Frances Isabel Willis Freeman May 
Here are some photos of the event (in random order).
Levi was home from JMU (James Madison University) in Virginia.
Mom talking to Mary and Anita on Thanksgiving
Phil, Tom Turkey, and Momma May
Momma May on Thanksgiving 2009
Even DC ("darn" cat) had a place in the dining room on Thanksgiving.
Maribeth's Report
What a great Thanksgiving Day we had here in Texas. Levi was home from college and Fran was able to come to our home for the big feast.
The feast was served about 2:00 p.m. on a beautiful, elegant table that even Martha Stewart would envy. (I’m only repeating what my Mother-in-law said!)
Shelley, Fran’s sitter/companion, is now officially a member of the May Family. She was with Fran in the morning and then drove her to our home. Mark, one of Fran’s favorite CNA’s, was working so she felt secure about the transfer from her wheelchair to the car. When she arrived here, Levi was able (under the direction of Philip) to help lift her to the wheelchair. Once in our home she was able to relax.
While waiting for me to put the final touches on the meal she enjoyed looking through the Donovan Memorial Church Cookbook. She stated that she has tasted most of the recipes in the book because most of them are her friends' creations. I commented that there were no recipes of mine in the book. Fran then said, “That's because you're a Catholic and this is a Methodist Cookbook...No Catholics allowed!” We all laughed and enjoyed seeing Fran’s great sense of humor coming through once again.
Dinner was served and we all enjoyed the moist turkey, dressing, mashed potatoes and gravy, yams, corn and cranberry sauce. We needed to take a break following dinner before we finished it off with chocolate and pecan pie topped with ice cream.
Fun was had by all!!! Before heading back to the nursing home Fran was able to call Anita and Mary and wish them a happy day.
Just keeping you all up to date,
Maribeth May
Phil's Version
So there we were, standing at our front door when Momma May and Shelley drove up to the door in Shelley’s town car. Smiles beamed everywhere. We all had empty stomachs in anticipation of a royal feast. I guess we were experiencing the joy of anticipation.
Got mom outta the car and in her wheelchair. Levi was here too. He rolled Mom into the house and parked her in the kitchen where she entertained us with her humor while Maribeth continued to prepare the last details of the fixin’s.
We all ate till Mom said her usual thing about satiation: “I’m about to pop!” We laughed and realized that her simple statement was so true. We were all at that satiation point. Turkey, mashed taters, yams, dressing, gravy, cranberry sauce, dinner rolls, chardonnay, merlot, pecan pie, chocolate pie, carrot cake and ice cream were all on the menu that day.
She is doing very well these days. Her mind is good, her sense of humor is great and her spirits are up. She still struggles with the fact that she can’t walk. She and her sitter Shelley attend the center's bingo, skippo games and music performances almost daily. Fran looks forward to getting her hair done every other Tuesday and her nails painted.
Levi is home for the Thanksgiving holiday and surprised Fran with beautiful flowers on his first visit. He was amazed at the improvement in his grandmother’s health since he last saw her in August before leaving for JMU. We will be having her over today for Thanksgiving Dinner along with Shelley. We are looking forward to their visit.
Please continue to keep Fran in your thoughts and prayers. She always has all of you in her heart.
Happy Thanksgiving to all!
We were thankful that Mary Margaret and Hunter Holler invited us for Thanksgiving dinner.
Happy Labor Day to All!
Philip just left to take a thermos of “strong stove coffee” to Fran to share with her “sitter” Shelley. One of the best things we have done for Fran (besides loving her, of course) is hiring Shelley to be with her throughout the day. They have bonded and have a good time together.
Last week Shelley started taking her on daily strolls (in her wheelchair) just to get her out of the room and to have her interact with some of the residents. Thursday they got their nails done at the “Pretty Nail Party” held every two weeks at Pleasant Manor. Friday was bingo day and Fran had a good time even though she didn’t win.
The doctor has put Fran on daily small doses of pain medication before breakfast, lunch and before bed. This has helped her with the transfer she has to go through with the lift from her bed to her wheelchair. I am happy to report that her mind is crystal clear and Fran enjoys playing memory games with cards.
Frances always lights up when she receives calls from Mary and Anita. We read Mary and Ed’s blog (Angelil Adventures) to her every week or so and she looks forward to Anita’s weekly letters. Keep up the good job, girls.
Until next time, continue to keep Fran in your prayers. She misses all of her friends and speaks of you often.
Even in Mom’s darkest of times over the past year, she has always maintained her sense of humor, which always manages to shine through to us despite her miseries and tribulations.
I am asking her some questions about some past times and getting some surprising answers, many of which make me laugh. I hope you enjoy them. Here is her take on Granddaddy and Grandmother May so far. What’s written is not totally verbatim, but pretty close to what she said. There may be more to come.
Grandmother May had a green thumb. She loved flowers. She would put on her blue and white bonnet with little ruffles around the face and her long dress. She spent hours with her flowers and her gardening projects. She canned stuff from the garden all summer long. Our basement was filled with a zillion quart mason jars on the shelves in the back room where we cleaned the fresh eggs. We enjoyed the fruits of her labor all year by eating what she had canned.
In her later years, Grandmother May became obsessed with weed killing. She hated dandelions with a passion, God only knows why. She got a long handled sprayer and can with weed killer and went over the entire yard. She was really thorough. Not only did she kill each and every dandelion but also she killed all the grass around it. Our yard was just funny to look at. It had little dead spots all over it, … but no dandelions, that was for sure.
Grandmother May made the sweetest tea. During the hay season she would make the tea and put it in a big old beat-up green thermos and take it to the hayfield. The men would use the aluminum screw-off cap to drink from. It was all beat up and bent as well but the men didn’t seem to care. They just loved the super cold super sweet tea she made.
She had some cooking delicacies that we all loved. Her ham potpie was one of the kids’ favorite. She introduced the spice celery salt to the family. It was particularly good on the squares of cooked dough that were in the potpie. She made oyster stew each year especially around the Election Day time. The broth was so buttery that no oysters were really needed to enjoy the stew. She always had those special little round crackers that we would put in the soup. The whole oyster stew experience was simply … Yummy!
Grandmother loved poetry and she could recite from memory many long poems that she had learned from her ancestors when she was a young child. Anita (my sister) collected a book of them. Hearing Grandmother recite them was a much better source of entertainment than the TV or radio when you children were growing up. Grandmother could even play the piano just a little. Her favorite was “Jesus, Lover of my Soul”. I don’t remember her playing anything other than that.
This summer has been extremely hot and recently very stormy. In the last 5 days we have gone from no rain for 3 weeks to Tornado Warnings and heavy rain. People say here in Texas, “If you don’t like the weather just wait a minute because it is sure to change”.
Last Tuesday morning we were awakened by loud thunder, bright lightning and heavy rains. There were severe weather warnings in our area and a tornado warning just 15 miles north us.
I went to see Fran once everything settled down and found her asleep. I was surprised to see her still in bed at 10:00 a.m. Her CNA, Katrina, informed me that when she got there at 5:30 a.m. the storm was just getting started and they were instructed by the charge nurse that patients needed to be moved to the center of the building due to a tornado warning. She said that she moved Fran first (she is real close to Fran and has been so good with her) and then proceeded with the others.
The 130 residents spent about an hour there in the center of the building because there are windows in each room that could blow. When the storm cleared, the residents were moved directly to the dining room (about 15 feet away) for breakfast. Many of the residents were still in bed recovering from the exciting morning. Fran told me she was a little frightened but Katrina stayed close to her and talked her through it.
Philip and I got to the center Saturday about 3:30 p.m. just before another storm broke. The residents did not have to move to the lobby this time, but it sure did lightning, thunder and rain extremely hard for about 90 minutes. Occasionally the lights would go on and off and that seemed to get the residents a bit upset.
I spoke to a man named Charles, who is in a room across from Fran’s, and he told me that the morning that all the residents were moved to the center of the building he chose to stay in his room because he felt he would be safer rolling himself into the bathroom where there are no windows than being all lined up together in the center of the building. He made me laugh because he said that if a tornado had hit it would take at least a week to get all the wheelchairs untangled. Phil and I are still laughing just picturing it!
Fran is still about the same. Her days include getting out of bed in the morning, going to the dining hall for breakfast and sometimes lunch and then napping a good bit. We continue to read to her and keep her updated on the current events of her family and friends.
Levi took 4 of his friends in with him to see her the other day and he said she really enjoyed it. They asked her about all the pictures on the wall and told her about some of their college experiences. They stayed about 30 minutes and Levi said that was about all the excitement she could take. She seemed quite tired by the time they left, but hopefully, cheered up.
Fran still says funny things. She catches us off-guard when we least expect it. She still shows some "spunk" from time to time.
Fran really misses all of you and enjoys hearing from you.
The weather in Texas has been in the high 90’s and some days as high as 104 degrees. Thank goodness for air-conditioned homes, cars and a swimming pool.
Fran stays inside most of the time at the nursing home. Occasionally we can get her out in the garden area on the gazebo in the mornings before it gets up in the 90’s. She prefers to stay in bed and be lazy but we encourage her to get up in her chair a couple times a day.
Her therapy has been discontinued except for chair exercises a few times a week. Her potassium levels are back to normal with no more severe leg cramps. Her appetite is so-so but she is showing some interest in her sugar free chocolates again.
She has lost some of her get-up and go and just stares a good bit. We can get her to smile now and then. She really enjoys and seems to relax when she is read to. Philip reads the Bible to her and I read from the book, “Simple Abundance”.
Continue to keep Fran in your thoughts and prayers.
