Recipes for Living Rayola Andrew

I was born on a rice farm in Wharton County, Texas. I had one older sister, Agnes. I was named by my Aunt Grace who combined the names of my father and mother-Ray and Golda.

We moved to a farm north of Houston, Texas, where Dad milked cows and had a delivery route. Agnes and I went along and always had ice cream cones. My favorite was chocolate and one day they gave me vanilla. I threw it on the floor. I don't remember getting a spanking but I should have.

We moved from there farther north, where Dad had a truck farm, taking the vegetables to a city market. While we lived there, we went through a cyclone. Without facilities we have now for warnings, we didn't really know it was coming until it was upon us. Mother grabbed a hen and baby chickens and put them in the outhouse. We were all inside and all of a sudden, Mother said, "The house moved." Dad was sure it hadn't, but the storm lifted the three-room house over a new barbed wire fence and set it down in front of the garage. Dad had to maneuver the Model T Ford to get it out of the garage.

What a freak of nature those storms are. The milk in the ice box didn't spill, or the water out of the pail; but for days we picked up boards from the outhouse, which was demolished and the chickens were killed.

Dad had one horse that he let go out on the prairie and Agnes and I had to go get it. I was afraid of snakes and didn't like that job. There was a drainage ditch where she and I used to fish for crawfish with a string, a bent pin and fat meat. Mother would let us go across the prairie to the Little York store and one day our errand was to get the stove's kerosene tank refilled. This was an attachment that fit on the cook stove. It had glass sides so that the level of kerosene was visible. On that trip, we decided to take a different way going back. It took us across a little bridge. Agnes was carrying the tank, got too close to the concrete side of the bridge and the glass broke. She blamed me, I suppose because I persuaded her to go that way. I might have, because the way we had come was past a Catholic cemetery and lights were kept burning on some of the graves. That was scary!

My dad's parents lived in Iowa and Mother made us several pretty little dresses when we decided to come to visit them. Three families started out in our Model T cars. One was going to visit relatives in Bethany, Missouri; the other got lost. We found out later that they had returned to Houston and never did make it to Iowa. I particularly remember one part of that trip when we crossed the Red River. We went over something like a swinging bridge and the boards were right against the water!

We visited Dad's parents, brothers and a sister. I remember going to see his sister. We had to go up such a steep hill that the car couldn't make it, so Dad turned the car around and backed up the hill.

The family persuaded Dad that we should move to Iowa, so that fall we moved back to live with Grandpa Boles. During that trip, in 1927, we camped in city parks. I particularly remember the trip from Bethany to Iowa when it rained terrifically hard. Model T's had a protective canvas top with small "windows" of isinglass. The dictionary defines this as a "transparent, almost pure gelatin prepared from the air bladder of certain fishes, as the sturgeon." That would explain why we could barely see out but we knew that the rain, combined with the fact that Dad was driving on mud roads, was reason to wonder if we would make it. Mother simply said, "Be quiet'', and Agnes and I didn't say a word the whole way.

We lived with Grandpa Boles until March of the following year, when we moved to the Ramsey farm and lived there for two years, moved to Uncle Will's farm for four years, and the Foland farm for five years.

Agnes and I started to school at the Brick country school, and especially Agnes was academically ahead of the other children. In Texas a child had to be seven-years-of-age to start. I was only five when Agnes started and was allowed to go only because they wanted Mother to cook. I really didn't "go to school" They let me do whatever I wanted to. I could be with Mother, play outdoors, or whatever. It wasn't a good start.

The farms were also all around the Brick school, so we didn't have to change until we passed 8th grade and went to Grand River to high school Agnes graduated in 1938, I in 1939.

Ralph Andrew was a senior when I was a freshman. He said I was the cutest girl in the freshman class. That was hard for me to believe, but I was glad he thought so. On my 16th birthday, he gave me candy in a heart-shaped box. I still have the box.

He asked me out before I had graduated, but the folks thought I was too young. We were married on July 29, 1939, and lived in a little house near his parents' home. In March we bought 120 acres five miles south of Grand River and moved there.

One day he had a call from the draft board. He and his brother, Vernon, were sent to Alaska to work on the Alcan Highway. I was expecting Randall at the time. Agnes lived with me all the time Ralph was gone. When the night came for me to go to the hospital, there was a bad storm. Ralph's father came and we made it to the hospital in Osceola. Randall was born at 12:00 noon, August 6, 1942. Agnes wrote to Ralph and he had dreamed that very night that he had a son.

Ralph and Vernon returned from Alaska in November. When Ralph looked at Randall, he said, "I didn't think he could be that pretty." They returned to Alaska in the spring. My time was spent on taking care of our baby and fixing up the house so that it would look nice when Ralph returned. My aunt helped me paper and paint all the walls of the house.

We were elated the following summer that I was pregnant again. Dr. Harken had told us that he didn't think we would ever be able to have children, and was very surprised when Randall came. But it was with this second pregnancy that trouble started. For four months I was threatened with miscarriage. I spent a week in Dr. Harken's hospital with the foot of my bed raised. I had a roommate who was so popular that I thought every person in town visited her, and every one of them bumped my bed. Soon after that Dr. Harken decided on surgery to remove the fetus.

No one told me that depression followed such an operation. While everybody kept telling me that I was all right, I sank into a deep black hole and it almost claimed my life. I felt that I should have been warned. While in the hospital, although I was alone in the room, I distinctly heard a voice say, "Lo, I am with you always." Later I found, in a meditation in the Daily Word of December, 1981, "God knows the way and that God is within us, our guide, our light, our help. If ever we feel afraid, let us remember that we are always in the protecting shelter of God's love."

Finally, I returned to normal life, but I feel as though I have gone through two serious illnesses that I should not have had to go through-in addition to that one, more recently, I believe, that if I had been monitored properly after my first heart attack, I would not have had to go through by-pass surgery, which led to my stroke. I certainly thought I was eating low-fat food and exercising as they had told me.

Ralph's cousin, Myles, returned from service and both he and Agnes spent the summer with us. They were married October 3, 1946. Agnes taught school and Myles went back to South Dakota. He came for her the following spring.

Ralph and Vernon joined their dad in doing conservation work. Mr. Henningson of Gibbs-Cook approached them to go into road construction. There followed a hard time when, in 1953, Ralph's mother died of a stroke. As the family gathered, Ralph looked over at Vernon who suddenly fell back and he, too, was dead, at age 38. They held a double funeral. Ralph bought Vernon's share of the business and continued in road construction. We decided to move to Osceola in 1958.

In 1960 Ralph sold the construction equipment, keeping one dragline, planning to do sub contract work of installing drainage pipe, which proved to be a good decision. He did quite a bit of work on-l-35 and I-29. After his sale, he invented and obtained a patent for a pipe bedding machine.

Randall was 14 when he began working with Ralph. He had gone to Grand River to school, then to Clarke Community High School when we moved. He graduated in 1960. He was drafted into military service on March 4, 1964, being sent first to Fort Leonard Wood, Missouri, on to Fort Benning in Columbus, Georgia and to Fort Hood, in Texas before being sent to Viet Nam to serve in the engineering corps.

Randall was discharged February 21, 1966. He flew into California and, because of crossing the International Date Line, arrived an hour before he left Vietnam. He flew on to Des Moines and I literally felt the weight lift off my shoulders when he stepped off the plane. He resumed working for Ralph. In March, 1979, Ralph sold the business to Randall. One day I was worrying about the job he was doing, which at that time was deep excavation and I was concerned about a cave in, and he said, "You don't need to worry about that. Dad taught me how to do this."

In March, 1976, Ralph had a heart attack and was in the hospital. I thought we'd lost him. At one point, he slumped down and the nurse called, "We've got to move!" and they did. Whenever he was hospitalized, I stayed with him. They released him but I had to take him right back because he had developed a blood clot on his lungs. He could hardly breathe and every breath he took was extremely painful.

Mother was in frail health when Ralph was so ill. Agnes took her to live with her in July, 1976; and in December, 1979, I met them in Sioux City and brought Mom home with me. I treasure the three weeks we had together before I had to take her to Clarke County Hospital. She had a severe stroke and died December 10, 1981. There was so much sorrow in those few years!

In June, 1976, Ralph was diagnosed with multiple melanoma. He took chemo and some radiation and, in September, we went to Maine with Mansel and Wanda Smith. He had never wanted to go east to deal with all the traffic, but he said, "I want to take you east. You have always wanted to go there." He sent for a route recommendation from AAA (American Automobile Association), and about that time we received a letter from Mansel and Wanda saying they wanted to take a trip. They had in mind going to Colorado but I wrote back and told them our plans, inviting them to join us.

Ralph's back hurt him severely during the entire trip. When we got back, I took him to Methodist Hospital in Des Moines where they gave him radiation, which relieved some of thepain. It was typical of him that, as we were coming home after the cancer biopsy, instead of saying, ''Why me?” he said, "I should think why not me? When one out of four has cancer, I don't know why I need to feel I am too privileged to get it."

In March, 1979, I took Ralph back to Iowa Methodist with phlebitis. They put a cot in his room and I stayed with him. I took him back to the hospital, July 5, 1979, and spent the first night on two chairs and a pillow. I was grateful to a nurse who took a lunch time to look through the hospital to find a cot that was not being used. That gave me a bed in order that I could be right there with Ralph. One day when Dorothy, Ralph's sister, was visiting she said, "I don't know how you stand staying here." I replied, "Ralph is with me here. How could I be anywhere else? Ralph would rather I do things for him than the nurses." There was a time when he said, "You can take care of me, but who will take care of you?" I replied, "There will be a way."

Ralph had received radiation and· chemo treatments, and his pain was so severe that they kept increasing the pain medication. A nurse told me they had never given that much. After increasing it again, I was told that he could die any time. This word spread throughout the floor and everyone reached out to help me-nurses, patients, everyone. There was a 90-year-old lady from Grinnell taking radiation at the hospital. She liked me to walk around the floor with her and offered to stay with Ralph if I wanted to go somewhere.

A lady from Storm Lake, who had been a long-time teacher, was in the hospital taking radiation. She gave me a Guidepost that helped so much. One evening as I sat trying to read, the words ran together but one sentence stood out-a verse from the book of Deuteronomy, "The eternal God is your dwelling place, and underneath are the everlasting arms" (33:27 RSV). This is a comfort to me today.

At 3:00p.m.on September 10, 1979, Ralph went to his heavenly home. Pauline Andrew was with me and brought me home. Randall came soon. He told me that one Saturday when he stayed with Ralph, he had the chance to tell him how much he loved him and to thank him for all he had taught him. Rev. Dick Eis visited regularly. He conducted the funeral in the Osceola United Methodist Church and in the obituary used a poem:

In "green pastures?" Not always; sometimes He
Who knowest best, in kindness leadeth me
In weary ways, where heavy shadows be.
Out of the sunshine, warm and soft and bright,
Out of the sunshine into darkest night,
I oft would faint with sorrows and affright,
Only for this: I know He holds my hand;
so, whether led in green or desert land,
I trust, although I may not understand.
Beside "still waters"? No, not always so; oft
times the heavy tempests ‘round me blow, and
o’er my soul the waves and billows go. But
when the storms beat loudest, and I cry Aloud
for help, the Master standeth by,
And whispers to my soul, "Lo, it is I."
Above the tempest wild I hear Him say:
''Beyond this darkness lies the perfect day;
In every path of thine I lead the way."
So whether on the hill-tops high and fair
I dwell, or in the sunless valleys where
The shadows lie, what matter? He is there.
And more than this; where'er the pathway lead,
He gives to me no helpless, broken reed,
But His own hand, sufficient for my need.

Ralph was buried in the Grand River cemetery. Each year on our anniversary, July 29, I try to take roses to his grave. On our 43rd anniversary, I was coming back from the grave to my car when, standing by a tall tombstone, I saw an angel! That night and for several nights afterward I saw that same angel, and the angel had Ralph's arms. I think of the verses: "I bless the Lord who gives me council; in the night also my heart instructs me." "The angel encamps around those who fear him, and delivers them. 0 taste and see that the Lord is good; happy are those who take refuge in him" (Ps. 16:7; 34:8). Did all of that tell me that Ralph was my guardian? angel who would be looking after me?

During the time Ralph was sick, we had time to talk about a lot of things. One day in despair, I said, "I don't know whatever I'll do, Ralph." He said, "You will do just fine. You can do whatever you want to do. You can take some tours." I did that. I went to Alaska in 1981 and on several others which have taken me to all 50 states and 70 countries. The most precious one was when I went to Israel, also in 1981, because Randall went with me. When I talked about the possibility of going, Linda suggested the idea.

The church has meant a lot to me throughout my life. Agnes and I had walked two miles to Sunday school at the Mt. Zion Christian Church; and I joined the Grand River United Methodist Church in 1953, when we lived in that area. Later I served there as president of W.S.C.S. (Women's Society of Christian Service) and was the church treasurer. At the Osceola UMC I have chaired the prayer chain and Quilting Ladies Organization.

It was a sad day when Agnes died, August 30, 1992. All of my family traveled to South Dakota for her funeral. It was a great loss for all of us. There are still many times when I think, "I'll ask Agnes about that." I missed very much going to South Dakota this spring. I usually drove up each year to spend a week or two. Sister-in-law Dorothy usually went with me because, at that time, her son also lived in Rapids City. Dorothy died of cancer in January, 1998.

I had my first heart attack in 1992 and on April 19, 1996, I had triple by-pass heart surgery. The "everlasting arms" and the song, "Standing on the Promises" took me through that ordeal. I was dismissed five days later and had a light stroke on my way out of the hospital. I was returned to ICU (intensive care unit). When I was released in May, 1996, I came to Evelyn's
Guest Home and have been here ever since. Although I long to be in my home, driving my car, I have been blessed with good care, friends and family.

Randall married Linda Morris April 31, 1972, and Ralph and I had the daughter we always wanted, along with two grandchildren, Richard and Rodney, whom Randall adopted. Randall and Linda added to the family Clayton and Jeana.

Richard and Nicki now have Taylor and Sara. One of the nicest things a great grandmother can hear was something my 4-year-old great-grandson said. One day Taylor walked by me and stopped to say, "I like you!"

Rodney and Andrea have Haley and Sydney-all of these are loving, delightful children. Ralph would have enjoyed them so much, as he did his grandchildren.

Clay and Jodi were married October 10, 1997, and lived in my house until their new house was finished. Jeana is taking nurses' training at the University of Iowa. She is so special. Ralph would have been so proud of her that he wouldn't have been able to button his shirt! One time, when Ralph went for a treatment, the nurse had her little daughter with her. Her mother had aspirations for her to become a nurse, and had bought her a toy stethoscope. Ralph wanted to get one for Jeana because he hoped she would become a nurse. Jeana needed a stethoscope this year, so I gave her one for Christmas. She addresses her letters, "Grandma Andrew."

Since Ralph’s death I have coped by being thankful for what was instead of what could have been. Another writing that speaks to me is from the Daily Word of January, 1982: "There are happenings in life that seem beyond our understanding. While we cannot always understand, we can always trust in God's omnipresent love and care for all His children." Amen.

"I AM WITH YOU, ALWAYS" Grace E. Easley

"I am with you always,
never have a fear,
When you feel the most alone,
Remember I am here.
I have cried as you have cried,
Many times before,
I have had a broken heart,
Yes, and so much more.
I have known betrayal,
Of the cruelest kind,
So sweep away the bitterness,
and put it from your mind.
And let us walk together,
through the twilight's glow,
for I have felt as you do now,
Dear child, I know ... I know.
I am with you always,
you are not alone,
My love for you is endless,
because you are my own,
And through your darkest hours,
you will find me near,
Nor will your crosses ever be,
... Too great for you to bear."

SEARCHING Clayton G. Moseley

I have traveled many highways
As I sought to find my way.
I have wandered many byways
But have only found dismay.
I have squandered countless hours,
Turning wrong instead of right.
I have failed to see the flowers
Which God made for my delight.
Like a horse equipped with blinders
I have passed the street called Straight,
nor have heeded "God'sreminders"
Which would lead me to His "gate."
Then one night I had a vision
When "a small, still voice" did speak,
and I made a firm decision
Evermore His Will to seek.
Now my course His Will has charted
long that "straight and narrow way."
I shall ever walk lighthearted
As I seek, and love and pray.

If only I could share with you
The joy He brings to me,
For He has bound His heart to mine
To beat in harmony.
Because I've learned to follow Him
In everything He asks,
He casts away my little fears
Makes easy all my tasks.
I've learned from Him what I must know
To live and share each day,
The gifts of faith and hope and love
He yearns to give away.
He talks with me, and sits with me
Near waters that are still,
He asks of me to bring Him souls
To carry out His will.

GOD ANSWERS PRAYER
Salesian Missions
Sometimes, when hearts are weak,
He gives the very gifts
believers seek.
But often faith
must learn a deeper rest
and trust God's silence
when He doesn't speak;
For He whose name is Love
will send the best.
Stars may burn out,
Nor mountain walls endure,
But God is true,
His promises are sure...
. . . for those who seek.

Thank You, Lord, for daily things which mean so much to me -
For the majesty of morning sun, and moonlight on the sea.

Thank You for a job to do, for a home filled with love,
And thanks for the trials too, and faith in things above.

Thank You, Lord, for daily prayer, and friends who come to call -
For the budding rose of springtime, and the golden leaves of fall.

Thank You, Lord, for April rain when rainbows fill the sky,
And for the pride inside my heart when Old Glory passes by.

We praise You, Lord, for eyes that see when snow begins to fall,
Thank You, Lord, for daily things which bless us one and all.

When you no longer see the way, come
hide your face in my embrace; for my
strong arms will carry you until we
reach a safer place. Although your
steps may falter now, and soul and
spirit weary be,
With My own strength, I you endow
And keep you close to Me.
Rest in My love and take your ease,
Your burdens I will take on Me
And bear you up on eagle's wings
From earth into eternity.

DON'T START THE DAY WITH DOUBTS AND FEARS
Clay Harrison

Don't start the day with doubt and fears,
for where they live, faith disappears.
Love won't grow in a gloomy heart
where sorrows live and teardrops start.

Don't give up before you've begun -
you still have time to get things done.
Don't waste the time God's given you;
Let Him be praised in all you do.

Don't be a quitter;
you're not alone
we all must crawl before we're grown.
There are no rainbows without rain -
there are no victories without pain.

Don't let God down and run away;
you can't go back to yesterday...
Don't start the day with doubts and fears,
for where God lives, faith reappears.