Aunt Yvonne and Uncle LaVere Pepper

Today, I think that my mother may have just given my daughter, Leighlyn, the greatest compliment--ever.

I think that the Elder family is much like most other families in the sense that we try to find out which of our relatives passed on certain traits to others. For instance, we think that Grandmother Nonny passed her lack of balance and grace on to me. Sad to say but several of us believe that I passed my "good looks" on to our dear, sweet Abigayle. We also think that Leighlyn inherited her instrumental music talent from Lori and Lona Sue. But today, as Mama, Lori and I discussed sweet personality traits of Leighlyn, Mama summed it all up by saying that Leighlyn inherited those from my dear and beautiful Aunt Yvonne Pepper who lives in Johnson, Kansas. She is married to Mama's oldest brother, one of the all-time best men to ever walk the face of Earth, Uncle LaVere Pepper.

If you have ever had the opportunity to know and love, Uncle LaVere and Aunt Yvonne, you know how extremely special each of them is. (I need to explain something here. Y-V-O-N-N-E is pronounced Ya-von if you listen to me. It is the name that I gave her when she was welcomed into our family just a year or so after I was born. In actuality, her name is pronounced E-von. To this day, I am probably the only one who mispronounces her name but she has never criticized me one time for this butchering of her name. Does that give you an idea of what kind of lady, Aunt Yvonne is??? It should tell you that she is the TRUE description of a Christian lady and is just the way that God wants all of us to be just as Uncle LaVere is exactly the way God wanted him to be when he created him.

Before the Good Lord took Granddad and Nonny Pepper home with Him way too many years ago, Uncle LaVere's family usually met Mama's family at our grandparents' home in Syracuse each and every Sunday. We cherish the beautiful hours, minutes and seconds that we all shared together and long for those good times again...

When you open the dictionary to look up the description of the word, Christian, you will find two pictures beside the definition. Those two people are LaVere and Yvonne Pepper. They go out-of-their-ways to do nothing more than to bring love and happiness to others and they refuse to give into such temptations such as to gossip about the people they just saw at the grocery store parking lot... They are always there for EVERYONE, ANYTIME that they are asked to be there. Both were blessed with hearts of gold.

During their marriage, God blessed them with one child, Allyn. He is three years younger than me. And what a man they have raised! While many people his age are out drinking, smoking and tearing up the world doing whatever, he is working hard and is doing just what his parents always taught him to do--being an exceptional Christian, man, husband to his girlfriend, Karen, and raising their two children. In reality, Allyn and Karen were married over 20 years ago but he still refers to her as his girlfriend and he still looks at here with so much love and admiration that many women are envious of their love, bond and commitment to one another.

Anyway, Leighlyn, Nonny may have just given you the all-time best compliment EVER...

VLE-B