My sweet Grannie passed away this last week leaving me feeling empty. I loved her dearly and I still can't quite believe it's true. Is this a joke? And why can't I call her? She was so full of life and love. When I was born she was so tickled that I had red hair. My Papa Wayne bought her a dozen roses and my Grandma Velda (who worked with her) went out and bought a red wig. I've heard that story more times than I could count but it still puts a smile on my face every time.
My brother and I were blessed to get to "live"with Grannie for about a year. We all use the term "live" rather loosely because really we just all kept our stuff in the same place. Maybe we should say we "met" with her? Regardless, I have many fond memories of mowing the lawn with Ben (she had two lawn mowers in case one broke). I loved coming home from work at lunch and chatting with her about this and that. Talking about her doll collection (collection is really an understatement) and just being with her.
I also remember sleepovers at her house with my cousin Aaron in the doll room (yes, they had their own room). We woke up in the night terrified, between the dolls eyes staring at us and PaPa Wayne's snore we couldn't figure out what was going on!
PaPa Wayne was a special man God blessed her with just before I was born. Grannie used to tell a story where he was teasing her and giving her a hard time about something, I said, "You be nice to Grannie... she's my friend!" Grannie got a kick out of that for years.
Grannie adored all her Grandkids but also her great grand-kids. I will always cherish the memories I have of her with my boys:
Here she is with Spencer. She and Harold took great pride in their yard at his place. She loved walking around showing toddler Spencer all her "animals" and the apple tree. He was in awe of it all.
Hudson was named for Grannie and his Grandpa Allen. Her maiden name was Hudson. I loved watching Hudson with his name-sake. Or is he, her name-sake? I never can get that straight.
This is my favorite photo of one of my kids with Grannie. I love how Finley is looking adoringly at her. Such a sweet moment!
This is Grannie with her Great-grandkids on our side.
I could go on and on, but I think my Dad captured her life best in the following Eulogy:
Alice Allene Bechtold , was born December 23rd,
1926 in Park City Utah to Owen M. Hudson and Mary Opal Boggs. She grew up in the Walkerville area of Butte
Montana. Her best friend was Jean
Hanlin, who married Alleene’s brother Si.
They became life-long friends.
She made a trip to visit Jean in 2010 and seeing the two of them sword
fighting with their canes just showed that they picked right up where they left
off, friends to the end.
Alleene graduated from Vernonia High School. Shortly after she met Manford (Johnny) Johnson,
who she married in 1948. They had three
sons, Michael, Allen, and Paul. She soon
found herself the divorced mother of three young boys. The youngest, Paul, died at six months of
age. She came to Portland and moved in
with her mother and her mom’s new family, the Bechtolds. Alleene worked as a shoe salesperson at Meier
and Frank downtown to make ends meet.
Soon after, she met Frank M. Lara and they were married in
1957 and moved into a home just down the street from her mom. Belen and Hollie soon followed, and after
some house trading, a new home was built at the site of the old Bechtold
house. Alleene lived in that home for
more than 30 years. The home was the
site of many family gatherings, lots of laughter, friends, and games.
Frank and Alleene went their separate ways and Alleene took
a job at the U of O Medical School Hospital as a salad prep chef. In 1973, she married Wayne Bechtold, the
nephew of Carl Bechtold, who’s home she had lived in when she came to Portland
with those three small boys. Her family
expanded instantly to include Diane, Michelle, and Michael. And she soon added the first of many grandchildren.
She and Wayne loved to drive around exploring wherever the highways
took them. Wayne died suddenly in
1991. Alleene will be buried next to
Wayne, who was buried with a highway map, and will undoubtedly be there to show
her the way.
She loved to cook and when she went to visit someone, the
car was packed with food. With Wayne,
she became a “pressure-cooker gourmet chef.”
Her signature dessert dish was an
applesauce cake with peanut butter icing.
Towards the end of her life, she was no longer able to eat cake. So she specifically requested that chocolate
cake be served at her funeral. You will
find it in the reception area after the service. If, for health reasons, you cannot eat the
cake, well, she would have just encouraged you to peel off the icing and eat only
the cake.
She had another life-long friendship with Johnny’s sister,
Perp Kimball, and they started walking with the group at town center, where she
met Harold Kuenzi. They became constant
companions until his death in 2006. They
travelled to Hawaii, Switzerland, and South Africa among other places. The Kuenzi family quickly adopted her.
She changed names many times. She was known over the years as Alice,
Alleene, Ilene, Gracie, Allie and Grannie.
One Christmas, as gifts were being given out, her grandson, Ben, picked
up a package labeled “To Allie, From Harold”.
He asked, “Who’s Allie?” and Alleene said, “Oh, that’s me.” To which Ben replied, “When are you going to get a man who knows
your name?” The only name she could not
abide was “carrot top”. She was very
proud of her red hair, and thanks to the wonders of modern chemistry, she kept her red right to the end.
She loved games. And
she made up many games over the years.
After dinner you would be instructed to turn your chair upside down and
there, taped on the bottom, would be a lottery ticket. At family dinners she would request that
everyone bring a wrapped, silly gift.
That would turn into a dice game or become the prizes for other games
that she had concocted. Her dress like a
hobo party and her funny hat parade made
for lasting memories. If there was
excitement in the room, she was usually near the center. Cards, dominoes, water balloons, you never
knew what to expect.
Christmas gifts were just as interesting. You learned early on not to believe what the
outside of a freshly unwrapped box said.
And when you looked over at her and she had a grin from ear to ear and looked
about to burst, you knew she had put something really crazy in that box. For example, she would fill a glove with
coins and call it “a fist full of money”.
She would freeze coins in water, inside a milk container, and give it to
you all wrapped up, saying, “Here’s some cold hard cash.” She nailed $10
between two boards and wrapped it with a note that said, “I have to work for my
money, so do you.” One Christmas the gifts were stranger than normal, she had
swapped tags on all the presents to throw the kids off the scent. But had forgotten which tag went with which
gift. Another Christmas, Mike, Allen,
Janice, and Lynne opened small boxes of dirt, with a note saying that she
wanted us to be buried near her, so she put a deposit down on four gravesites
in Venonia. (Of course, we had to make
the other nine payments.) Her gifts were
as creative and thoughtful as her games.
What do you give someone who gives you such creative gifts? Dolls!
She loved dolls. The grandkids
didn’t want to sleep in the back room because of all the cases of dolls staring
at them all night. Alleene loved her
dolls and had a story for each and every one of them.
She also wrote stories.
She made photo albums and wrote the life stories of Wayne and Harold,
but sadly, never got around to writing her own life story. She did, however, take the time to go through
thousands of pictures and label them so that the generations to follow would
know who these people were.
Her greatest talent was making friends as you can see from
the diverse gathering today.
Representatives from each of her families and lots of friends have
gathered to honor her memory. She was
friends with everyone she came in contact with; the pharmacists, the mailman,
food servers, and grocery store clerks.
For a change she had nurses in stiches.
After Harold, we moved her to Town Center senior living
where she complained, “everyone was old.” Then to Courtyard Fountains where she
commented that “everyone has walkers”.
Finally to assisted living where “everyone had wheelchairs.” He body was failing her, but her mind was
sharp to he end. She played cards with
Perp, Mary, and Evelyn for decades. Towards
the end, when we asked how she was doing, she would respond “Oh…..I’m hanging
in.”
At the Vernonia Memorial Cemetery, she will be joining her
mom and dad, son Paul, husband Wayne, sister-in-law Polly, and grandson
Christopher.
Mom taught Wayne how to laugh and enjoy life. Wayne taught mom how to clean and put things
away when she was finished with them. There is a Chinese proverb that says you live
as long as there is someone alive who knows of you. Based on that, Alice Alleene Hudson Johnson
Lara Bechtold (almost Kuenzi) should live for another century at least!
