I remember Grace taking my brother and me on a trip to Corpus Christi, Texas when I was about 4 years old - our first vacation. We stayed in a little cabin right on the Gulf of Mexico, and she spent hours with us on the beach as my brother and I tirelessly combed the sand for odd little treasures, sand dollars, and seashells. Bob and I were having the time of our lives, but she was rewarded for her diligent maternal supervision with a blistering sunburn (no sunscreen in those days) that kept her uncomfortable and sleepless for the rest of the vacation.

Bob and I begged her to let us take home all of our seashore discoveries, which then proceeded to “ripen” in the trunk of the car in the sweltering Texas summer heat and stink to high heaven all the way back to Oklahoma (no AC in the cars then either). It took her months to get that overpowering “dead fish” smell out of the car!