Marshall &Kay Family  Histories

The older ya get the more names ya get

Mother/Grandma Mary

(Mary INGHAM Kay)

Joins Our Household

 

We had been asking Mother (Mary Ingham Kay) ever since my father (John Black Kay) passed away in 1968 to come live with us because we worried about her. At one point she did have a terrible experience. Her house was broken into and she was attacked and robbed. She didn't tell us anything about it until a couple of days later. And after that Vaughn and I really didn't want her to stay up there. But she still really wanted to stay in her own home. But I think towards the last she began to be a little worried because she always had problems with high blood pressure and I think she was beginning to fall down a lot. She started to worry that something would happen and there wouldn't be anybody around. So I think that's what finally made her decide to come down and live with us. She planned when she was going to retire and the building onto the house, all ahead of time. 

 

Toward the end of 1977 my mother decided it was time to make the move to our home. She hired a contractor to add some living area onto our house for her. And it increased the size and comfort of the house a lot. Mother sold her home in Menlo Park and used quite a bit of that money to finance the addition on our home. There were some difficulties with the construction, but it was finally finished in 1978. Mother moved into her new living quarters in July 1978. She seemed to really enjoy being there.

 

She liked taking care of Louie, a dog we kind of just acquired. She was an animal person, she really did like them. Although the big thing that she wanted when she came to live with us was space in the backyard to plant her corn and her plants. And she very much enjoyed the flowers. Of course Vaughn was more than willing to give her all the space she wanted. Mother and Vaughn had something special in common. They both loved to plant things. Vaughn used to love to go to the nursery and just browse for hours. It was one of the things he enjoyed most. He always liked having company because it was fun to share ideas. I was usually the one to go with him and probably got bored far too quickly. But when mother came to live with us she would often find a reason to go to the nursery and invite Vaughn to go with her. She loved "treating " him to all kinds of plants. It was fun watching the enjoyment they both got out of their excursions to the nursery. 
 

MOTHER'S DAYS GROW SHORT

In April of 1981, I (Yvonne Kay Marshall) was diagnosed with Multiple Sclerosis, and then in July, as I was recovering from a major episode, mother (Mary Ingham Kay)was diagnosed with cancer. She had surgery and radiation therapy, this was in July. For about a month after the radiation it looked pretty good, but then it spread rapidly. By August we all knew her time was limited. 

 

I took a leave of absence from work to help care for her. It would have been very hard to do if Vaughn, my wonderful husband, had not been willing to help also. He told me that he found himself doing things for her that he never thought he could ever do for anyone. She often told me how thoughtful he was and how grateful she was to him. He had a much more tender nature than I. Mother was sixty nine when she moved into our house and passed away at seventy two years of age. She wasn't with us very long.