Vera and Era |
GREAT-AUNT ERA AND THE LOSS OF FAMILY
HISTORY
I
think one of my saddest family interviews was with my husband’s great-aunt
Era. She was in her mid-90s when I
interviewed her. Her lifetime had been filled with so many events—WWI, Pearl
Harbor, the end of WWII, the first moon walk, the Kennedy assassination, long dresses to mini-skirts to women wearing pants (which she did), and so very many more. We
wanted to record what it was like to live through those events. Unfortunately, her
answer to so many of my questions was, “That was so long ago. I just don’t
remember any more.” She was the twin
sister to my husband’s grandmother and the last of her generation. Now all that family history is lost.
Our videotapes hold a wealth of family history—stories of happy and sad times, memories of those long gone, keys to why certain people turned out the way they have. They are links tying our past to our future.
Interesting
tidbit about Great-aunt Era and her twin sister, Vera—my husband’s grandmother: On one of our visits to see them, we brought a cake to celebrate their
birthday. The cake had two old ladies in rocking chairs piped in icing on the
top and the wording “Happy 80th Birthday” in-between the two chairs.
Well, this caused a big discussion between the two ladies. Even though they
agreed on the month and day of their birthday (December 12th), they
disagreed vigorously about the year. Vera said 1898 and Era said 1897. They both held their position as the right one. Well, through our genealogy
research, we know that 1897 is correct. The family figures that since Grandmother
married a man born in early 1898, she stated that she was born in 1898 so she would be younger than him. Oh well, I guess the lesson I take from
this—even a hundred years ago, women were vain about their age.