Over the last few weeks, I have been thinking about family history. I just finished reading a book about my great-great grandparents, “Homestead Memories on the Buffalo Paunch Creek”, by Yvonne Lorentzen McGuire. I found it interesting to read stories about my ancestors who lived, and some of whom died over a hundred years ago. I was fascinated by the their log cabin being made in the stockade fashion instead of horizontal logs like I am used to. Reading my Grandfather’s cousin’s account of helping not homestead in the mid-fifties, still cooking on a coal stove. Although I still prefer the story I had heard of great-great-great grandpa Emmanuel’s ghost ship floating in the Atlantic, it was fascinating to hear the more reasonable a ship lost at sea.
Reading this, made me curious about my other sets of great-great grandparents. What were Great Grandpa and Grandma Knight’s parents like? What was it like raising children in poverty during the reign of Queen Victoria? Who were Great-Great Grandpa and Grandma Barlow? How come they moved so much? So many questions and so few people who might know the answers.
Thinking about how quickly family stories can be lost, has made me treasure my own memories of my grandparents & great grandparents. My tiny Great Grandma Blanche whose hands were as strong as a vice. My equally short and less well know Great Grandma Morey. Gruff Great Grandpa Morey. My Grandma’s dad and his wife, who I only met a few times, but who welcomed a whole gaggle of us to their home. Grandpa Morey who loved and emulated Eeyore and looked like Spenser Tracy. Grandma Mom who I spent many summers with and most weekends my first year of university. Grandpa Lorentz and Grandma Lou who are still alive and when they are home live right across the alley.
So many memories, and thankfully there is still time to make more. I’m glad that cousin Yvonne took the time and effort to not only write down her memories, but research the facts that were missing and give some of the history of Washburn, ND.
the jumping cat 