My Recollections of Sidney Talbot--by Jennifer Talbot Fletcher
My father, Michael Talbot, was her first child, and I was her first grandchild. She died the first year of my marriage when I was twenty-one years old, and I wish I could know her as an adult, although I consider myself lucky to have known her to my adulthood, since none of my cousins were able to.
Of all the people who influenced my childhood for good, she influenced it the most. She was the person who contributed most to my stockpile of "happy childhood memories." She had the most cheering, encouraging presence. When I was younger, she was all fun and games. She would take us swimming, to the mall, to the country club. She'd laugh and tell jokes and feed us sugar cereal. She was so unlike my other older female relatives who were always correcting or teaching or directing or chastising. When I was a brooding, insecure teenager--overweight with zits--she would send me books in the mail with a note, "You remind me of the protagonist." And, of course, the protagonist was always someone amazing.
As I grew older I appreciated her sense of humor, her sarcasm, her tendency to contradict or go against societal norms. She laughed a lot. She liked to shock people. Once my grandfather said, "Sid, I wish you would wear a one piece swimsuit." She said, "Yes, dear. Which piece would you like me to wear?"
Because she was so very different from other Mormon women, she wasn't judgmental of those who didn't fit in or who were underdogs--she was a champion to them.
She was also charitable. For forty years she volunteered as a candy striper in the hospital, and I remember at her funeral there was a crowd of candy stripers, all wearing their uniforms in the back of the chapel, holding wet tissues. At the service, my uncle Jon told stories of her buying toys to give the sick children at the hospital, and his memories of her passing out copies of the Book of Mormon to the patients.
During the first decade of my parents' marriage, they were very poor. My dad was a lawyer, and during a slight recession in the economy, many of his clients could not afford to pay. My grandmother would show up with groceries, money and even occasional gifts, like a new bedspread, for my family. She told my mother not to tell Elden…that my grandfather wanted my father to learn how to stand on his own two feet. But Sidney could not sit by and watch my family struggle. She had to bring relief.
I wish my children could know her. She died of a tumor two months before my first daughter was born. I named my daughter, Laura Sidney, after her.
With her father Clifford, my father Michael, and a woman I do not know.
