The Difficult Side of Genealogy

From time to time, we come across sad stories in our genealogy.  

Such as my maternal grandmother, twice widowed while in her 20s and married a third time to an unstable ne'er-do-well.  Her first husband's family "ganged up on her," as my aunt told me, and took away her two younger children, her daughters, and adopted them within the family.

Such as a collateral relative in my mother's paternal line, who lost three children in the 1918 "Spanish Flu" epidemic.  Her husband gave her no help at all, perhaps because he was devastated and couldn't handle it or perhaps because he was a jerk.  She divorced him, left Indiana for California and married a doctor there, making a new life for herself.

Such as my brother and his wife, who lost their daughter, my niece, to leukemia when she was 22.  Then, some 20 years later, my brother succumbed to leukemia as well.  I suspect agent orange, as my brother was a VietNam veteran, a Marine.

Such as a favorite uncle of mine, who, after a multiple-heart-bypass, committed suicide.

Handling these sad stories is difficult, when we exercise our empathy, our compassion, and look at them from the perspective of our forbears who faced such heartbreaking events.  Then it happens to us . . . 

Like my brother and his wife, my husband and I are faced with the prospect of losing a child.  Children just should not predecease their parents, but it does happen.  Our younger daughter (52 years old but still our child) has an incurable form of cancer, multiple myeloma.  It is treatable and she is in remission, but this form of cancer cannot yet be vanquished.  Knowing what is coming is like staring down the barrel of a firearm waiting for that bullet to come out and hit us.  

But it enables us to share the grief of our ancestors and relations who went through similar periods of stress, sadness, grief, and loss.  The stories we discover of how our ancestors survived such events in their lives lets us know that, battered and bruised as we may be, we can get through the hard times, the bad times, the sad times, and continue.  We continue to gather the stories of our ancestors and preserve them and the sources that document them, to pass on to our children and make them available to the wider world of family history researchers. 

Sentimental Sunday:  Proud Parent

Last year, our older daughter earned a doctorate in audiology.  Her practice works with military veterans.  She enjoys working with them, and feels comfortable with them probably because her father and I are both veterans.  We are hugely proud of her.

After the graduation ceremonies, we celebrated at a favorite New Orleans-style restaurant.  The hostess and co-owner of the place is wonderfully imaginative, and in honor of our daughter's accomplishment, she made this sign and placed it next to our table:

 

#TheBookofMe May's Prompts -- late again

I don't know where the month of May went, but it's now June (hurricane season has begun).  I am going to, once again, combine all of one month's prompts into one blog entry.

1.  What or who are you proud of?

I am proud of my husband for having been a good provider in 47 years of marriage.  He even, on our modest income, got me through graduate school without a student loan.  We've had some rough patches, as we all do.  But we have come through them, perhaps a bit financially bloodied, but unbowed.  We have a comfortable retirement.  Well, he's retired.  I'm probably an old ADHD, and will never retire, as I always have to be doing something.

I am proud of my daughters, who have become hard-working, life-loving, responsible women.  Our older one has a good marriage to a fine man.  Our younger one chose never to marry, and has her own place in the country, where she is most at home.  Both of them have a solid work ethic.  Both of them enjoy their family and friends. 

I am proud of my grandson, who is doing well in school and overall, despite a fairly severe ADHD.  That's why I made the reference above, because I see myself in my grandson.  He has a terrific sense of humor, and is particularly adept at puns.  He made his first pun at the age of about five.

I am proud of having served in the United States Coast Guard, active duty and reserve, enlisted and officer.  I accomplished things beyond what I had ever imagined I could.  It was a tremendous growth experience.

2.  What frustrates you?

Computer games, at times.  There is one cardinal rule of computer gaming -- the game always cheats.  When I can't seem to accomplish a level, it frustrates me.  However, I'm mule stubborn, so I don't give up until I do complete the level!

Deliberate ignorance frustrates me. Not much else does, though.

3.  What is your favorite way to communicate?

Face-to-face.  That's the best.  I despise the telephone.  I had a job once sitting at a desk with a headset on my head, answering incoming call after incoming call, for the Internal Revenue Service.  At home, I informed my husband that he would have to answer the telephone, because I wasn't going to after a day of doing nothing but that.  I still don't like to get on the dratted instrument.

4.  Name a treasured possession and share why.

Family photographs.  My family is mostly gone.  My father died in 1954 (I had just turned 7), my aunt, who helped raise me, in 1967 (I was in college).  My grandma and my mother-in-law in 1978 and my mother in 1980.  My brother in 1996.  So photographs have been for different stretches of years the only thing I have to remember them.

5.  What and who do you value?

I value my family and friends.  They keep me going.

I value honesty and integrity.  I value incorruptibility.  I value a sense of humor; never trust anyone who does not have one.  I value intelligence. 

#TheBookofMe: What (or who) do you miss most?

The question reminds me of the old saw: "Of everything I've lost, I miss my mind the most."

Well, I haven't lost my mind.  Yet.

I have lost so many people in my lifetime -- my father, my grandma, my aunt, my mother, my brother, friends -- that I miss them all, and don't want to single out just one of them.

I miss my health; it has pretty much gone away, though I still get around.  I don't get around as much as I used to, of course.  We all suffer from that.  But just walking a couple blocks this week in the Adams-Morgan neighborhood of Washington, D.C., where our nephew lives, was a real challenge.  I also did a lot of standing around, and a lot of sitting.  I went up to Washington for the launch of the website of the huge Spanish Colonial Florida database project I've been contributing to.  It was a wonderful launch, and a bunch of us went out to eat afterward, and had big fun.

I miss a lot of people less than I used to, because I'm back in touch with them on Facebook.  I'm especially happy to be in touch with my cousins, though we lost one of our number a couple years ago. 

I miss the ability to travel more and be more adaptable to different environments.  No more camping or hiking, or even taking long walks, because of arthritis.

I miss mountains, because I live in Florida.  I was born in California, and lived there as a child.  I like mountains. 

I miss our boat, because we had such fun with it.  We even were members of the Coast Guard Auxiliary for a few years, and used our boat in a number of search and rescue missions, patrols, and training exercises.  That was terrific fun!

I'm not sure there's much more I miss.  I have so much now.  My husband, our kids, our grandson, our kitty-cat, my historical research.  I stay occupied, so I don't have time to think about what I miss enough to be in any way despondent about it.

Genealogy Blog Party: Stories of Love

Remember the old love stories, where kids grow up together and later fall in love, marry, have kids, and live happily ever after?

Rarely does it work like that in real life, and never with anything approaching perfection.  Life is a rocky road at times, and so is love.

However, let me tell you a story:

When I had just turned seven years old, my father died, and my mother wanted to take the three of us kids -- my sister, the oldest (16 at the time), my brother (12), and me -- from our home in California to Florida, where her mom and sister lived.  In Florida, my aunt (mom's sister) took upon herself the duties she had assumed six years earlier, when she was my godmother at my baptism.  She took me to her church, of the Episcopal persuasion, and there I met a group of other kids, including a boy with the unusual name of Keys.  We kids grew up in that church, all of us participating either in the choir or as acolytes (altar boys), and when we became teenagers, we all joined the Episcopal Young Churchmen. 

That was a fine time, and I found opportunities to serve as treasurer of the EYC and as one of two delegates to the diocese-wide House of Episcopal Young Churchmen, or HEYC.  I got my driver's license at 16, my aunt having also taken up the duties of teaching me to drive, as she had my sister and my brother.  She was a calmer teacher than mom ever could have been!  Keys needed transportation home after meetings, so I gave him rides.  I lived quite near to the church, just three blocks away.  Keys lived much farther than that, but I enjoyed driving and was happy to take him home.  We developed a habit of sitting in the car in the driveway and talking, about all sorts of things.  We, know-it-all teenagers that we were, solved the world's problems there.  We talked about amusing or engaging movies and TV we had seen.  We told jokes.  And I commiserated with Keys when he told of his difficulties with his girlfriend.  I wasn't much into dating as a teenager, though I enjoyed social gatherings and talking with all sorts of people.  So did Keys.  We were good buddies.

We  went to different high schools, rival schools.  When we graduated, we went to different, rival colleges.  One Christmas break, I decided to go to the Christmas Eve service at the church, and Keys was there with his family.  I saw him on the other side of the church, with new eyes.  I fell in love.  I didn't know whether he reciprocated, but he began to call me on the phone, and we'd go out for ice cream or to a movie. 

It wasn't all smooth sailing.  I had entered upon an internship at the city's public library, which led to a full grant for graduate school in library science, and a guarantee of a job at the city's main library after graduation.  It was during the internship that Keys decided to break up with me.  It broke my heart, but my steadfast mentor, my aunt, who was unmarried, told me that if he cared for me, he would be back.  She was right.

We dated again, and after graduating from college, he was concerned about the draft.  It was the 1960s, and he did not particularly want to go to Vietnam, but he didn't want to go to Canada, either.  He was looking for a way to serve.  He joined the United States Coast Guard, and went to officer candidate school at Yorktown, Virginia.  After he completed that training, he was assigned aboard the U.S. Coast Guard Cutter Ingham -- which is now a museum on the National Register of Historic Places, moored at Key West, Florida. 

It was then that we got married.  We did not start off living as husband and wife, though, because I was under two years' contract to the city library, having received my master's degree and started work there, and his ship spent 30 days at a time bobbing like a cork in the North Atlantic ocean, hosting scientists conducting atmospheric and oceanographic experiments, and providing guidance to ships crossing the ocean on the northerly routes.

We did manage to have a baby, and then he got a change of station to a city about 400 miles away from our home city, and we finally were together as a family.  It's been nearly 47 years -- we are 18 days away from our 47th anniversary -- and there have been hard times, but there have been more good times and a lot of laughter.  We have grown old together, and are happy and content to be as we are.  It's not perfect, but it sure beats anything else I could imagine.

So sometimes such stories do come true.

The Book of Me, Written by You - #19

I'm behind on these posts, but when I got home from Pinellas Park, I got a bout of the flu.  Fortunately, I had a flu shot in October, so this round of flu was abbreviated, but I still had some nausea, temperature of 102.4, and muscle and joint aches that kept me in bed, then a couple weeks to really recover.

This prompt is "Who do you miss?"

My answer is:  Who do I not miss?  Most of my family is gone.

My father died in 1954.  I had just turned 7 years old.  I would like to have had him around longer, of course.  Genealogy has helped me learn a lot about him, though.  That has been one of the great benefits!

My aunt died in 1967, when I was in college at Florida State University.  She had helped me get there, helped me get a housing scholarship, helped me get VA benefits and Social Security benefits on account of my father's Navy service.  She helped raise me, too, from the time we moved to Florida from California after my father's death to her death.  She had a great sense of humor, and we had lots of fun.  She taught me to drive, and I would be her driver on Saturdays as she did her errands.

My grandma died in 1978.  We had fun, when I would go over to her house in the next block from where we lived, and we would sit and watch baseball games together.  She would tell me stories of her growing up in Indiana in the 1890s and 1900s.  I wish I had had the sense to record those stories.

My mother-in-law died in 1978, too.  My husband was away at the Coast Guard Reserve Training Center teaching at the time.  It was late at night when my father-in-law called with the news.  I had to get hold of the officer of the day at the training center and tell him to get my husband to call me.  Then I had to tell him the news.  He went to see the base commander, and was home the next day.  My mother-in-law also had a great sense of humor, having been raised in the country in Georgia in a large family.  She would laugh, and turn bright red.

My mother died in 1980.  It was very difficult.  During this time of all these deaths, I was working as a registered nurse. I had to quit, as it was just too much.  Mom and I had differences -- different political and social outlooks, and all that.  But we had fun, too.  One time we were on a road trip here in Florida, on an ill-maintained state road that was more potholes than pavement, and I was trying to change the radio station.  We were bouncing so much I could not get hold of the tuning knob!  We laughed at that.

A friend died at the end of the 1990s.  She lived in Illinois, and my husband and I had visited her when we attended a convention in Chicago.  We had a great time, and she and I exchanged many letters, both being interested in writing.  It was a shock when I found out she had died.

My brother died in 1996, and I still maintain he was killed by the calousness and thoughtlessness of his insurance company.  That was a horrible experience, and I miss my big brother and think of him often.

So there are a lot of people I miss.  People who helped shape me, people whose company I enjoyed.  At times I think of them, with some sadness.
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Fearless Females: Words of Wisdom

Today's blogging prompt comes from Lisa Alzo,  The Accidental Genealogist:  Did you receive any advice or words of wisdom from your mother or another female ancestor?

My mother was a one-man woman  She met and married my father in Pensacola, Florida, where he was a young Naval aviator, not long out of Annapolis, undergoing flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station.  They were together until he died in 1954.  She never remarried.

Like my mother, I am a one-man woman, and I found the man I wanted to spend the rest of my life with when I was in college.  And he was right in my own backyard - we had known each other since the age of seven, and attended the same church, though we went to different schools due to the drawing of boundary lines for each school in our district.  In high school, we were best friends.

But courtship is not always smooth, and there was a time when we agreed not to see each other.  That was a stressful time for me, and I felt very low at the time.

Then my aunt, who had never married, gave me some words of wisdom.  She told me that if he really loved me, he would return.  He did, and we were married in 1971, and have been together ever since.
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A Child's Questions About Death

The other day, my husband sat with our 6-year-old grandson while Mommy went to pick up Daddy from work.  Grandson asked grandpa about death.  He asked if grandpa would die, and grandpa said that, yes, he would, someday, and that it is just another part of life.  Grandson also asked if his mommy and daddy would die, and grandpa said, truthfully but kindly, that yes, they would, someday.  Then grandson asked plaintively, "Who will take care of me?"

Grandpa answered that by the time any of this happens, grandson will have grown and learned to take care of himself and of others, too, as he will most likely have a family of his own; but that for right now, we are all here and we all will take care of him, and teach him how to take care of himself.

Grandson seemed satisfied with that, and the bottom line there was his worry about being cared for.  He asked the questions quietly and without fear, but with a legitimate concern in mind.  Grandpa answered truthfully and kindly.  His curiosity and concern satisfied, grandson then turned back to the more usual concerns of childhood -- play.

Sentimental Sunday: A Yeoman's Birthday

Here I am on my birthday, 12 April 1981.  I was a Yeoman Second Class in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve.  As I have my uniform on, it was a drill weekend.  The location is at my father-in-law's house in Jacksonville, FL, where my husband had been busy all day baking and decorating that cake, which bears the insignia of a Yeoman First Class.  That day, at drill, I received my letter of advancement to YN1, and I had called my husband that morning with the news.  It was a nice birthday present.  The cake was a nice surprise, too, and my husband did it all by himself!
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Welcome my Daughter to the Blogosphere

My older daughter has opened her blog, Marti, Not Martha. She's not a geneablogger, though she does threaten to talk about the family (wink). She's a geek, a techie, and a crafter. She does beautiful needlework. I'd be pleased if you'd take a minute to stop by and welcome her to the blogoverse.
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