time with mother knew how important her lipstick was to her!)
Besides her three children, mom has five grandchildren, Ashley, Tessa, Trenton, Allison and Michele. I can’t leave out two furry grandchildren, Homer who is playing with mom now and Lilly who is giving her parents a run for their money at the present. Her great-grandchildren are Parker, who is named after mom’s maiden name and Beckett. I have to brag about them because they have stolen their Mimi’s heart and I’m pretty sure their Pop’s, Russell Horne’s, as well. Colt is their dad and a very fine Christian young man married to Ashley.
That is a complete list of our immediate family. My dad likes to say that it is because of mom, “Rosie you started all this!” Of course, I think he might have played a role in all this too!
Mom was really intelligent; you might not have recognized that by just a social visit with her because she was full of all the gracious fluff most Southern women acquire. If you spent anytime with her, she had a lot of depth and insight about many subjects, politics would not have been one of them. She could spell anything; she was like a walking dictionary.
Mom didn’t graduate from High School; she went to “Finishing School.” I used to think what the heck was that? Don’t you know she was mortified when she finally gives birth to a girl child and out comes me, “tom-girl Sally,” the one who loved to climb trees and a lost monkey gravitated to. I remember begging for a pair of blue jeans. I think I was ten before she finally caved. Our mom was all female, damsel in distress, too faint to carry on. I think about all her shenanigans and it just cracks me up.
When my brothers and I were growing up mother was a great cook. As she got older, she let us do the cooking. I think that was part of her princess mentality, she had done her part feeding us until we were mature enough for her to pass that duty on. She could set the most beautiful table, would plan our holiday meals days in advance. I remember the dining room being ready days early before whatever occasion was coming. It really built my anticipation and made me excited. Some of my fondest memories are of all our family sitting around the dining room table eating. She wore an apron while she cooked and put the food on the table. I never wear an apron.
Our home was pretty, she could decorate well and our mom was the only mom I knew that could go outside in her yard, cut up the bushes, grab a vase and make just gorgeous floral arrangements. She had a real gift that way. We always had live greenery or flowers floating in water in our house.
She knew how to dress and had the most expensive taste. My dad can attest to that. Today my girls and I are wearing some of her old costume jewelry. My purse and gloves are hers and are probably 40 years old. I always said my mom dressed way past the nine’s.
She loved to give gifts all the time to her friends and neighbors. She loved to shop and we would be out and she would see something and say, “that looks just like Betty or Francis,” and buy it for them, no special occasion, just because she loved to give.
Does “Finishing School” teach you all these things? I don’t think so, I think these were momma’s gifts from God and she shared them with all of us.
As she got older she had a lot of hospital visits. She never had a surgery that I know of and never broke a bone. But in her latter years, she stood at deaths door more than a couple of times. She was a strong woman. The doctors would say we don’t think she is going to make it. I’d tell them you don’t know my momma, she is the healthiest sick person I know. I always said my mom had nine lives.
Mom loved men and she was so partial to her boys! That is how we refer to my brothers, Jere and Taylor, The Boys. They are almost senior citizens (I’m stretching that, they are, I think!) and we still call the, “The Boys.”
Two times while in ICU, knocking on deaths door, breathing tube and all, a male doctor and another time a male nurse walked into her room, mom would cut her eyes at me or Ashley, point to her lipstick on her bedside table, point to us and then encircle her lips with her finger for us to apply her lipstick before they got any closer. We laugh about this all the time.I’ll tell you about her way of talking. Mother was Southern to the core, her speech dripped of sweetness. She used words like, little goose, precious, darling with and h in it. I can’t do her justice, but I will try, dahlin, for Jere she said Jeree, she called my brother Taylor her “little chauffeur” and when he grew up he spent about ten years doing exactly that. She referred to my brother Jere as Jege. I have no idea where that came from!
Her faith was obvious; she studied God’s word all the time. When she was going through difficulties she would always plan another baptism. We’d laugh and say oh no, mom’s gonna be baptized again. Mom you really don’t have to do that!
Mom was a precious beautiful woman with struggles like we all have, but her’s were tough, but she persevered.
There is a verse I really love and it says that God makes everything beautiful in its time. Our mom was beautiful inside and out. He made my relationship with her beautiful in His time. I am humbled and grateful.
I got to spend the last two hours of her life alone with her. She was in a coma, I talked to her about everything I hadn’t before, she knows all my secrets. I put her make-up on and sang a song to her by Judy Garland, not intentionally, it just happened. Mom loved music and loved Judy Garland. I said Mom your going to get to meet Judy Garland in heaven! How awesome is that! Mom is going to be excited to meet Jesus, but Judy Garland is going to run a close 2nd! I told her that the Bible say there is an angel that goes before us to guard us on our way, maybe she could ask my angel if mom could share in my protection. Then I read her six or seven of my written prayers. After I finished the last one, I looked at her and she left. She went home to be with Jesus. Again, I am humbled and grateful, for every good thing he has done for me. My mom is in the Kingdom now where everything is perfect. What more could I ask for. We are all going to miss her, she made our life beautiful!
