Oregon: Vivian Carl Ostergard May 28, 1917

Aug.2010 The last time she was with all of her family

Last week Herman's Mother passed away at the age of 93. We were all sad and she will be missed but she did leave us with a lot of wonderful memories.
She gave birth to 11 children, had 28 Grandchildren and 51 Great Grandchildren, I am sure not a one of those grand-kids ever heard their Grandma speak a harsh or unkind word. She very seldom said the word no, sometimes she probably should have. Our boys used to love going and staying with her, she had so much love for all of her family.
Her final Farewell was last Saturday, I think that she would have been very pleased with it. Her daughters did a wonderful job of planning and they knew she would not be comfortable with anything fancy. It was held in Oakville at the American Legion Hall, lots of food and flowers but no minister, Vicki read "The Lord is my Shepherd" from the Bible and John gave a wonderful tribute to her.
His last paragraph pretty well describes what kind of a lady she was. "Mom was the only person I have ever seen that could take a stool, a bucket and a handful of fresh grass and milk a cow in the pasture.
She taught us to be strong, not by lecturing, but by being a role model. I will always remember her as the strongest person I have known.
She was gentle, quiet and unassuming. Beverly and I have talked of her never complaining, even though she had many reasons to complain. I was always proud to call her my mother".

We are back to our home in the desert, it was a very quick trip for us we were gone for 8 days. Even though this was a sad time it was also a wonderful time to visit with family and Herm reconnected with people that he had not seen in over 40years. The advantage of living in a small town is everyone stops by and pays their respects to the family. I think the family really appreciated seeing all of their old neighbors and school friends.
We are making our plans for our summer trip back to Portland, we are waiting for the weather to improve and then we will be driving to Oregon via Colorado. We have never been to Colorado and hopefully it will happen in the next couple of weeks. But with us things are always subject to change.
Below are some random pictures, I did not spend much time taking pictures and wish I had taken a few more of the family.