Pauline Violet Williams Streeter

My grandmother Pauline Streeter passed away on November 29, 2010.
The following is her eulogy...

Eulogy for Pauline Violet Williams Streeter

Pauline Violet Williams Streeter was born March 18, 1926 in Grand Rapids, Michigan to Paul and Violet Atwood Williams. Her father suffered from tuberculosis and died when Pauline was six. She only met him twice and remembers him primarily from photographs. 

Following her husband’s death, Pauline’s mother, Violet married John Armstrong. Soon after, Pauline’s grandmother Pearl Atwood’s ill-health and the Great Depression forced Pearl and the families of her nine children including  John, Violet, Pauline and younger brother Richard, to move across the country for work and to find a climate more favorable to Pearl’s asthma. The extended family made the trek, traveling with chickens in baskets tied to the sides of the cars and working on WPA projects across the country. Perhaps this early work ethic led to Pauline’s insistence in later years that there was no such thing as men’s work and women’s work—that all worked together equally on the task at hand. The family finally landed in Arizona, where they stayed until 1937, when war production for the European conflict which became World War II meant job opportunities back in Michigan and John became a tool and die maker, eventually working for GM.

Pauline was an active member of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints as a young girl in Michigan and throughout her life. Pauline’s grandmother, Pearl, was one of the earliest members of the Grand Rapids branch, joining in 1913. She had had a dream where she saw her two deceased brothers hunched over in a small prison cell, asking for her help. The dream continued until the day LDS missionaries came to the door. Frances heard their message of the plan of salvation and never looked back. Today, there are members of the sixth generation of Pearl’s family—Pauline’s great-grandchildren—still active in the church and in attendance at this service. 

Pauline remembered that church attendance in the early days was a little unstable. Once a sizable group formed, there would be a mass exodus to Utah, where members could enjoy fuller church resources. But the small numbers led to a sense of family, community and sometimes, pranks. Once, at the end of a humid summer Sunday night meeting, Dale Emery stood up and announced that “it’s too hot to go home tonight, so let’s all go over to the Streeter’s for ice cream!” Pauline, however, got even. The next week, she spoke in sacrament meeting and invited everyone over to the Emery’s for watermelon. The church grew, moving from rented halls to the Maejstic Theater to an old Bell Telephone building on Carlton Avenue to their own chapel on Bradford Street that the family helped build. Pauline and Harold were sealed in the Mesa temple in 1964.

Pauline attended Rockford Schools, where she was active in theater and graduated in 1945. In the seventh grade, she sat in front of a young man named Harold Rex Streeter, who delighted in tying her shoelaces together when she would sit with her feet back behind her desk, causing at least one public fall when she was stood to give a report. World War II broke out and Harold enlisted in the armed services, serving first in Italy and later in the Philippines. After basic training, however, he returned to Michigan where he and Pauline eloped to Muskegon Heights, to be married at a place where their names would not appear on the Kent County marriage rolls. (They called this an elopement, even though Pauline’s mother drove them to Muskegon Heights and back.) Harold went off to war, and Pauline went back to Rockford High School. Apparently, however, Harold got a little uneasy with the secrecy of their arrangement. He started sending letters home addressed to “Mrs. Harold Streeter.” First the postman, then everyone else in Rockford knew and the secret was out.

Pauline graduated from high school and attended beauty school. Harold mustered out of the service in 1946 and the couple moved to Arizona so that Harold could get an education under the GI Bill. Their daughter Pam was born the following year, which ended Harold’s education and the family’s Arizona adventure. They returned to Michigan, where Harold got a job at Fisher Body. Son Mark was born a few years later.

Pauline worked at an airplane assembly factory in Grand Rapids during the Korean conflict, riveting aluminum skins onto aircraft hulls at night until the birth of her third child, Val. A couple of years later, Randy was born. The family worked side by side, building their house on Northland Court. Since there was no men’s or women’s work, all joined in laying cement, digging tile fields and more. Harold and Pauline lived in that house for over fifty years.

Pauline loved the arts. In the 1960‘s, she was involved in theater, directing plays for church productions and at Rockford High School. Mark remembers a time when his mom and a friend decided they would read the entire works of William Shakespeare together. The friend lasted about a week, so Pauline enlisted Mark to take her place. They read Richard III, Julius Caesar, Romeo and Juliet, As You Like It and more. Mark credits the experience with his lifelong joy of literature.

Pauline also worked out of the home for Stanley Home Products, sometimes holding parties as frequently as  three times in a day. She became a supervisor and a crown member of Stanley and the family remembers the “slave labor” of packing orders for Saturday customer pick-ups. Pam remembers turning 16, when her mother gave her a map, the keys to the car and a box of products to deliver. Pam says that’s how she learned the streets of Grand Rapids… and how to read a map. Years later, people would come up to Pauline and thank her for those parties and products.

Pam came home from college in 1968 to announce her engagement and Christmas wedding to Dave. That’s when Pauline announced that she was expecting a baby around Christmas as well. Pam said, I’m not joking.” Pauline said, “I’m not laughing.” And Tami was born that December, completing the family. 

As the family grew up and moved out of the house, Pauline kept busy with new activities. She took writing and computer classes at  the community college, getting “A’s” for her efforts. A story she wrote about Pam and her mother-in-law, Nellie Wadsworth, was published in the Reader’s Digest, earning Pauline $300. If you haven’t heard this story, you should ask a family member.

Then, Harold and Pauline were called to be temple workers in the Chicago temple. Their assignment was to live in Chicago for two weeks a month and to serve full time in the temple during those trips. Pauline considered this brief period of time one of the greatest blessings of her life. They were working at the temple on the day their granddaughter Holly Avery was sealed to her husband. They served for 22 months until Harold’s increasing memory troubles necessitated a release, and Pauline entered into her last great calling in this life, as a caretaker and companion to him.

The love of the temple and eternal families led Pauline to take an active interest in family history work. In the days before the Family Search website and standardized records, Pauline would sit with her papers, notes and books piled around her in the study, connecting with family members around the world as far away as Australia. She was an early computer adoptee for family history work—and an early adoptee of computer viruses. Family, friends and ward members received calls from Pauline to help fix something that broke on the computer. Once, she dialed a wrong number and after apologizing, asked the person on the line if he could help. He did.

After Harold’s passing, Pauline eventually became too weak to live on her own. She moved into Northview Manor for the last few months of her life where she was known to be happy, active, determined and always on the go, just like she was throughout the rest of her life. The walls there have a black stripe running around the perimeter, where a rubber guard from Pauline’s wheelchair rubbed against them as she made her rounds. About a week before she died, she sat up and exclaimed, “I saw a light. Harold is waiting for me. I’ve got to go.” She slipped into a coma and passed away on November 29, 2010. 

Pauline is survived by four of her five children (her son, Randy, passed away in 2004), 16 grandchildren and 27 great-grandchildren, two aunts, nieces, nephews and friends. She will be interred in the Rockford Cemetery.

I am also including a picture slideshow of Grandma's life...

Miss you Grandma!!