Mary Lucille Vogelsang Sroges, aka Grandma, passed away on August 13th in Berryville, Ark., after a decade long battle with Alzheimer’s disease.
Having gone to nursing school before nursing degrees were in existence, in a program that required students to room in the hospital setting, Mary lived and breathed nursing most of her adult life. When she finally retired, in her 70s, she took up tap dancing and the fiddle.
Mary was a lifelong painter and sculptor and enjoyed sketching family members when they weren’t looking. To enhance her art, she secured the world’s finest wall crank pencil sharpener, her pride and joy. (Sadly, the sharpener was lost, along with her Mississippi home, in Hurricane Katrina.)
Dogs were among Mary’s truest loves—the bigger the better. She aspired to one day have a dog a big as “Clifford” and generally fed all dogs accordingly.
Mary was the “straight man” to her husband, Oscar the Grouch, aka Grandpa. She was as cheerful as he was cantankerous. She sowed joy everywhere she went and was even known in the hospital as “the laughing lady.” She also swore regularly with no regard for who was listening.
We might not know what the afterlife holds for any of us, but we hope it supplies Grandma with an eternal fountain of ice cold Foster’s beer.
Wonderful woman. Incredibly talented. Love and condolances to all of the family.