American Association for Women in Community Colleges

Salute to Strong Women
Beverly Frese

The strongest woman in my life was my Grandma Spath. She was a wonderful woman, who always had a smile on her face, even after she had a stroke and was unable to walk or do even the most basic things for herself. She was the type who never complained and was a joy to be around. She had a lot of visitors. She was bedridden for five years before she had a second stroke and died, she was only 62 years old. Before she had her stroke, she was the perfect grandma for two little girls, (me and my sister) we used to love to spend the weekend with her.

Her family was really big on picnics and family reunions, we went on picnics almost every weekend during the spring and summer months. I can remember how much grandma and her sisters laughed. As a matter of fact, of all the pictures that we have of them and can’t think of one that all four of the girls are not laughing. Grandma was raised on a farm, and worked hard all of her life. I never heard her complain.

My sister and I could do no wrong in her opinion. One thing that comes to mind, was when we were small, mom and grandma were wallpapering the dining room in grandmas house, and they let us paste pictures that me cut out of magazines on the wall, while they were papering the ceiling. To make a long story short, we ran out of paste, and found a jar of cold cream, and decided that it worked just as well as paste. The grease spots stayed on the wall paper through many fresh paper jobs, and grandma thought that was OK because we could do no wrong, however my mom was another story.