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From Glen F. Tarbet, 1/26/03 (preceding messages in the "string"
follow)
Here's the story my mother loved to tell, with
occasional minor variations, all her life as I knew her from when I
was five years old or less (she died in 1996 at age 83):
An immigrant woman visited her high-society cousin
in England. The cousin invited her to go to an elite dinner. She
answered, "But I don't know how to behave." "That's quite alright,"
said the cousin. "Just do everything I do."
Near the end of the dinner, the cousin declined
another serving with the rejoinder, "My sufficiency is so fanciful, I
feel like a barrel without any bung hole."
The ingénue said, "No thank you. My sufficiency's
so functified, my shimmy shirt and pants are full. I feel like a tiger
without any bum hole."
Glynis, your father's compliment is so familiar, I
thought for a while it was Scott talking about his father.
Love,
Elder Dad/Grampa/Glen
Email from Glen F. Tarbet 11/26/2002
(preceding messages in the "string" follow) Thanks for that sweet description of Grandma! Your fascinating and touching description warms my heart. My mother insisted Hazel was a victim of "infantile paralysis." Mom and Hazel's parents seemed to think it was somehow shameful for Hazel to be a spastic victim of cerebral palsy. I'm sure cerebral palsy was her true diagnosis. We met Hazel Howell in 1937 when the Tarbet family arrived in Moffat Court, moving into one of the seven little row houses face-to-face in the middle of the downtown Salt Lake City block northeast of the City and County Building. The Howell's place was two doors from ours. Hazel lived all her courageous ninety-plus years as a quadriplegic. I think she was in her late twenties in Moffat Court. The four smaller children of the Tarbet family -- my step cousins Patsy, Jeanie, Freddy, and I (Glenny), the oldest eight -- did Hazel's bidding coached by my mother and Hazel's mother. With our limited help, on her front porch, she painted using her mouth and toes, cut and pasted pictures from magazines into montages, mail-ordered and sold greeting cards, and tended her canary. Hazel's teen-age brother, Arthur, limped about the court, hampered by periostitis. Ever after that she and my mother remained fast friends. Her step-father, Joe Howell, could not father children, but he faithfully cared for Hazel long after her mother died, even platonically marrying Hazel when both were senior citizens in Ogden. Mom took me on the bus several times to visit Hazel, her mother, and Joe during the many years they lived in Midvale, south of Salt Lake City. Joe and Grandma Howell, as they preferred to have me call them, already well advanced in years, treated me affectionately and kindly through my teens. They, especially Hazel, always seemed thrilled to have us drop in on them from across town. The hazy chronology of all this needs clarifying. Can you help with that, Scott? Love, Elder Dad
----- Original Message ----- From: <carrie@edizone.com> > I couldn't have said it better myself. What a
wonderful woman. Ya made me
> ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Scott Tarbet" <starbet@timp.net> > > I visited Hazel a lot with Grandma and came
to understand her quite
> > -----Original Message----- > > From: TarbetList-owner@timp.net [ mailto:TarbetList-owner@timp.net]> > On Behalf Of Band Room > > Sent: Monday, November 25, 2002 10:06 AM > > To: tarbetlist@timp.net > > Subject: [Tarbet] Hazel > > Yesterday I learned that Sister Brown, who is
one of our library
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