Ada

Everyone has a story. It is worth knowing, and often times the most fascinating are from your own family. Stories are powerful. They can bring laughter, tears, truths not yet heard, family closer together, and healing.

I loved my grandmother very much, however my view of her was always somewhat colored by her failing health. There was so much I didn't know about Ada Lee Fielden.

Her parents traveled from western Missouri to eastern New Mexico in 1908, a distance spanning roughly 700 miles, by covered wagon with three small children in tow. She was the last of her siblings, the youngest of eight.

She was born April 7, 1921, nearly an entire century ago. She grew up during the Depression and the Dust Bowl. She was her high school's valedictorian. She loved gardening, crochet, embroidery, painting. My grandfather, LeRoy, called her Shorty, and they loved each other very much.

LeRoy and Ada Fielden, 1947. Photo belongs to our family.

I posted briefly when she passed away a few weeks ago, but we held her memorial service this past Saturday in Louisville, KY. My mother and aunt, as well as a number of friends from her church shared many memories and stories about her. I was able to rejoice for her, for the life she had lived, for the salvation she now has in Jesus, in a way that I never could with my paternal grandfather, Herschel. I learned more about her after she died, I think, than I ever did while she was alive, a thing I somewhat regret. However, the learning has brought about closure, a contentment with the knowledge that she has been taken home to heaven.

My grandmother's obituary can be found here, as well as a number of other photos of her and our family.