Gladys Faye Young Green Housman W. Utterback

Gladys Faye Young was born to Jacob B. and Lula (Means) Young on December 18, 1908 in Indiana. She was later adopted by Wesley O. and Myra (Simonton) Green and continued to live in south western part of Indiana. My grandmother hated the name Gladys because she always said that when she was in school that she was teased and called all kinds of names like "happy bottom" or "glad ___" or others. So she dropped that Gladys and just went by the name of Faye.

Faye was married three times. She had a daughter with her first husband Murrell Fay Housman. She was preceded in death by their daughter Marcella Faye Housman in 2004, Murrell Fay Housman in 1966, her grandson Geoffrey Lee Smith in 1965 and her other two husbands. I don’t know a lot about the other two marriages that my grandmother had because this information was basically kept quiet.

Faye (from now on called Granny) was a school teacher for many years in the state of Indiana. She went to school in Terre Haute, Indiana. She was a music and art teacher and was very talented at both. She loved to sew, knit, crochet, draw and paint in her spare time when she was younger. Even when she was in her 70’s she use to do mending for people. But then things got to where she was not remembering as well and she had to stop. She lived in an apartment and had two good friends that we were still in touch with up to when she died. Gerry Rhoda and Bonnie Combs were two people that she really cared about a lot. Kitty Warwick and Shorty and Shirley Stalbaum were also people that were neighbors when she lived with us that she cared for.

Granny was a very petite woman, and was only 4’10. She had brown eyes and brown hair until she turned about 85 when her hair started to turn silver/white. One thing that she always said she wanted was snow white hair. Even though her hair was sparse, when she died it was a beautiful silvery white. I do not remember a lot about her when I was real little, I do remember her as I was about 8 or so. My mom and dad said that she usually moved to live closer to them so that she would be close to my mom. I always got the idea that was because of situations from when my mom was younger.

She has left behind a granddaughter Nancy Leigh Rodgers, a great-grandson Joshua Lee Rodgers, and a grandson in law Dennis J. Rodgers. Since her daughter’s death in 2004 Granny has been living with us in Robinson, Illinois. She has suffered from Alzheimer’s disease for many years. It has just in the last couple of years seemed to get worse. This is probably due to the death of her daughter , the move, etc. On June 24, 2006 she fell and broke her hip and her quality of life went down hill after that.

The years growing up with her around were kind of different. She lived with us for a number of years due to an incident where she was living in an apartment and someone tried to break in. After that she was afraid to live on her own. Granny babysat for Josh while I worked for a few years. She loved spending time with him and always called him her little buddy. She would have done anything for him, even when I said no about buying him something, she would do it anyway. I guess that it was her way to really spoil him.

After Granny retired from teaching, she loved to work in the garden that we had at home. You would see her out there for hours weeding and making sure that it was just perfect. She also loved to sit and watch the neighbors and the cars drive by the house. She could not swim but we had a pool while I was growing up and once in awhile she would get in it and walk around and hold on to the edge of the pool. She would especially do this if Josh asked her to get in. As long as you didn’t splash her in the face it was ok.

My grandmother, could be cranky at times and loving at times. In the last several years with her Alzheimer’s her personality changed a lot. It was not really her in that shell of a body. She would say things that she didn’t even realize that she had said. If you said something back to her, she denied it. Alzheimer’s is one of those diseases that can make a caregiver get mad at the person when in fact we should hate the disease and not the person because the disease is causing their personality changes. I will admit that these last few years being her caregiver has opened my eyes wide to many things. She told me some things that were very upsetting to her, for example that she had done a lot of things wrong in the past but that it was too late to correct them now. She said that she wished she could do it over again, but she couldn’t. Towards the end she said how grateful she was that she had us to take care of her and love her. She also said that if there was something she had done to upset us that she was so sorry. In one talk that we had she started to talk about dying. She apologized that I had to take care of everything, but thanked me for caring for her. She also said that she was old and her life was almost over and that I was still young and had a long life ahead of me. She commented that God determines when it is our time to go and that only he knows when that will be. She only asked that we hold her hand and as she left this earth to tell her goodbye and let her go. She also wanted one of the dogs to kiss her goodbye. We did just that. We hope and pray that she is at peace now because this is something she had not had since she has had Alzheimer’s. If you would like to learn more about Alzheimer’s there are a couple of places that you can go, the first site is http://mycarelink.net and the second one is http://www.alz.org. I am sure that there are more sites, but both of these have a forum board to ask questions, etc. However I have found my care link to be a more helpful and compassionate site than the other.

Within the last 97 years of her life we have had many memories and they will stay with us for a long time. Our lives will be different now that we don’t have her to care for and in our lives, but the time that we did care for her made even more memories. She knew that we loved her and we knew that she loved us, and in the world today that is saying a lot.

I thank God for the time that we were able to spend with her these last few years. It was not only quality of time but quantity of time. Even though there were times that it was difficult, especially after she broke her hip, we were able to bring her back home to die with us around her. This is something that not only we wanted but she did too. Granny we hope that you are now at peace, not suffering anymore and remember how much we love you.

Nancy, Dennis and Josh