From Larry January 2026

Neta “Grandma June” Roby     2 October 1934—26 November 2025

 I was born in Gainesville, Florida in 1955, and within a few months, my parents moved back closer to my mother’s parents in Southern California where I spent my infancy through primary school years growing up. Looking at photographs from that time, I think that you would get the idea that we were a pretty happy extended family with grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins who lived within a half hour’s car ride of one another.

As a small child and a teen, my recollections of my mother are that she was pretty happy, very loving, and intensely protective of her family. She was actively engaged with church life and the other young mothers in our neighborhood in Hawaiian Gardens, and she was always hanging out with her younger sisters, Darlyne, and a bit less often, Joy, who was the baby in Mom’s family and who marched to her own drum as much as she could.

     Forty-five years later, when Janet and I moved our young family to Colorado Springs, I was finally beginning to mature as a father and a husband, and I recall thinking at that time that my mother gave me the foundation I needed to understand husbandly and fatherly love, responsibility, and commitment—sacrifice, really. To my very good fortune, my mother adored, protected, and raised us well—me, my sister, and brother. When I, Cindy, and Chris were growing up, my mother sacrificed much for us, and she did so with a sense of grace, offering freely from her heart.

     My mother was a product of a devoutly evangelical Christian home (Southern and Conservative Baptist) in which she and her sisters idolized her father and mother, more or less obeyed without question (as far as I knew), and adopted the lifestyle of the 1950s version of the good Christian woman. Of course, naturally, the three girls wandered from the straight and narrow in their own ways, but what Grandma and Grandpa McCann didn’t know wouldn’t hurt anyone. Honestly, I think none of those girls strayed very far afield.

     Grandpa McCann was the breadwinner, the builder and maintainer, and Grandma kept the home clean and tidy, always ready for any bible study opportunity that might arise whenever anyone from church dropped by. They knew and had good relations with their neighbors, and I never knew about any friends except people from the churches and various evangelical missions that they served. The McCann parents immersed themselves in scripture, bible study, and prayer. And Grandma spent much of her day deep in prayer and sending scripture heavy postcards, evangelical tracts, and letters to family and friends. These practices, my mother—as the elder sister—took over with her life’s passion.

     My mother grew up in that Southern California world, having been transplanted from West Texas (Levelland) as a young teenager. In Texas, Grandpa McCann owned a grocery store with one of his brothers, and when the U.S. entered World War II, Herbert brought his family west to find work supporting the American war effort. He began a career as an electrician, and my mother and her sisters grew up listening to pop music, falling in love with Perry Como and Pat Boone (Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, and Elvis had to be kept secret from the parents), making new friends at school, and of course, going to Sunday School and worship services on Sunday mornings and evenings, prayer meeting on Wednesday nights, and choir practice on Thursdays.

     My mother was a pretty girl and later a young Southern California woman, a graduate of Narbonne High School in Harbor City, California. She had shortish dark brown hair which she and her sisters would curl and fuss over every several weeks, and pictures of those days show her in what might as well be poodle skirts, capris, and bobby sox. She attended college from time to time, first at Cerritos College (Norwalk, CA) and years later at the College of San Mateo on the San Francisco Peninsula where, for a time, she and I attended college together, sometimes having college professors in common. This gave Mom and me common interests to talk about as mother and soon-to-be adult youth, and I still treasure the bonding that I felt way back then.

     My mother gave us birthday parties in our backyard, at which we played Drop-the-Clothes-Pin-in-the-Milk-Bottle, Pin the Tail on the Donkey, and other child party games of our time. She read to us Dr. Seuss, set us up with a record player on which we could play sing-along recordings of songs like “Old Macdonald Had a Farm” and “Where Have You Gone Billy Boy?” She often set us up in the living room with hot chocolate and vinyl LP recordings of The Huckleberry Hound Dog Show (a popular television cartoon program), Disney’s Peter Pan, and 101 Dalmatians. My mother scavenged and fabricated costumes for our church Christmas programs, walked us to school until I learned the way so that Cindy and I could walk together with the gangs of neighborhood kids who gathered along the way. Mom fed us, bathed us, and took us to pre-school programs and swimming lessons at a local park (Mayfair Park, Clark Avenue, Lakewood, CA). She taught us how to tie our shoes, helped us learn to read, and kept a watchful eye on us when we played outside with neighborhood kids in our suburban block of homes purchased mostly on the GI Bill.

Something like once a month (I think), my mother would get together with Aunt Darlyne and Aunt Joy for hair dressing extravaganzas. Usually this would be on a Saturday night (bath night), and often we would gather at Grandma McCann’s because Joy still lived at home, and we were headed to our grandparents’ church the next morning for worship service anyway. I cannot vividly recall nor describe the distinctive fragrance that filled the house when those girls started their permanent curl process, but I remember it as particularly pleasing to me; in fact, my recollections feel comforting. While my mother and her sisters were off in my grandparents’ only bathroom, yakking and laughing, I and my siblings romped around in the backyard during summer months and in the living room during the shorter daylight hours of winter. Mixed with the scent of baking cornbread and roasting beef or ham, those DIY Toni hair perm smells bring a smile whenever I think back on it.

     Our world in Southern California (Torrence, Hawaiian Gardens, and Cypress) was shaped by living within a short drive to grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins on both sides of the family. This means that we shared holidays with large groups of family and friends, and we moved those gatherings around the family year to year. And we visited relatives often on weekends throughout the year.

     If we hosted Christmas at our house, it is likely that the McKees (Aunt Darlyne, Uncle Mac, Michele and Lisa) would sleep over the night before, and whenever someone else hosted the celebration, it was likely that the Giddings kids at least would sleep over. Each year, after the Christmas morning present unwrapping carnage came to an end, my mother, her sisters, and Grandma McCann would spend hours preparing the afternoon feast: turkey, stuffing, gravy, mashed potatoes, green beans, and Jello–always Jello–mixed with shredded carrots, maybe cottage cheese … oh, and Cool Whip—whipped cream was fattening. But don’t hold back on the sugar in the iced tea! You can’t have too much sugar in that West Texas sweet tea. 

To this day, whenever I feel like childhood comfort food, I turn to my version of several of Mom’s recipes. I’m not sure where my mother found those recipes, but it is likely that they were printed on Bisquick packaging and Hunts Tomato Sauce advertisements in various magazines that my mother would bring home from time to time, or from Aunt Darlyne’s ever present TV Guide.

     My favorite all time dishes from those days include “Hamburger Pizza” (with a Bisquick crust, tomato sauce, and swiss cheese baked in a pie dish) and my beloved Favorite Coffee Cake (page 55, Betty Crocker Cookbook).  When the weather turns cold, I also think about making Porcupines, a brothy meatball dish best made with ground beef and a box of Rice-a-Roni but which I modified in our lean years, using rice and a couple cubes of bullion for the broth, to save a few pennies. I have fond memories of Mom’s peanut butter cookies, again from Betty Crocker. And there was a dish that my mother called Hamburger Onion Pie, a sort of variation on quiche, made with a Bisquick crust (of course) and a mixture of  ground beef, onion, and egg for the filling.

    My love of cooking and baking came from my mother, and if my children have kept any of our family comfort food recipes, then I think that Grandma June’s work in that department is done.

     I learned the following important things about myself, relationships, and life from Grandma June in my childhood, throughout my youth, and throughout my 20s and 30s. I learned how to love, deeply, without reservation, and unconditionally. And while that capacity for love has, from time to time, been the source of a good deal of pain over the years, I have the great fortune to have received in return equally deep love and affection from those important to me. I learned that marriage is for life, period. I learned to strive to become a good person, a good husband, and a good father. I learned that when I make mistakes, I need to own them and to move forward—doing better, trying to learn from those mistakes. And I learned to find joy in my life with those around me, especially to find joy in my life with my family. 

    Looking back now, I realize that I spent much of my childhood not really paying attention to what the adults were up to. I was always super proud when Grandma June served as my elementary school room mother. I know that she was usually with us on group camping/water skiing excursions. And I never thought to wonder or to ask her if she actually enjoyed those crazy camping and water skiing ordeals (which, looking back, they must have been ordeals for her).

 And of course, when we were out playing with friends in the neighborhood, at the river, or on a beach somewhere, she must have been keeping a watchful eye on us and for sure, putting a bandaid on skinned knees. Maybe the fact that I paid so little attention to what my mother was up to means that she made me and my siblings know that we were safe and well taken care of and happy under her loving care.

Larry