FamilyTies

  One week ago. I was hanging out with my partner, knowing that seeing my mom’s name pop up on my phone at midnight could only mean one thing: the day my family had been anticipating for a week had finally come and my Nana had passed. She crossed the veil in peace, My Nana. She was surrounded by her kids and their partners. She was loved, tended to, sung over, prayed over and made to be perfectly comfortable and at peace in her last days and hours. I had less than a day to pack up myself and my 3 children to get down to my parents’ home in Tennessee. It’s an 8 hour drive at least, but I somehow made it in 11. It was a very long day, the next day would be even longer and even more emotional.  The day of the funeral went like this: we dropped the kids off at my aunt’s house in the morning, drove to the church I grew up going to to pick up food for the family, then out to the middle of nowhere to the little Tennessee town my Nana had lived her last year in. Once my Nana broke her...

  When I was in high school, we were very poor. We had almost nothing to our names and we lived in this tiny 864 square foot house in the middle of the Charleston, Tennessee countryside. I’ve never lived in a more beautiful place, but those were bittersweet times for my family. In the fall of 2003, my senior year of high school, I had the opportunity to go to London with my high school band. Being as poor as we were I would have never been able to afford to go without the loving generosity of our neighbors, who have been family friends for decades. I won’t ever forget the kindness that allowed me to go on that trip. It didn’t exactly go to plan. I didn’t think about the fact that I am terribly prone to motion sickness and how that would translate to air travel. Apparently I get altitude sickness. And apparently it takes arriving back in the States for me to get over it. The band marched in the New Year's Day parade, and being a non-marching member of the band, I marched in the fron...

  My brother is probably one of my best friends. He understands me in a way that few people do, can irritate me quicker than anyone but also is a comfort in his way. We always know how to make each other laugh and have more inside jokes than we know what to do with. We have some fantastic examples in our lives of siblings who are always there for each other in my parents’ siblings. I think it’s probably a rare thing to grow up close to all your aunts and uncles and cousins the way we got to. My dad has one sister and we were always up at her house spending time with her and my cousin. My mom has 4 sisters and a brother and they’re ALWAYS talking to each other - it’s a wild group chat.  There's a long history in our family of close siblings, on both sides of the family. Even if they lived far apart, there are stories of support and generosity between them. Our grandfather had a ton of siblings, our grandmothers each had one brother, and our other grandfather has one sister. All...

  Divorce isn’t an easy thing to face in the best of times, no matter the circumstances.  While I’m doing research on my family I have found many couples that have split, and none of them were easy or painless. One such split was a mystery to me, as it was always spoken of in hushed tones and laced with generations of bitterness. Of course I wasn’t present for the marriage and its subsequent dissolution, but I’d like to give a little detail and insight to one such moment in the family. James and Alice Montgomery were my 2x great grandparents. I had never really known much about either person until I’d begun digging a little. All I’d heard was that James had abandoned his family after his son had died, leaving Alice alone, in and out of institutions for years. Which painted a picture of a villain and the wilting helpless victim. I definitely had Alice’s number wrong. And I think humanizing James would help the family heal, so let’s dive in a bit. James, or JB as he was known la...

  It’s a rare thing that I’ll do a spotlight on an ancestor that I’ve actually met. Today is one of those days. I was 10 years old when my great grandfather passed and I remember meeting him several times. It was always a treat when he and my great grandmother would come to Tennessee to visit. We all enjoyed them so much. I remember them both being so good at telling stories - and I know grandpa in particular was known for spinning his yarns and was intelligent and well-spoken.  Larimore Karns Montgomery, or Grandpa Montgomery, as we called him, was born in 1903 to JB and Alice Montgomery, who had just married the previous year. As a young child he suffered many illnesses which stunted his growth and deeply impacted his home life. His baby brother died when Larry was 14, and his parents divorced soon after. His mother spiraled into depression and they were soon living with his grandparents on their farm close by. At 26, in 1930, he was living on his own working as an insurance...

Christmas tends to be a very stressful time of year for me. I always had magical Christmases, and they always seemed so effortlessly pulled off. My family always made sure the magic clung to the holidays like cinnamon on a snickerdoodle. This past Christmas was particularly stressful as there were some changes in the family that I needed to process and new added stresses I had to learn to manage. So the day before New Years Eve I decided to visit Hollywood Cemetery by myself. It was misting a freezing rain, and I wasn’t really dressed to sit outside, but I needed the bite of the cold and I needed the respite for my brain. I remember telling my husband my plan and grabbing my journal and pen so I could jot down thoughts as they came while I sat in peace on the hill. As I pulled out of the driveway to leave, one of my favorite singer-songwriters played on my Spotify, Ray LaMontagne. It was the song “Be Here Now”, and I felt all the stress melt away and leave my body. I hadn’t heard the s...

  I have 2 crafty grandmothers. My Gramma Jean, who passed in 2001 could sew, knit, crochet and could probably embroider. I would watch my Nana crochet and knit with the skill and speed of a professional fiber artist. When I was very small, they each took me under their wing and taught me what they knew about what I was interested in learning. They had learned from their own mothers and they joyfully taught me skills I still use to this day. And let me say, these two weren’t in competition with each other, nothing was bitter. It’s always been loving and supportive on both sides. They knew and respected each other, and they each knew/know how special they are to my brother and I. I don’t think that’s something a lot of people can say. And I’m full of gratitude for both of them. Not only did they each teach me - but I have something from each of them. I can’t recall whether it was a birthday or Christmas, but when I was six I finally got the afghan my Nana had been working on for mon...

  There is a theory among scientists that we are a collection of memories, lessons, trauma, maybe even talent stored deep in our DNA, called genetic memory. It's something I’d like to examine in my own experience in researching my family and is already something I see in my parents and my kids. In my family there are many different ways I could see this play out, from the dark things like alcoholism, to a love for the Smoky Mountains, to hobbies like wood working and music.  Above is a picture of the barbershop my great-grandfather worked in. His name was Hoyt Calvin Martin, but he went by Turk. I have no idea where that nickname came from, and I don’t think anyone else knows either. This exact photo was displayed in the Etowah Depot, which is a historic building in Etowah, Tennessee. I’m not sure it’s displayed there any more, but we would stop and admire it whenever we’d go to the 4th of July celebration Etowah would put on from the Depot every year. My Dad tells a story of ...

**TW: Infant Loss** I’m currently working from an in-between stage of this blog. I don’t yet have my big project, but I was so excited I started writing about it immediately. I have another couple  months before all of that information is in my hands. I talked to my Nana yesterday and told her I couldn’t wait to get started on this, that I was salivating. She said I shouldn’t do that, but that she was happy I was excited. Again…ya girl is extra.  So in the interim, I’ve decided to explore thoughts, ideas, and feelings about everything I’m learning. There are of course people I’m going to relate more to than others - like my relatives who were domestically inclined and active with their kids vs. the American Vice Consulate to Arabia. Of course I’m going to relate to the stay-at-home mom more than the well-traveled (and my imagination *sings* that the man had a mustache…he HAD to, right??) well-connected 3x great uncle. Among the themes and feelings I’ve felt I’ve needed to spea...

  Dear Gramma, On my birthday this year I’ll be 37. That’s the same age Mom was when we lost you. It’s been a whole 21 years since I last saw you. A fact that feels simultaneously so very correct and wrong. Wasn’t it just last week that I visited, relaxed on your porch, drank coffee with you, and told you about the last book I read? Or was that in my dreams? How is your presence so near and far, so familiar and alien, your input long-gone and still currently offered steadily, quietly and lovingly? I’m a Mom now, too. Your great grandkids are amazing people to observe. They’re creative, lively and funny. I think of you often when I play Raffi for them, bake muffins with them, and tell people the funny things they say. Oh, how you’d love them and revel in their bright energy!  To my everlasting shame, the only plant I’ve managed to not kill is a very hardy little rosemary. I’m beginning to realize that even under your careful instruction, I’m not sure I would have learne...

  My mom’s family, very nearly every single one of them on both her mother’s and father’s side live in Pennsylvania. She was born in a tiny, idyllic town northeast of Erie called…well…North East. North East is home to many many vineyards, small farms, a quaint township, and some of my family’s favorite people on the planet, among them are Dave and Marge Montgomery. Uncle Dave is my deceased Gramma’s brother and knew her better than just about anyone, which makes him a precious commodity indeed. His life stories are coveted remembrances among those of us who knew her. Uncle Dave lives on the family homestead, and has for many many years. That home belonged to his grandfather and holds enough precious memories to fill all of Lake Erie. Once I had dug into my family tree I realized that I had huge chunks of missing information about people that I was curious about. I used every tactic in my niecely trick bag to bribe my great-uncle into divulging details about the family I had questio...

One of the interesting things you come across when you start to research family trees is the massive difference in record keeping depending on the regions you’re looking in. I have to say that I'm a bit spoiled, not only from the work of previous generations, but because the majority of my family is from New England. I’m sure it’s because those states are much older and have been colonized for a longer amount of time. The family was based mostly in Pennsylvania, New Hampshire, Massachusetts, and a little bit of Maine. I even have some ancestors that immigrated from Northern Ireland to Truro, Nova Scotia as grantees. Evidently they helped to found the city. To my surprise, though maybe it shouldn't have been, while researching my husband’s tree, I found that every single person I came across, like 8 or 9 generations back on either side of his family, were LITERALLY ALL from Virginia. Like, ALL of them.  A place where all my research (and anyone else’s who has looked into it) has...

  I’ve been sitting here staring at my computer screen for a hot minute, trying to figure out how to say what I want to say. That’s the trouble with writing. Why write if you have nothing to say, but conversely (and herein lies my problem), how can I possibly write when I have all these words in my head screaming to get out. As I sort through the thought tornado spinning wildly out of control through the grooves of my, today, insufficiently outfitted gray matter, I just decided to start typing. I just got a brand new keyboard that makes the most delightful typing sounds. I’m very happy with the tactile feel of the keys and the rainbow leds lighting it from underneath. My kids are somewhat occupied for the time being, somehow, so I have a moment to begin to collect my thoughts and ideas about how I want to move forward on this blog. . I have come upon a sort of project. I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before, but I am utterly obsessed with genealogy. I constantly live with one t...