My grandmother turned 90 last September. She grew up in Utah in an area referred to as The Basin (i.e. the Uintah Basin). She was the eleventh child in a family of twelve, but she was always the youngest; Albert, her little brother, died as a baby. She lived in what was, at the time, considered a nice home. It had a dirt floor which was regularly swept.

She was constantly teased by her older sisters and was often criticized by her mother for aspects about herself she couldn't help, like the size of her nose or her height. She's self-deprecating, and there's a sad honesty in what appears to be humor: she feels she's lacking in talent and ability and intelligence, particularly when compared with her siblings. For example, she had one sister who was an award-winning and regularly published author, and a sister whose illustrations graced many publications. One of her gorgeous huge landscape paintings hangs on my grandmother's wall.

Throughout their childhood the children each had one pair of shoes, and they were for church. They went barefoot most of the rest of the time, particularly in warm weather. As a young girl, in a fit of creativity (for she is an amazingly creative person), my grandmother found an old inner tube and made a pair of shoes from it. She was incredibly proud of her new shoes, but her sisters teased her and called her "The Cobbler" for a long time after that.

Until last month I had only ever heard part of the story. Grandma told me about finding the inner tube and making a pair of shoes and being called a cobbler, but she'd never told me that she had one pair of shoes, only for church, until then.

Growing up means your grandmother fills in the gaps of the stories you thought you knew by heart.