Memory Monday: Our Family's Past and Future

The locket my father-in-law gave to my mother-in-law after WWII

OUR FAMILY’S PAST AND OUR FUTURE

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.

                        My daughter and my husband both love family history.  Recently they got together and, using the computer sites that list genealogical information, they traced different branches of my husband’s family back to Scotland in the 1200’s.  Of course, some of my great-uncles-in-law had already written a book on the family from the present back to the time that the first Creager came to the New World. (The family, at that time, spelled their name Krieger—which means “warrior” in German).

My aunts on my mother’s side have also traced back their family history.  They have documentation showing that their grandparents “came over on the boat” when they were only 2 and 3 years old.  (The Koehns and the Beckers were part of the great Mennonite migration that had moved from Prussia to Russia under Catherine the Great, and later migrated back across Europe to Ellis Island and on to Kansas.)  My mother told me when she was a little girl, “My mother would not let us use any of the “Dutch” words; we could only speak in English.”

            Family reunions are another way to learn about and exchange little bits of family history.  When my mother was living, every 2-3 years, we hosted a family reunion for my mother’s side of the family.  Aunts, uncles, cousins, (second, third, fourth cousins) came.  They came from all over the United States, and there was even an uncle who was working as a hospital administrator in the Middle East. Everywhere, family was sharing with family.  Stories were exchanged, old memories shared with the younger generation, old traditions were followed, new traditions started.  I had an aunt who makes a point of bringing up family history when her small great nieces (and great-great nieces) were around; she said that was how she learned of her roots.

The family records will not end with this generation either.  In my daughter’s wedding bouquet, we wove the chain of the heart locket that her granddaddy gave to her grandmother when he came home after World War II (it still contains the pictures that my mother-in-law put in years ago of her husband and son).  Waiting future generations in our safety deposit box, we have the tatted baby cap that both my children wore home from the hospital when they were born.  The little lace hat was made by their great-grandmother for her grandfather when he was a baby (he was born in 1920).  It was made from sewing thread and had yellowed with age now, but still a thing of beauty to those who love to link the past to the future.

Like I said before, our house has become the collection place for family “things”.  We have my husband’s great-grandparents’ marriage certificate, his parents’ love letters from WWII, my great great-grandmother’s crock jar, my grandmother’s wooden rocking chair (I plan to rock my grandchildren in it), the little pitcher collection my grandmother-in-law collected during WWII, and so many other family treasures.  They are glimpse of times gone by; of where we came from, and sometimes of where we are going. And we treasure them all.