Grandma Roos

As today is Saint Patrick's Day I feel it is only appropriate to write about a person by the name of Margaret Lorraine Teresa Francis Dooley (Roos). Okay, so Roos might not be so Irish, but it was her married name.

Grandma is probably the one person I am most like: I inherited her stubbornness, her love of books and history, and her Irish temperament. People often see the picture we have on our wall of her in her mid-twenties and immediately comment that I look like her. I always take it as a compliment.

Grandma truly lived the American Dream. She was born in Butte, Montana on 14 May 1921. Nobody really knows what happened to her father (she was told he went out to buy a pack of cigarettes when her mother was eight months pregnant and never came back, but due to other facts we've found that story doesn't exactly hold water) and her mother spent many years as an invalid before dying in 1937. Grandma was mostly raised by her older sister Mae and Mae's husband, Hanks. Grandma had a love of learning and a strong desire to get out of Butte and see the world, so she decided to become a military doctor. Her brothers, like most people in Butte, were mine workers but one sold everything he could to pay for her nursing school tuition. She wanted to apply for med school but was turned away because she was poor, an orphan, and a woman.

After completing nursing school, Grandma joined the Army and headed for Heidleberg, Germany where she was one of the many nurses who cared for General Patton in his final days. It was in Heidleberg that she fell in love with one of her patients, John Keith Roos, a young officer from Utah; they were married in 1948 in Salt Lake City.

Both Grandma and Grandpa returned to school at the University of Utah using the GI Bill and Grandma received a degree in English. They had only one child, my dad, and they settled into a split-level home in a friendly neighborhood Murray, Utah. Grandma was the quintessential 1950's housewife as well as an amazing military officer's wife. She never worked outside the home, but she managed the household as a pro. She was an amazing cook! She was not a fancy cook, but she made killer versions of all the standard comfort foods: meatloaf, spaghetti, tuna casserole, and cream potatoes with peas. Desserts were really her specialty: Devil's Food Cake, Creme Puffs, Turtle Cake, and Cranberry Muffins with Caramel Sauce. When we lived in Utah we ate Sunday Dinner with them each week and she ALWAYS made dessert.

Grandma was never a person to just casually like somebody. If she liked you, she LOVED you and considered you a dear friend (if she didn't like you, then that's a different story - I said in the beginning she was STUBBORN). She was an amazing mother and Grandmother because I always knew how much she loved me, no matter what.

I could go on for ages about Grandma, but it's late so I guess I have to draw the line somewhere. As I said earlier she lived the American Dream. She began her life as the daughter of a poor immigrant family working in a mining town and she completed her life living in a comfortable et modest home with a husband who adored who and friends who would have done just about anything for her - what more can one ask for? Grandma left an amazing legacy in the world and I hope I can live up to it!