A few years ago when I saw Grandpa Hooper's pictures as a young man, I thought about how much he looked like my youngest brother, Ammon. I tried to take a picture of Ammon in the right angle to compare, but it didn't really work. I decided to try again with a more recent picture.
Because I like to play with Photoshop, I put both of their faces at 50% opacity and overlapped the pictures. I realized then how incredibly alike they do look. I think some of my male cousins take after Grandpa as well. I'd like to get some of them at the same angle. I'm talking about you, Jared and Tanner.
Ammon didn't actually know Grandpa Hooper, because he died three months before Ammon was born. After a quarter of a century, my memories of Grandpa are starting to fade. What I really need to do is ask Dad and his siblings to tell us the stories again. I believe he was a machinist at Hill Air Force Base for most of his career. He was kind and loving. He loved to use tools, and had a big workshop in the basement. I didn't even know it was there until after he passed away, though. Could be because the grandkids didn't like to go near the basement laundry room because of the evil dog, Waddles. I don't think Grandpa was ever in his workshop when we came, though, because he wanted to visit with his kids.
One of my favorite memories was when a bunch of the grandkids were at their house, and we started messing with the garage door opener to see if we could figure out the code. Grandpa was inside, and could hear us pushing the buttons, but he never thought we'd guess it. Well, persistence was on our side, because some of the random numbers we chose ended up raising the door. Grandpa hurried out to rush us away, and he changed the code right then.
Grandma (Ruth) Hooper never learned to drive, so he would take her everywhere she needed to go until he got sick. Their youngest, Fred, also had major health problems with his kidneys, so for a few years, they had to drive him to the hospital for blood tests and treatments regularly. Grandpa kept a journal for part of that time.
Because I like to play with Photoshop, I put both of their faces at 50% opacity and overlapped the pictures. I realized then how incredibly alike they do look. I think some of my male cousins take after Grandpa as well. I'd like to get some of them at the same angle. I'm talking about you, Jared and Tanner.
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| Photo of Calvin M. Hooper overlapping a photo of Ammon J. Hooper |
Ammon didn't actually know Grandpa Hooper, because he died three months before Ammon was born. After a quarter of a century, my memories of Grandpa are starting to fade. What I really need to do is ask Dad and his siblings to tell us the stories again. I believe he was a machinist at Hill Air Force Base for most of his career. He was kind and loving. He loved to use tools, and had a big workshop in the basement. I didn't even know it was there until after he passed away, though. Could be because the grandkids didn't like to go near the basement laundry room because of the evil dog, Waddles. I don't think Grandpa was ever in his workshop when we came, though, because he wanted to visit with his kids.
Grandma (Ruth) Hooper never learned to drive, so he would take her everywhere she needed to go until he got sick. Their youngest, Fred, also had major health problems with his kidneys, so for a few years, they had to drive him to the hospital for blood tests and treatments regularly. Grandpa kept a journal for part of that time.
September 2, 1993 Today is our catch up day. That is we don’t have any doctor’s appointments or blood draws. I will have to get the patio ready for Saturday along with catch up on some of the jobs around the house. Ruth is wanting to get Fred’s old car fixed up so Marylou can have it. She seems to think getting it to run is all it will take. But that is just a start, it will need tires and work on the front end, probably brakes. I don’t have any idea how much it will cost to get it fixed up so it will pass inspection. I hooked up the battery charger to the battery and it needed to be charged. So while it was being charged I went out and put up the tarp so we will have a little more shade for our picnic Saturday. Fay and Richard stopped by, it was good to see them.
September 3, 1993 Today is Fred’s day we have to head for the hospital to have blood drawn. Went by pretty good, was back home by 8:17 a.m.. Then we were able to eat our breakfast. I decided to level out the stove. It really needed it too. But before I got it finished Ruth wanted to go to Wonder Bread, so I still have that job to finish up. Got the stove leveled up ok. Fred has a pain where his incision is and that has me worried. It seems like every weekend he has something wrong lately. I sure hope it is nothing serious. With it being Labor Day weekend it will be hard to find anyone to help us.
September 4, 1993 Today we got up and took care of Fred’s vitals and he was having trouble with pain in his legs, so I spent the morning rubbing his legs to try and get them to stop hurting him. Dennis and Michele got here about 12:30 p.m.. It was good to see them. Susan and Rob and Nathan came next. Then Kent arrived a little later. Dale and his family arrived shortly there after. It was sure nice to have most of the family together again. I had hung a tarp from our back patio and with it it gave us enough shade so we would put out the two tables to eat on and it made it quite nice. I sure wish Fred had of felt better so he could have enjoyed it also. We missed having Don and his family along with Marylou’s family. Other than that we had a really nice time. Later in the day Kent, Dale, and I spent some time on the computer trying to learn how to use my hand scanner. We was finally able to scan a picture of Ruth into the monitor and it looked pretty good. I will have to learn more about it before I can get it to print out a hard copy.
I did find some collected memories that I'm sure Uncle Rob and Aunt Susan posted on familysearch.org, in addition to the journal entry. In the memories, I found this one from Grandma Hooper.
He really loved his grandchildren. Just a couple weeks ago he said that he hated to be leaving the grandchildren. He also regretted that he wouldn’t get to see the new grandkids that would be born in August [Ammon]. He loved to hold the grandkids in his lap and play with them. The kids would all love to climb on Grandpa.
