I Know You Don’t Have a Grandma Like Mine

Grandma Kat. My grandma. One amazing lady.

At 90 years old now, the running joke in the family is she is likely to outlive all of us. She is unreal. Sometimes I wonder if there is a machine under that skin.

In her lifetime she has been through the Great Depression, WWII, watched the world evolve with cars and planes, lived through a Presidential assassination, and see TVs become an everyday fixture in the home. She has been entertained by Bob Hope, Frank Sinatra, Johnny Carson, and many, many others. She has experienced the civil rights movement, Israel becoming a nation, the space race, the very first Dallas Cowboys game, the cold war, the Vietnam, Korean and Gulf Wars, 9/11, the invention and rise of the Internet, cell phones, microwaves, rock and roll, Cabbage Patch dolls, the Atari, Sesame Street, Walt Disney, the first black President, and many, many, NFL Thanksgiving Day games. She is a time vault.

And she isn’t done yet.

My grandma is our family hero. She is stronger than us all combined. Her resolve and tenacity is unmatched. Her faith is resolute and her joy is full. She knows Jesus like the back of her hand, and certainly He knows her the same. She keeps all on our toes.

Her homemade “traditional” rolls can’t be copied (my dad and I have tried). Her chocolate cake is to die for. Her homemade quilts deserve a Smithsonian home. Her ability to put together super complex puzzles is unreal and she will defeat you in most games - especially “Sorry”.

My kids love their great grandma too. They love coming over to her home and playing with her 30 year old make-believe kitchen set. Their imaginations take over as they ride down her driveway on a 4 wheel cart she made out of an old plastic tool box. And nothing tops playing “annie over” at her house - a game in which we divide into two teams and take turns throwing random balls over the roof in an attempt to hit each other.

I’m blessed beyond measure to have Kathrine Barton Speers as my grandmother. I am even more blessed that my wife and kids know her and now love her as I do.

There aren’t many grandmas out there at 90 that still try to mow their own yard, climb up ladders, drive around the city and serve in their church every week.

She is one of a kind and I know one thing is for sure…

You don’t have a grandma like mine.


“Gray hair is a crown of glory; it is gained in a righteous life.” Proverbs 16:13



© 2013, J. Brady Speers (grandson)

“I say it how I see it and I make no bones about it."