The Daily Wyatt: Adella Ethel Barker VanderDoes was my last living Grandparent.

RIP

August 05, 1922 - March 17, 2010

As I was sleeping my phone rang with the news that my grandmother passed away at 4 in the morning today and my heart sunk I should have gone and saw her yesterday when my dad called and told me that my mom and her siblings decided that taking her to the hospital wasn’t in her best interest. They wanted her to “go” in comfort but we all believed that she had at least another week or so before she would indeed go.

(Survived by her children Ray VanderDoes, Ken VanderDoes, Marlene Hadley, and my mother Carolyn Corbridge)

Now my grandmother has always been a very independent person very reserved but in her own right a little on the exocentric side.

I remember when I was in middle school and she would come to my band concerts with florescent green hair and her outfits never really matched and her laugh… it was something. “Oh… HA HA.” is the best way that I can describe it but how it sounded was something that always made you laugh with her.

I do try to forget about the times when she wore the wigs. They’d be dark colored and never on straight and her silver hair would always poke out. Giggle… oh that’s grandma for ya.

When we would have our HUGE family gatherings she would always say just the most random things like “why do they call them refried beans?” and we would answer “because they cook them put them in a can and then you will “REFRY” them.” “OH… HAHA” she would answer back. But then an hour or so later she’d ask the same question.

I remember when I was little and we would go to her house we always got to have ice cream and she would have glass bowls filled with candies that we would all fight over.
We would sit in her back yard during the summer with our glasses filled with lemonade and listen to the grown ups talk. She would have random excises equipment that we kids would fight over to play with and the basement was filled with velvet pictures.

One summer when I was older my grandma got her motorized chair and we all went to the zoo for one of my sibling’s birthdays. Now mind you she never did get her license because my grandpa tried to teach her once and she ran right into the fence and almost in to the house so he just gave up.

So while we were at the zoo there was this tiny hill and I was walking in front of my grandma and her new motorized chair when all of a sudden she RAN ME OVER! And she didn’t know how to move her chair to get off of me. So needless to say I got ran over by my grandma 2 or 3 times before my dad finally came to my rescue and told her just how to get off of me. I wasn’t happy at the time but now when I think about it, it was very funny because I wasn’t the ONLY VICTIM. She also ran over some of my other cousin on different occasions.

The one thing that I will always cherish the most about her is that she was head over hills in love with my grandpa bud and even after he left she would talk about him like he was still around so I know that her leaving us today means that she is with him which that makes it so much easier that she is gone.

Lets celebrate her life today because only she would go out on a holiday. So here’s to you grandma may you rest in peace and enjoy all eternity with grandpa bud