Bessie Belle Lewis

is honored with a Large Paver from Susan Fischer-Lukens.

Bessie Belle, or Grandmother, as I called her, was my mother's mother and partly my mother too because my mother passed away when I was only five years old. She was adamant about being called GrandMOTHER, not Grandma, and as I grow older I can understand why. As a young child after my mother died, I used to spend summers in Wichita with her and I have very fond memories of those times.

She always let me sleep till late in the morning...EVERY morning. And then I would have breakfast on her large screened-in porch. She lived in over twenty houses in Wichita and she always drove big cars. She always had bottled Pepsi Cola in the refrigerator door. She had beautiful flower gardens, and she made the best biscuits ever as well as custard and raisin bread. I wanted her raisin bread recipe but it was not written down and all she could tell me was, "just the right amount of this and just the right amount of that." We both loved to do jigsaw puzzles and would stay up late to watch Johnny Carson while we worked on them. She loved to play bridge with her many friends, and she was always there for me. For that, I am honoring her in the Plaza of the Heroines. It is only a small token of all she meant to me for she was truly my guiding light.

Submitted by Susan Fischer-Lukens

July 16, 1998 (for Bessie Belle Lewis)