From her Granddaughter, Valerie:
When we moved back to Houston, my sister and I would have sleepovers at my grandma’s apartment where we would watch old movies like “Creature from the Black Lagoon,” which she laughed at when I called it “The Blagoon.” She would also give my sister and me paper to let us draw pictures in a notebook, which she kept all this time. One of my favorite parts about the sleepovers at granny’s were the biscuits she would make us in the morning. I still haven’t had a single biscuit as good as the ones she made for us when we were kids.

Over the years, my grandma shared many stories that I wish I could hear from her one more time. She would tell me of how she was a wonderful singer in high school, and the awards she won in chorus, as well as of all the boyfriends she had growing up. Going through her old photos and school albums, she had so many notes from her friends bragging about her gorgeous voice, and the boys about how she was so beautiful and a big flirt! My granny always talked about how much she loved to dance, and how she used to do ballroom dancing. She also enjoyed talking about traveling with her parents as a kid, and how great of a time she had growing up and living in different places. 

Another story she told me recently was about a time when she was with her husband on a ranch and how one of the bull’s wouldn’t stop acting up. She said she went in and bopped him on the nose and she laughed as she told me she wasn’t sure who was more shocked that she had done that, her husband, or the bull himself.


From her Granddaughter, Valerie:
I will never forget just how much my granny loved her pet schnauzer, Max. He was like her baby. My sister and I even grew up calling her Granny Max, a nickname she loved. She also had several cats, one of which she named “Trouble” because well, he was always getting into trouble. After moving into her last apartment, my grandma was unable to take care of any pets of her own, but that didn’t stop her from treating her “grand-dogs and cats.” She always loved animals and would proudly tell her friends when she would babysit the animals for us. Every time she came over she would feed them entire bags of treats in one sitting, its no wonder they would always get so excited when they saw her at the door. 

As a kid, I remember my Granny Max living with us in El Paso and taking care of my sister and me while my parents were at work. She would make us snacks and always let us watch our favorite shows on TV. I even remember the days she took me to preschool how much all the kids in my class loved her, because she was very kind and friendly to everyone. 

We must have been maybe 6 and 4 years old when my granny bought my sister and me stuffed toys of our favorite animals, my sister’s a wolf that she named “Wolfie,” and mine a cat that I named “CC.” I remember not long ago telling my Granny Max that Maegan and I still had those stuffed animals and she was shocked, remembering getting them for us and surprised we had held on to them for that long.


From her Granddaughter, Maegan:
As my mom mentioned, my granny was an excellent seamstress. I remember in 8th grade when I wanted to be a specific cartoon character for Halloween and couldn’t find a costume for it anywhere, so she found a similar pattern and sewed me the entire costume. And then for my Sweet 16, I had a dance routine as a part of the celebration and needed a can-can dress. Again, she sewed a dress for me and for my sister. Those are just a couple of the times, but she was always making us clothes and pillows.

From Granddaughter, Maegan:
When we lived in El Paso, my Granny Max used pick me up from kindergarten and take me home. She’d usually have food for my sister and me to eat.  I remember one time in particular when we ate Lunchables that had a Carpi Sun juice pouch in it. I drank it all and while she was on the phone with my mom, she mentioned how I finished all of my juice. Me, thinking it’d be funny to prank my granny, blew into the juice pouch and inflated it so that it still looked full and told her that I didn’t actually drink it. She huffed and said, “Well, I just lied to your mother then.” I then told her I was just kidding, and smashed the juice pouch flat again, a few drops of juice shooting out onto her face. I’m sure she was upset, but I’ve always looked back at it as a funny interaction between me and her.

Another time, while living in El Paso, my granny was watching my sister and me, and I convinced Val that she should dial 911 to see what would happen. She did, and when they answered, she hung up the phone abruptly. They called back immediately and my granny picked up the phone, and boy was she angry. But it reminds me of how patient she was with us, especially because we were little troublemakers.

I always remember that my granny was a talented pianist, and she would teach me the basics of how to play. I may not have ever completely learned piano, but she taught me a love of music which turned into me learning to play the flute – something I still do today.

When we moved back to Houston, I remember having many sleepovers at my granny’s apartment with my sister. She’d make us food, which we would eat on her TV trays, and watch old black and white VHS movies like The Wolf Man or Dracula. And she had this one feather pillow that Val and I would always fight over who got to use it when we went to sleep. I always loved getting to spend the night with her.


From Granddaughter, Karen:
I was very young when I remember Mark and Vicki would bring me to Houston each summer to stay a couple of weeks with them. I got to go over to my granny’s apartment during that time. If on the weekend she would watch Nickelodeon with me.  At night we would watch old movies and eat our dinner off folding lap tv trays. There was one day that I was there during the week so I got to go spend the day at work with her when she was a court clerk. I got to meet Judges and Police Officers. That was a big deal when you are a kid!
When I was older I flew with my granny out to see Mark, Vicki & the girls in El Paso. I remember watching the O.J. Simpson chase on TV while we were there.
I am so thankful that I was able to visit with my granny while in town visiting from The Netherlands the first week of January as I hadn’t seen her in almost 5 years. Thankful that I have pictures to capture that moment.


From Son-in-law, Mark:
One story that I will always remember is when Bobbie and our niece Karen flew out to visit before she moved to El Paso with us. They visited at the same time my parents and younger sister Wendy were there. We decided to drive over to New Mexico see a dormant Volcano on a day trip. Bobbie had rented a car, so Vicki drove her, Karen, Wendy & Valerie & I drove my parents and Maegan. We were ahead of them on the dirt road and got to the hole first as they had stopped so Wendy & Karen could pick up some Lava Rocks. When we got to the hole we saw men with rifles down inside looking up at us. They signaled to others to “round them up” so we immediately turned around and sped away only stopping to tell Vicki to get the girls in the car and go!  From the look on my face Vicki knew I had a reason. We hauled butt out of there. Bobbie was so stressed out. She still smoked at the time and had not been able to on the entire trip. Once we got back to town my dad noticed that the rental car looked like it was all scratched up and thought Bobbie was going to have to buy it.  Luckily, the scratches were just where the brush had rubbed off all the dust that our car was kicking up on it. She remembered it later as scary but funny and my dad still laughs when he tells that story today.
In the last few months Bobbie would get so excited over simple little things like a trip to the grocery store where she could stock up on items she needed, and several she already had plenty of, like Diet Dr. Pepper, Milano cookies, Ritz Cracker and Pringles. I think she just liked having someone to haul all her stuff inside for her. We drove through McDonald’s and got her an Egg McMuffin on the way home. You would have thought we bought her a steak as happy as she was.
She bought new smart phone right after Christmas and needed help setting it up, so Vicki & I went over. She was so thankful and excited, even though she still didn’t really know how to use it when we left. 


From her daughter, Vicki:
Mark & I moved to Houston a few years later and would have her over on weekends to BBQ.
At one point and time she, Mark and I went in together to rent a house, complete with all our dogs and cats, and her Miniature Schnauzer.  This was all before Mark and I had the girls.
She got her own place after a year or so but was over quite often after Maegan was born. In 1993 when Valerie was just 4 weeks old we moved to El Paso. Mother road all the way out there with us in the back seat of my car entertaining Maegan and taking care of Val.  It was over a 12-hour trip. She stayed a few weeks while we got settled in.  She then flew back to Houston where she lived for about a year and a half before she deciding to move to El Paso and live with us. The girls were about 2 & 4 at the time. Since she couldn’t find a job, I went to work, and she watched the girls. When they got a little bit older she took Maegan to Kindergarten and Valerie to Pre-school.  (Get with me later if you want to hear some of those stories.) lol

We moved back to Houston in 1998 to our 2-bedroom house so she and her dog Max had to move in with Trace and Kay until she started working at Target and got her own apartment. She retired shortly thereafter. Between 2000 and 2009 we had to move her pretty much every year until she moved into her last apartment where she lived for over 8 years.  Up until about 2 years ago she would come over to “babysit” her grand puppies whenever Mark, the girls and I went out of town. She would always bring over a grocery bag full of dog treats.  (No wonder they gained weight while we were away.)


From her daughter, Vicki:
When I was in 4th grade she volunteered as the Leader for my Girl Scouts Troup. I remember going to a day camp and tie dying shirts and learning to cook and sew.

By the time I was in Jr. High my mother got a job doing various administrative and accounting work. She also joined a Bridge Club which met weekly at different ladies’ houses on Wednesday night. I remember a couple of times if they were short a person I would get to sit in. I got pretty good at playing Bridge, but not sure I remember how to now.  While in High School I remember her hosting some Bunco parties where my girl friends and their moms and others would play together. It was a good mother/daughter experience. Oh, and I cannot forget family Yatzee night, where she would win 9 times out of 10!

One last childhood memory was when we were given a cattle horse. My mom was riding him through our back yard one day and her Beehive hairdo got caught on a tree branch. The horse felt her weight shift, so he stopped, let her fall off, ever so gently walked a few feet and started eating grass. It scared her at the time, but she later laughed about it for years.

In 1980 our mother moved to Houston to start her “new life” while going through a divorce. She had some friends from our Tractor Pulling days that lived in Houston. I remember she would call and tell me about going out dancing with them on Saturday nights. For many, many years she told the story of seeing a handsome young man play and sing at a club on the Eastex Freeway that she thought would make it big one day. That young man’s name was George Strait!


From her daughter, Vicki:
The supermarkets used to give out Texas Gold Stamps and S&H Green Stamps depending on the amount you spent on groceries. I remember helping her moisten the stamps and putting them in the books. Once you had enough books you would turn them in for merchandise like a hand mixer, iron, or something like that. However, a lot of her S&H Green Stamps went to a lady in a neighboring town to purchase Siamese Kittens. We had several over the years. They were either named Chang or Sampson. Lol

Once I started school my mom started sewing for several elderly ladies that were not able to “buy off the rack” for spending money. She made lot of my clothes as well as my dad’s Western shirts with all the fancy shoulder pieces, etc. She also went through a phase of making all sorts of beaded necklaces and belts selling them to the ladies as well.  My dad eventually built her a “sewing closet” in the corner of their bedroom because she had so much stuff. (Perhaps because her actual closet was full of clothing and over 70 pairs of shoes and 30 purses).

One day she and my dad came home with an old Antique Upright Piano. She refinished it, got it tuned, then taught herself how to read sheet music and play the piano. (She already knew how to read the Treble Cleft because of singing the Lead Soprano part in her high school chorus.) One of her favorite songs to play was Tchaikovsky’s Waltz of the Flowers. I still remember singing songs with her while she played, especially out of a Hot 101 Piano/Organ Music book such as Born Free, Close to You, Daydream Believer, I’ll Never Fall in Love Again and Rose Garden. (While writing down these memories I just realized Close to You is same song I used to sing to my girls while trying to get them to go to sleep when they were babies and Daydream Believer is my “go to” Karaoke song I sing with my girls.)  Did I mention that during the few years she lived with us in El Paso she bought a piano for the girls?

From her daughter, Vicki:
When the girls were about 2 and 4 years old, Maegan, Valerie and I were lucky enough to travel with her to Oregon to visit her mother and brother. We took several day trips and saw a lot of sites such as the waterfalls along the Columbia River Gorge and Mt. Hood.  One day we crossed the river to Vancouver Washington for lunch just, so we could say we had been there.  On another day we fed the ducks, geese and seagulls, one with only one leg, on the Clackamas River and we also took a drive down the Pacific coastline into California.
She really enjoyed the memories it brought back and was happy to have been able to show it to me and girls. All though they probably don’t remember much about the trip, they have numerous pictures from that trip.

When I was very young I remember mother getting up every morning to make breakfast, usually bacon, eggs & toast. On the weekends we would have pancakes where I learned to eat them with just butter, no syrup, just like her. I still eat them that way today.
Also, before I started school, I remember her cooking a hot lunch (and on some days dinner) to take to my dad out on the farm, facing the car into the wind, hood up, with the accelerator pressed to keep the car cool while he ate. She would then go home, pay all the bills, create payroll checks, get all the farm’s taxes and other financial documents in order and then do all the other chores.
On nights that we had dinner at home, it was usually early. Later in the evening, during tv time, she would pop popcorn and divide it up for us to share. I have her “popcorn” pot, which I still use to make my mashed potatoes today.


From her daughter, Vicki:
Okay, the first few memories I would like to share involve my brother Trace.

Whenever he would smart off to our mom she would chase him around the house with a flyswatter in her hand trying to hit him. There were a few times when she couldn’t reach him, so she would take off her shoe and throw it at him.

I also remember her telling the story of when she drove Trace and a station wagon full of Jr. High boys from the 4-H club to Houston to go to Astroworld.  She laughed her butt off when they were scared to get on the roller coasters. She got on and told them the roller coaster was mundane as she had been on several larger ones growing up including the one at Coney Island.

As far back as I can remember my mother was always reading. She had so many books that she had read that my dad built her bookshelves across an entire wall at our house. She had books stacked in each opening 2 rows high and 2 rows deep. Mother would sit down after dinner with a book, a can of pre-shelled sunflower seeds and a Dr. Pepper finishing it before going to bed that night. (Trace was always getting in trouble for eating her sunflower seeds, so he would turn the can upside down, shake it, then gently flip it back over and set it in the same exact spot to make it look like the were never touched.) lol

Mother would tell us stories about traveling all over the US with her mom Ivey, step-dad Harry and younger brother Roy Lee when they were young. They visited over 100 state and national parks over the years where they did a lot of hiking and camping.  She lived in several places including the Black Hills of South Dakota, Oregon and California. 
 

OBITUARIO

Bobbie Jean Parham

7 diciembre, 1935 – 13 enero, 2019

American Heritage Funeral Home

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