Mabel (Schaefer) Bradley

Ancestors

Descendants

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Biography

Mabel was my paternal grandmother. She told me her mom wanted to name her Opal but her dad said he couldn't pronounce it. She is buried under the name Mable Berry with her second husband Lynn Berry in Scipio Cemetery Harlan Indiana. I think it is on her last marriage certificate It lists her ex-husband's parents as her parents. She was a loving grandmother who loved to play games with her grandkids and take trips with her sisters to the casinos. She Loved coffee and sweets and avoided doctors and dentists. Towards the end of her life she started going blind and had skin cancer. She lived with her daughter (Ann Lynn Berry Smith) and her family in Dowagiac, Michigan the last decade or so of her life, before being put in a Niles MI nursing home. Prior to that she had lived on 4th Street in St Joe, DeKalb county,Indiana for many years. I have memories of her taking me fishing, watching the TV show murder she wrote, playing cards and then Atari after it came out. Especially like the game centipede which she called Spider-Man. I remember her scrubbing the floor on her hands and knees and she was always cooking. She made the best pies and made everyone their favorites for Thanksgiving so they would usually be half dozen pies or so. Sometimes we would have a fire to roast wieners in the backyard or roll down the hill or play in the hose or on the tire swing. As a coffee lover she introduced her grandkids to coffee or as she called it sugar coffee for us. She kept a bank pouch of nickels and pennies to gamble with on the card games she taught us. She was never too busy to talk or do something with us and rarely showed any signs of anger. She did not smoke or drink and I never really heard her cuss... She may have said damn it once her twice. She would call us kids potlickers. In the winter when we would stay over she would put blankets on the tile floor around the old oil stove and sleep there with us. During warmer months we would share her iron bed upstairs with a bucket nearby in case we had to use the bathroom. As we grew older we just loved to sit around the round table in the dining room and talk for hours with coffee and donuts until she moved to Michigan or we grew up and moved away. I forgot to mention since her birthday was on Halloween we teased her about being a witch and some strange happenings would happen at her house.

She was only about 5 ft tall with dark hair, full figured.

• Fact: Burial (9 May 2011) Scipio Township, Allen, Indiana, United States of America
• Fact: Residence Grabill, Allen, Indiana, United States

Sources

• "Family Tree," database, FamilySearch (http://familysearch.org : modified 16 March 2020, 09:18), entry for Mable Elinore Schaefer(PID https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/4:1:GS83-2J4); contributed by various users.
• Granddaughter Tannie M. Rothgeb-Beason