Thankful Thursday

Dorothy Couch-Robertson

Dorothy Couch- Robertson my maternal grandmother was the most loving, kind, gentle, religious women I will ever know. I am very thankful she was a part of my life. Let me tell you about this remarkable lady.

She loved to cook and I would get to help. Before I was born she always fed the friends of her six kids. Her home was the local hangout for the kids in the neighborhood. But lets back up even further. She could fix anything and can. She had a garden every place they lived.

Dorothy was born 8 Jan 1903 in Elgin, Antelope, NE. She was about 6 years old when her father was accidentally shot and killed by her brother passing him a shotgun through a fence.
She went all the way through school, plus normal school, where she learned to be a Secretary. She went to work for Davidson's Furnature Store, where George Edgar Robertson worked after he came home from the war in 1919. He had been in the hospital in France because he was wounded in 1918 by muster gas. In 1920 Dorothy and George started dating, much to the chagrin of her mother Cora Alice Amick-Couch. Cora raised her kids in the Nazarene Faith.  And George was CaCatholic. But five days after Dorothy's 18th birthday they married, 13 Jan 1921 in Sioux City, IA, where her family moved after the death of her father.

During the Great Depression her children were scattered around to different family members, because George got laid off for a year.

I couldn't imagine the pain she felt having her family scattered about, they were everything to her.

In 1962 Grandpa became very ill and went to the Veterans Hospital in Livermore, CA where he died from emphysema. He had lost one lung from mustard gas during the war, and smoked all his life. He was tough though, he made it to age 68.

My beautiful Grandmother Dorothy was taken 9 April 2001 in Stockton, CA. It was very hard for me when my mom called me to tell me. I was in Mandan, ND and had no means to get out to California for the funeral. So I never got to say good-bye.
On a recent trip to Stockton I was at my Aunt Dot's where my gram ma spent the last few years of her life. I was hit hard with the realization of her truly being gone. Her stuff was still there just as she had left it. I got very emotional and quietly by myself talked to her as I slid my hand along some of her furniture and things. I took lots of photos.

She taught me to be a strong women, keep true to my faith and love my family no matter what. My grandmother lived to be 98 years old, she had a long full life, touched very much by God.