February 11, 1941 (Tuesday)

ROSY AND EDNA VISIT HENRY

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Rosy and I went to

hospital this P.M.

Henry feeling better to-day.

We went down town before

going to hospital.

Went to see Jen + Lyd

on way home.

Jen's getting along fine.

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Rosy is my grandmother. My father's mother. I never met her even though she died in 1993 and I was born in 1966. She ran off with another man in the midst of World War II, leaving my grandfather, father and my uncle behind.

Rosy left on November 11, 1944. She sent a package with a Christmas present to my father (Dick) in December of that year. A baseball glove and a dictionary. That was followed by silence for forty-four years.

It's a long and complicated story. I have a five-year journal that Rosy kept for nearly three years, before she left. My grandfather takes over writing in the journal where she left off.

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November 11, 1944 (Saturday)

Rosy writes: Warm. Paul + I to Gd Rapids to-day. x x x_____

Bob writes: Rosy skipped out again, everything awful blue. I didn't sleep at all.

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Rosy took my uncle Paul to Grand Rapids, as I recall the story being told, to have his senior pictures taken. She planned to do some shopping and they would meet back at the car. When my uncle got back to the car, his mother was not there. She left a note saying she was leaving. He drove the car (and a friend who went with him to Grand Rapids) back home to tell his dad.

My grandfather, James Lawerence (but everybody called him Bob) remarried in 1947. He gained a wonderful daughter and my dad and uncle a sister...my Aunt Sherry. His second wife, Dorothy, passed away in 1967. My grandfather lived until 1992. My Uncle Paul passed away in 2020. My father (90) and my Aunt Sherry (I won't give away her age) are still living.

If my dad agrees, perhaps one day, I will share more of Rosy and Bob's journal.