In the spring of 1951, my family rode the great crest of post-war immigration from the Netherlands to Canada. My parents were in their mid-forties at the time; their seven children ranged in age from eleven to twenty.
After several fits and starts at trying to find our place in the new country, we finally settled in Clinton, Ontario.
It’s a long way from twenty-first-century Colorado to eighteenth-century Tennessee, but my cousin, Delta, brushed all that aside. “I’d like to be able to stand on a piece of ground and say, ‘This was Great-great-great-grandpa’s land.’ Wouldn’t you?”
I had to answer, “Yes.” The project did sound interesting. But I didn’t know I would get hooked.
My family holds regular family reunions. At some point during every reunion, we take the time to honor our ancestors by learning something new about our family’s heritage. During our last reunion, a fierce rainstorm forced us indoors during the afternoon’s activities.
My husband and I live in the remote Methow Valley in the north Cascade Mountains in eastern Washington. It wasn’t until the autumn of 2000 that phone lines were brought to the valley. Before then, members of the community used the pay phone in Carlton (a ten-minute drive) or went down to the ”phone barn,” where a community phone was set up.
Over the years, I have been on the receiving end of several family treasures, including a family Bible, my grandmother’s diary, a spoon from her wedding silverware, a set of quilt blocks she stitched, my uncle’s baby book dating from 1908, and my father’s bronze toddler shoes. These items have special meaning to me, and they add a very human touch to the paper records I have compiled.
Grantsville is one of those sleepy old towns that seem to echo the sounds of pioneers building a new life. It lies in a windy, sun-bleached landscape west of the Great Salt Lake in Utah. There are signs of modern-day progress everywhere, but herds of sheep still feed in pale green pastures next to the old highway and cows wander among century-old sheds.
The saddle bags he sat on bulged with deals in the making. His cookpot simmered with bits of rabbit, squirrel, and schemes that promised to be tasty. Behind him, his fiddle dangled from the saddle that straddled a pinto he had probably swiped from the Osage in one of his fabled coups.
It had to be him.
