Stanton Bryant Rickett

July 2010 was a mixture of fireworks and funerals for our family. Jared's grandpa passed away on July 14th, and then my grandma passed away 4 days later on the 18th.

Here's a few things I remember about Grandpa Bryant:

When Jared and I were dating, I remember meeting his grandparents, and his grandpa was concerned about how much money they had to pay for property tax on their house. He pulls out a note card out of his pocket and proceeds to tell us how much a year it was costing them in taxes to live there. Then he told us how much each month was, then each day, each hour, each minute and of course each second! Apparently he would also write jokes on these note cards, so that he would remember them.

I remember Jared and I visited them in Pennsylvania when we went on our honeymoon. It was great to hear so many stories about Jared's ancestors. We have this really funny story that Bryant told us that we have on video. It was how back when he was a father, the men never changed diapers. One day his wife Marguerite was at the store, and he was left with the children, and one of them needed a diaper changed. He tried changing it, but the baby kept moving her legs all over the place, and "stuff" went flying! Finally he just had to sit there and hold her legs until Marguerite got home, which seemed like two days later. When asked for any words for prosperity, he asked "Posterior? Keep it clean!"

We would've liked to have attended the funeral, but they lived in Pennsylvania, and we couldn't afford it. So we had our own memorial out here with some of Jared's brothers and sisters and cousins. It was great to hear everyone else's memories of him. I've only known him for the past 10 years, and sadly he had been sick off and on for most of those years. At the end, he was in the hospital, and he seemed to be making a recovery. He was even joking with the nurses right before he passed away.

I'm lucky to have known such a great man. We named our 2nd son, Kirby Bryant, after him and after Jared's dad, Christopher Bryant. (Actually there was another Stanton Bryant Sr. he passed away a long time before I was part of the family) I'm grateful to be a part of this family, I have some wonderful inlaws, (and some of them are almost as nutty as me!)