Special Christmas Edition

SKETCH 12: Special Christmas Edition By David Pratt (Richard’s youngest brother)

In many ways Grandma Anna Nell Daykins Shirk Peterson was the glue that held our early family together. She was the first of my maternal line to accept the full gospel of Jesus Christ and be baptized into the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. I do not remember her as I was only 3 when she died, but to me she will always be a Saint of the latter days. I share with you the words of my brother Richard and the impact she had on his conversion.

“It was wonderful to hear Grandma sing. She especially did so while preparing breakfast, which she started about 5 a.m. The men were already gone doing chores and would be in about seven hungry as a pack of wolves. Not only was breakfast a full fledged meal but Grandma would also bake four or five pies for the dinner and supper meals….One morning in my attic bed, I was awakened by Grandma’s beautiful singing. I shivered out of bed into my overalls and down the stairs. Seated on the bottom step, I would finish dressing. The sun shone warm and cheerfully through the window on to the step. Just to the side of the window the teakettle was humming on the kitchen stove from which came the delicious odors of breakfast. Every physical sense was being courted and caressed .At the table Grandma was working with flour, at this point there would always be a dab on the side of her nose and flour up to her elbows. She didn’t seem to be aware of me. I just sat there and reveled in the complete security of sound, smell, taste, hearing, and feeling. Grandma was singing, “I’ll Take You Home Again Kathleen.” I would often cry at its sadness but loved the song. Suddenly she stopped right in the middle of the song, cast her eyes ceiling ward and hands still in the dough exclaimed in a hushed and reverent voice, “Oh, how I love my Lord Jesus!” Her face seemed to shine with a radiance of pure joy. In awe I pondered her words, and thought, “If my Grandma loves someone called, ‘my Lord Jesus,’ then I love him too. Yes, I do love him and what an anchor to my soul that sermon has been now for nearly three quarters of a century. Thank you, Grandma.”

May it still be an anchor to all who belong to the Peterson, Pratt and Shirk Family. I wish you a very old fashioned Christmas as the surviving patriarch of the Pratt/Shirk side of the family. May God bless you always. I bless you to be true to your glorious heritage in the name of our Savior and Redeemer, Jesus Christ, amen.