“roll ‘em!”

Audio-Video

Our welcome video clip from the front page.

This is the video presentation that was shown at Grandma Crabtree’s viewing at the Putnam Funeral Home [8/26/08].

This is the audio of Grandma Crabtree’s funeral service at Coldwater First Baptist Church [8/27/08]. The transcript of Daddy’s eulogy is below.

1. This and the clips below are videos taken on our Easy Share camera; regrettably, it’s in MOV format, and my hope is to get it transferred to MPG or WMV, so that it can be seen on a standard PC.

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Transcript of Daddy’s eulogy (3:35-12:38)

Thank you, Pastor Anderson.

I’d like to start by thanking everybody who’s here for showing support to the family. I wanted to talk a little bit about Grandma and, in a way, I wanted to take care of what I always saw as an injustice that happened about twelve years ago. My family got home, were visiting Grandma’s home in Ebyview, and Grandma and Grandpa were watching something on television. It was on local cable access, and it turned out—I have no idea what the show was called—it involved two people looking at an old high school yearbook, and identifying people and commenting on them. And it was from Coldwater High School, 1940—it was Grandma’s graduating class. And we were there, we saw through the B’s, the C’s, the D’s, the E’s, and we got up to the F’s (she was Eloise Fellers at the time), and they stopped and talked about the person right before Grandma, and on the right side of the TV screen we could see about half of Grandma, and we could see about half of her name on the left side. And I was just giddy with anticipation, because then they were going to stop and talk about Grandma! And when they were done with the guy on the left side, they jumped over and went to the guy on the right. Grandma was sitting there and smiling the whole time, and I turned to her and said, “Grandma, they skipped you.” And she turned to me, still smiling, and she said, “That’s because I’m a nobody.”

Well, in a way she was right. I mean, Grandma didn’t have the type of life that gets written up in great, wonderful obituaries. But she had other things. She didn’t have any higher education, but then again she had something the world needs more, she had good, rugged common sense. To the point that if she didn’t know something, she wouldn’t talk about it. It is hard to remember a time when Grandma was genuinely wrong about anything. I’ve been wrong about ten things this morning! Grandma didn’t start her own business and make a huge fortune. Instead, as Pastor Pierce read to us, she did day care in her home and blessed the lives of scores of kids. She didn’t leave huge amounts of money to various causes and end up with her name up on a building somewhere or anything like that, but she was very, very generous with what she did have. Always. She didn’t write any books. She wrote birthday cards. And I cannot remember her ever missing a birthday of anyone in her family. That’s a lot—a lot of people, and a lot of birthdays for some of us. Grandma did not travel around the world and go to exotic places, but she loved to travel to visit family. She loved to go down to Georgia and visit Aunt Cindy; she loved to fly out to New Mexico and visit Aunt Shary; and she came and visited my family innumerable times.

I remember one time when I was sixteen years old, when I was in a horrific car accident. What was really horrific about it was I was on a bike. And the first thing that I remember, after getting out of surgery and getting wheeled up and put into a bed in a room, was someone saying, “Hi, Vinnie!” It was Grandma. Grandma and Grandpa had come up from Coldwater to Midland [snap fingers] like that. Most of my family was vacationing and couldn’t get there. But she would have come, anyway. Those next few days are kind of a blur; I don’t really know what she did those next few days, but I’m just so glad she was there.

Now, what Grandma did do, what I will always remember her for was her great faithfulness. Pastor Pierce already referred to her faithfulness to this church. I definitely honor her for that—I’ve taught Sunday School myself for fifteen years, and the prospect of doing it for thirty-nine is pretty daunting. She also showed faithfulness to the roles that she chose for herself as a family person. It might have been as a result of being an only child—which was very rare for her generation—but she cherished every new member of the family that came along. And it didn’t matter how they ended up, how tall they were, or how athletic, or how smart, or how good looking (thank goodness), she just loved us all... it was impossible to think of anyone as being Grandma’s favorite—everybody was Grandma’s favorite. And you didn’t have to be born into the family to be cherished by her, either. I remember when I took my then-girlfriend Susan to meet the family, at Turkeyville (appropriately), and I introduced her to all my family—my Mom, Vicki Brattin, and there might have been a spare sibling or two, and some nieces and nephews, and my great-grandmother, Reah Fellers. And these are my grandparents, Bill and Eloise Crabtree. Sometime later Susan tried to get my Grandma’s attention, and she said “Mrs. Crabtree?” And Grandma turned and said, with about 80% sweetness and 20% [shake finger]: “I’m Grandma!” This was a few months before I proposed, but she knew. About a year later we got married on Grandma and Grandpa’s 50th wedding anniversary. And they were there.

There are so many memories I’d like to share. I don’t have a great deal of time, I can’t take the time to talk about Parkhurst Park or the 4-H Fair, or Marble Lake. But I would like to talk about the big family get-togethers at the house in Ebyview. So many Christmases, so many Thanksgivings, so many Easters, and since my birthday’s in August, so many of my birthdays were there as well. And Grandma loved, utterly loved being a host. And it grieved her so much when her health got poor enough that she had to step down; very fortunately, my sister Laura has taken on that responsibility for the last quite-a-few years, and I hope many more. I remember the most special part of all those times—I didn’t think so at the time, but I do now—was that Grandma would lead off saying Grace before the big dinner. And she would pray, and she would mention each and every person by name who was there in the house. And then she would mention the people that weren’t there, and she’d start weeping. The house could be crowded, it could have almost three dozen people in it, and she’d want more. She loved her family that much. And when it was time to go, and in my case it often was stuffing seven people into a station wagon, as often as not with a bunch of gifts, and she’d kiss us all goodbye, and she’d say “I’ll miss you.” And she meant that. And she’d stand on the porch and wave as we drove away.

Well, I know that a lot of you have a lot of your own stories about Grandma, and I hope that at the luncheon today, those that will stay, that you’ll get those stories out and share them. I’d like to hear some more, myself.

But for now, if I had one last thing to say to Grandma, it would be “Grandma, you are not a nobody. You are the greatest success that I’ve ever known. We love you, Grandma. Goodbye, and yes, we’ll miss you.”

Lydia & Daddy’s testimony (14:07-15:25)

Well, my name’s Lydia...

Lydia’s one of Grandma’s many great-grandchildren that you heard about, and I’ll mention that when Lydia was born, I called home to Coldwater, and it was Grandma who answered. And she said, “Vinnie? Do you want to talk to your mother?” I said, “Yes.” And she said, “You can tell me—is it good news?” Because it had been a very difficult pregnancy for Susan. And I said, “Yes, Grandma, it’s good news.” And she took the phone back to Mom, and I’ll bet you she was never more than a step away, and leaning in and listening. And I told Mom that “Mother and daughter are doing fine.” And that the little one’s name is Lydia. A moment later Mom told Grandma, and then Mom told me, “Your Grandma’s crying,” and I said, “Yeah, I suspected that.”

She’s been a great great-grandma to me, and so is her grandson.

Updated most recently on 3 October 2008.