The Grandest Time

Posted on July 9, 2010 by bob in Features

Story by Tom Ensey
Photos by Bob Corley

The most shining moments of your golden years can be the time you spend with your grandchildren. The time the kids spend visiting grandma and grandpa is usually short — and that’s both a good and a bad thing. You know you’re going to miss them when they’re gone. But every minute counts, it’s true quality time. And the fact that you can send them home to their parents makes for less stress — and more fun.

The Yelvertons and grandchildren

“If they want ice cream, you give them ice cream,” is the way Glenda Yelverton put it; she’s a proud Montgomery grandmother of nine, ranging from ages three to ten.

“You do fun things with them and they go home,” she said. “You don’t feel as totally responsible as you do when you’re having to raise your children. The time you dedicate to your grandchildren is time dedicated just to them. They can be the center of attention.”

Katherine Johnson and grandchildren

And that’s enriching for all concerned.

Katherine Johnson and Barbara Fowler are River Region grandmothers who echoed Yelverton’s sentiments. The time you spend with your grandchildren shapes them, whether you’re just taking a walk and listening to them talk, sharing Sunday dinner or taking a grand trip. You might learn as much as they do.

Fowler has three grandchildren – the oldest, Ansley Salter, is 21 and finishing up her education degree at Auburn. She wants to be a teacher because that’s what her grandmother did, for 40 years at Lanier High School and later at Saint James.

Barbara Fowler with grandchildren

“She is one of the best role models in my life,” said Salter, whose family lives in Atlanta. She has cherished her four years at Auburn because it put her within 45 minutes of visiting her grandmother. They often have lunch, do “girl stuff,” and sometimes, they just sit together and talk.

“I remember visiting her classroom when I was little, and writing on the board,” she said.

All her life, Ansley never wanted to do anything but be a teacher.

The Grand Tour – Three of Them
Fowler planned extravagant trips for her grandchildren when they each reached the age of 10. She said she chose that age because it’s a good, round number and because “they’re old enough to enjoy and remember things, and not so old they don’t want to hang out with grandma.”

What made the trips special is that each was tailored to the interests of the children. And Fowler, ever the teacher, did her research on the Web, and turned the adventures into lessons.

When Ansley was 10, she loved collecting “American Girl” dolls and reading the books in the series. One of the American Girls, Felicity, lived in Williamsburg, Va. Fowler found out that Williamsburg offered tours of things Felicity did – Ansley got a sewing lesson, had a tea party, visited the kind of house she lived in.

Ansley said the ride up and back was as important as any other part of the trip. They were alone together in the car, just talking.

Four years later, she took Ansley’s brother, Caleb, to space camp in Huntsville. They visited the Chattanooga Choo Choo and the Tennessee Aquarium before driving over to Huntsville, where they stayed in a dorm, like astronauts, sleeping in bunk beds. The camp simulated a space shot, with each camper and the parent or grandparent having specific assignments. They got to walk in a harness that simulated moonwalking; they entered a capsule that simulated zero gravity.

“He talked about it for days after,” Ansley said.

Joshua, the baby, loved birds and bird watching — again, passions he picked up from his grandmother. He liked seashells. So did grandma.

She took him to Sanibel Island in Florida, where they could do both. The shelling wasn’t so great in the offseason — the spring. But the birds were amazing when they went to the Ding Darling Wildlife Preserve. They saw rare ibis, spoonbills, herons — and an occasional gator. They went to Busch Gardens in Tampa and rode all the rides. They went to Tarpon Bay, Fla., rented a kayak, rowed out and saw huge, peaceful manatees.

“I had fun,” Fowler said. “They were eager to go with me. My grandchildren are very special. They are a joy and a blessing.”

Fun, Faith, and Family
Katherine Johnson has three children, five grandchildren and a call to evangelism. Not the kind you deliver from the pulpit   – though she has preached – but the kind where you show it more than tell it.

Her grandchildren range from a 21-year-old grandson in college to two teenage girls, to an 11-year-old grandson and the youngest, a five-year-old granddaughter.

She tells them Bible stories when they come to her house. The youngest likes Jonah and the Whale. She tells the older ones to read Proverbs.

“It will tell you the right way to live,” she said.

When they gather for dinner, usually at her house after church on Sunday, she has told them to take note on what their pastor preached about and tell her the main points of what he said.

They sometimes take “mini-vacations,” she said, to the beach or the mountains. They like to go to the Bass Pro Shop in Prattville together, too — sometimes they buy a little something and sometimes they just look at all the stuff. Afterwards, they like to drive down the street to Ryan’s Buffet. She can fill them all up at that place. They like Red Lobster and McDonald’s too, “depending on how the money’s running,” she said.

Johnson’s mother, Frances Robinson is still alive and in good health.

“It’s a big extended family,” said Johnson, who works at Alabama State University in the housing office.

She thinks of those students as her grandchildren, too, and a chance to practice her ministry. She gives them rides when they need one. When she has the money, she takes homesick dorm-dwellers to lunch. On cold days, she said, when the Holy Spirit moves her, she will offer a ride to somebody waiting for a bus. That’s her mission, she said, and she’s tried hard to pass that on to the youngsters.

“The blessed part of it is we all live in Montgomery,” she said. “I get to see them all the time.”

Her husband is retired military. She thinks all that moving around when the children were little may have made them want to stay put.

“The biggest hope for my grandchildren is their spirituality,” she said. “If they give their life to the Lord, I know from experience, that’s where their hope lies. They are exposed to things in the world I wasn’t exposed to. They’ll need the Lord to help and guide them.”

Sometimes, she gets a little sad to see them growing up. They’re all honor students, and the middle girls are cheerleaders at Booker T. Washington Magnet School.

“I watch them when they’re leading cheers and it’s like they grew up overnight,” she said. “I wish they could all stay small and remain in my care, but that’s not how life goes. My prayer is, the Lord will lead them. They are becoming beautiful young women.”

Chinese Checkers, Walks, and Bowling
Like Fowler and Johnson, Glenda Yelverton stresses education and the simple pleasure of being together when she has her nine grandchildren at her house. She hopes to pass along her love of history by taking them to the historic sites in and around the area.

Old Alabama town, the State Archives, the Capitol. They do movies, they like to go bowling sometimes. They swim in her son’s backyard pool or at the Montgomery Country Club.

The girls like to shop at Justice – which is a girly store, she said – at EastChase. The boys like Target and the video game store.

The boys also like the Montgomery Museum of Fine Arts, and not just the cool, little game room tucked into one of the wings.

“They like to look at the paintings, too,” she said. “And throwing bread to the turtles and ducks and stuff.”
The Wynton Blount Cultural Park is a great place for long walks. Sometimes the kids bring their bikes with them and ride around her neighborhood in midtown Montgomery. She and her husband live in a small townhouse.

“We just throw the front and back doors open and let them rip,” she said.

She tries to see them all at least once a week, except for her daughter’s children — they live in Helena. She doesn’t let two weeks go by without seeing them.

The games at Yelverton’s house are mostly old-school, and don’t flash and beep and take a joystick to play. She has an array of board games. The kids all like Chinese checkers — the game with the marbles and the six-pointed star.

Sometimes they drive out to the airport and watch the planes land and take off. Sometimes they all sit around and read. All but the three-year-old can read, and they like to show off their skills to grandma. They all love to go to Books-a-Million and load up. Simple things. But it means so much. Yelverton knows that the clock’s running.

“As they are growing,” she said, “we want to make the most of the time together – before they grow too busy to be with us.”

Until then, she sets aside time to be with them, plans for them. Every moment counts.