Leaves on this Family Tree

Withering Away

Thursday, April 7, 2011

Wonderful Mail Today

I received a package chock-full of information on my paternal grandmother's family.

It has the information on her siblings wrong since it has her father marrying three times instead of twice. When he married my great grandmother, she brought four children with her. Add these to his 2 surviving sons made quite a family . . . 6 children. Then, they had grandma, Uncle Si and a brother William who was killed when he was in his mid-20's.

Let's take this from the most heart warming . . . she sent pictures of my great grandpa Henry's grave . . . a white stone showing he was in the Civil War, and the stones for grandma Jennie and William. he are buried in the cemetery in the town where Uncle Si moved when he retired from the railroad. Yet, I had never seen them. Perhaps Grandma Goldie never took Dad, Aunt Ruth and Aunt Helen out there?

Then, I got to the familial pictures. there was Uncle Noah. I remember him. I can still see  his smiling face in my mind's eye. I was 10 when he died. This is probably why I have this picture in my mind.

Grandma's other siblings who lived close, full brother Uncle Si, in Fulton and half siblings Uncle Cassel right in town and his full sister Aunt Net who lived in the county, I remember quite well. We visited them quite often.


If you are young, I have some "sage" advice for you. Pick your parents and grandparents brains for all information they have on their families. When you get old, and your demise is looming . . . hopefully mine will loom for another 30 +  years, you start to wonder about who came before and wonder if those who come after you will remember you and pass their memories onto their children.


Having no off-springs myself, no one will be deliberately looking for me But, hopefully, someone will be looking for someone else in the family and stumble upon me and wonder, "Who was this person and why did she exist?"

So, to you, Patricia (Patty) Schafer DeArmond, I sent my sincere thanks for allowing me to see my ancestors in black and white.


Oh,I forgot . . . one of the pictures is of Grandma and Grandpa Gaumer, along with Uncle Si, Aunt Margaret, Margaret's mother, Mrs Brown, and Uncle Noah standing by the porch of Uncle Si's house in Logan. I must stop by there the next time I'm home so I can take a modern picture of that house/Gporch.

4 comments:

  1. You are so right about getting information from the older folks in the family. My paternal grandmother basically lived in the past because of depression and talked about the old days quite often but I didn't pay too much attention to her. Now, I wish I did.

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  2. How fun and fascinating! What a neat thing to have pictures! I always love seeing those old pictures matched with a modern one. Amazing!

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  3. That's so neat!! My Grandma did tell me a lot about her parents/relatives, but I didn't write any of it down (and with three kids to distract me..)

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  4. Good advice. My Dad was not very forthcoming with info. and now that he is gone I have reached out to one of his brothers who has been very accommodating. It means a lot. I totally agree with you.

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