As Long As They Are Remembered: 2013

Wednesday, April 3, 2013

My Bunch

The Clark Side

My Mom, Mattie Clark, age 40

My Mom's father, Henry Clark

Mom's brother Ossie (O-See)

Mom's sister Fanny Clark

Mom's brother Henry Calvin Clark Jr

Mom's sister Eva Clark

Mom's Uncle Levin

Mom's Cousin Marvin Clark

The Smiths and Cavels

G-grands, Wm John Cavel & Susan Ann Shave 1907

My Dad Charlie Hall Cavel, about 40

My grandparents- Josie Smith and Fred Cavel

My Dad about 65

Josie's mother my G-granny Casiah Crouch Smith abt 1900

Casiah Crouch Smith Carter 1920

She Remembers

As I've done genealogy over the past 40+ years I've come to realize something. I come from a long tradition of story-tellers. My mother was the first. She shared stories of her childhood with me as I played on the kitchen floor. I'd had polio and couldn't keep up with the other kids and there was no TV. She entertained me with stories while she cooked and cleaned and sewed. My Dad and his brothers had their own stories to tell. Grandma told me stories when I stayed with her, my aunties told me more, and some I discovered as I dug around in old records and books.

I'm at the tail-end of my generation. By far the youngest child of the younger children of each of my families, I now find the huge family I grew up with decimated, my aunts, uncles, siblings, close cousins - all gone - and their descendants scattered. Who will remember them if I do not? So I pass on the stories I've heard and learned, and keep these beloved memories and the people they cling to, alive.