The focus of our blogs during this holiday season is on the favorite holiday memories and traditions of residents of the assisted living and memory care communities Gardant manages.
As Meghann Giarraputo, Gardant’s memory care director, noted in a recent blog, asking your older adult loved ones about their favorite memories is one way to make the season more magical. Your loved ones will benefit from your time and attention; you will be filled with a cherished collection of their remembrances.
Today, we highlight a Christmas Day memory of Bob, a 92-year-young resident of the Heritage Woods affordable assisted living community in Sterling, Illinois.
Bob was serving our country in the military. He was sailing home on Christmas Day 1945, after assignments in the New Guinea; New Caledonia and Brisbane, Australia. He was aboard the USS Griggs (APA 110), which was a Windsor-class attack transport assigned to Asian Pacific Theatre. The Griggs was sailing into Pearl Harbor, where Bob said he did not get to spend nearly enough time.
They served “one heckuva feast, but so many were seasick that several others and I basically had the whole top of the ship to ourselves. And the food was decent.’