Going back in time a little

My grandpa died a year ago, on the same day as President Hinckley. Both my cousins (well, I have more than two cousins, but only two that I know of blog) have done posts about him recently. My cousin LeeElle did a post about his actual passing. My cousin Kerilynn, LeeElle's sister, did one about missing him at Christmas. They got me thinking. I'm going to do one about what I remember about my grandpa.

The next few pictures are my grandpa in Korea during 1952. My grandpa served a mission to South Africa, and not long after he came home was drafted into the Army. He and my grandma married, and six weeks later he was gone for a year on the front lines. I have the pictures and half of his letters from then. These are some of the best pictures of him then.

This one is of him holding his first grandchild. Just to clarify, that would be me.:)
Again, holding his first (and I think the only one still) grandchild.
My first date was about a month after I was sixteen. And it was to a prom. At the time, my grandpa worked for a funeral home, Pierce Brothers, and had access to a lot of different limo's. I talked to my date, and he said "free limo? lets do it", so I called him up, and my grandpa and my grandma were our chauffers that night. This is him coming to get us that day.
Obviously, this one is when I graduated. My grandparents were at everything they could manage. One year, two kids graduated on the same day in two different directions. So, my grandpa headed one way, and my grandma headed the other. They were at basketball games, little league, band competitions, and dance performances. And they had over 20 grandchildren. They were pretty busy.
My grandpa was called as a Patriarch in our church. A few years later, I turned 16, and wanted to get my patriarchal blessing from him. Again, I was the first one to ask him to do that. He wrote me a letter when I got the copy of my blessing (my grandpa's handwriting is horrible. The letters from Korea are hardly readable!!) that he typed. My grandpa wasn't a very emotional man, so that letter is pretty special to me.

He also saved me once. I had graduated from high school and was taking classes at the local college. My parents had gone away for the weekend, and had left me in charge of picking up kids, getting them to school, etc. My parents had left on a Sunday, and there was a church thing that night that we had planned on going to. I get out to the car, and it wouldn't start. I got someone from church to come over and help us out. The next day, it started up just fine to get everyone to school. I got to school, and on my way home, I had to go and pay my pager bill. I got back to the van, and it wouldn't start. And it wouldn't start. Long story short, I called up my grandpa, he came out (an hour drive away from us) and picked me up, helped me start it, bought the part that it needed, and installed it.

My grandparents live very close to LAX. When Matt was in AIT, I would fly out of LAX to go and visit them, and my grandpa would drop my grandma off with me to help me and he would drive around and around the LAX loop waiting for us. He paid for dinner the night that I went through the temple.

I'm glad that we were able to see him one more time before he passed. I hadn't seen him for two and a half years while we were in Germany. That was the only bad part. He had changed so much. It was good that he passed.
Miss you Grandpa.