Becoming 'Stories' in the Minds of Children.

What the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage. -Ellen Goodman


I have started a new hobby.... actually an old one, quite ancient,in fact.  Genealogy.  I thought it would be fun to uncover the fruits and flowers of my children's ancestors.


As a little girl, I always enjoyed pouring over my Great Uncle 'Haribelle's',  labor of maintaining the ever growing family tree.  He was our family historian, preserving not only names and dates on paper, but often a story and a relic to go with each name.  He and his baby sister, Dolly, scoured through yard sales and auctions in search of generations of family memorabilia that found its way into the homes of friends and strangers.

You see, my family is one of the 12 founding families that settled there in 1700s. Their belongings and crafts are scattered throughout the valley.  Matter of fact, the wood floor built by my great great grandfather, a carpenter, for his home, wound up in a house built in the 1980s, over a 100 years later.  The newer home belonged to one of my friends as a kid.  You just never know, what bit of your family's relics can wind up apart of another's future history.

How the two siblings, 'Haribelle' and Dolly, knew what they were looking for always fascinated me.  The treasures they would uncover were amazing.  Equally as beautiful, and equally filled with character as the wood floor in my friend's house.  Always a lively story would come along with their discovered treasures.  It was the simple things I loved most.  The tangibles and stories that brought the printed names to life, gave them character, a mind's eye picture of how the owners of those names and things lived, loved and laughed.

Obviously, that part of my family is well watered and tended.  Preserved in a nice neat packages, needing very little extra from me.  It's my mom's family, my husband's family, as well as, my paternal grandmother's family that is a mystery to me.  Most likely, I will not bring to life the names I uncover  for my kids quite like my uncle did for me.  However, only a week into this new journey, I have already met some amazing characters living and deceased.  And all without ever leaving the comforts of my home. thanks to the world wide web!

Best of all, I have my mom along on this journey.  She is just as eager, if not more so about uncovering the forgotten fruits and flowers of her ancestors... as well as a few nuts!  Together, we will weave a story of stories for my children to pass on down to theirs.  If these stories are just a tenth as lively as what Uncle 'Haribelle' did for me, then I will have succeed in reviving this part of my family's neglected and forgotten garden.