We Remember
21 Oct 2011 Leave a Comment
Although I don’t remember that I ever met Mary Kathryn Schwope, I do know her youngest daughter Murel Connolly, and Murel’s children, Laine Moore, Jami Maves and Ben Connolly.
I was so drawn to this woman of many lifetime accomplishments. I read the extensive obituary on the Casper Star-Tribune website. I thought my life had been full, but in this woman’s 94 years, she makes my life feel a bit insignificant. I’m okay with that, though.
She was a remarkable woman with an amazing ability to remember people’s names and a wonderful sense of humor. She was a fierce patriot, a die-hard Democrat, and proud Wyomingite. She never passed up a chance to recite a poem from her uncounted repertoire but her favorite by far was (author unknown) “Wyoming”:
Have you ever seen the sun rise on the high and rolling plain?
Have you ever smelled wet sagebrush after a sudden springtime rain?
Did you ever feel the sting and smart of gravel in your face?
Then you’ve never known the glamour of that god forsaken place,
Wyoming.
Have you ever seen the clear cut skyline when the evening shadows fall?
When the mountains look like cardboard and you hear the coyotes call?
Have you seen the painted badlands with their yellow, red and blue?
You’ll never know how lonesome life can be until you do in
Wyoming.
Have you seen the sand and sagebrush stretch for miles and miles away,
While down the hill and along the draws the cooling shadows lay.
It’s lonesome, it’s desolate, it’s off the beaten track.
But once you’ve caught the lure of it you’re lonesome until you’re back in
Wyoming.
Grandma Kay will be greatly missed.
