Another passing...
Time marches on, which is a good thing lest we become bored. But on it's march it slowly starts to leave some loved ones behind. One more important person in my life has left the march. Mrs. Victoria Chapple died last Friday exactly one month shy of her 100th birtday.
I've always described Victoria as my third grandmother, but really she was more like the kindly great-aunt who was always glad to see you. I believe that Mrs. Chapple was probably the first person my family met when we moved to Midland 46 years ago. She was our next door neighbor from then until now and knowing her she would have been the first on the block to bring cupcakes [she made great cupcakes] to the new neighbors. She was a great friend to my Mom as is her daughter Tohya today. It's going to be awfully hard knowing that Mrs. Chapple is not at home next door anymore....she has been for five decades in the Craig family life.
Victoria had an amazing story, some of the details you can read in the link above. Born in Panama when Teddy Roosevelt was the President, daughter of a Panamanian Supreme Court Judge, her brother an ambassador to France and a girl so lovely that she was chosen the Queen of the Panamanian Carnival....their equivalent of Mardi Gras. She attended school in London, taught english and she later married a handsome young army doctor stationed in Panama and made a life with him which eventually brought them to Midland in 1936.
Victoria was without a doubt the kindest, sweetest and most giving person alive. As my old friend Bill Stallings in Houston said today when I told him the news, "well I really didn't know her very well, but I do remember that she was very nice to all the kids and gave out homemade cupcakes for Halloween". Yup that was Victoria. Except that she also had a great accent, sounding like a very sophsiticated Charo...
Time marches on, which is a good thing lest we become bored. But on it's march it slowly starts to leave some loved ones behind. One more important person in my life has left the march. Mrs. Victoria Chapple died last Friday exactly one month shy of her 100th birtday.
I've always described Victoria as my third grandmother, but really she was more like the kindly great-aunt who was always glad to see you. I believe that Mrs. Chapple was probably the first person my family met when we moved to Midland 46 years ago. She was our next door neighbor from then until now and knowing her she would have been the first on the block to bring cupcakes [she made great cupcakes] to the new neighbors. She was a great friend to my Mom as is her daughter Tohya today. It's going to be awfully hard knowing that Mrs. Chapple is not at home next door anymore....she has been for five decades in the Craig family life.
Victoria had an amazing story, some of the details you can read in the link above. Born in Panama when Teddy Roosevelt was the President, daughter of a Panamanian Supreme Court Judge, her brother an ambassador to France and a girl so lovely that she was chosen the Queen of the Panamanian Carnival....their equivalent of Mardi Gras. She attended school in London, taught english and she later married a handsome young army doctor stationed in Panama and made a life with him which eventually brought them to Midland in 1936.
Victoria was without a doubt the kindest, sweetest and most giving person alive. As my old friend Bill Stallings in Houston said today when I told him the news, "well I really didn't know her very well, but I do remember that she was very nice to all the kids and gave out homemade cupcakes for Halloween". Yup that was Victoria. Except that she also had a great accent, sounding like a very sophsiticated Charo...
