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...

  I can’t tell you how much I love, how beautiful of an escape it is for me, to walk the trails my ancestors have left for me. To research them is to research myself and truly learn more about who I am. Their stories have informed my own and I love to see these connections. I wish I had more to write about in this interim, but I’m excited to slowly explore people and subject. I know the first few weeks I dropped a lot of info, but I’d collected that information years ago. Now I’m collecting new information and forming new ideas, so it’s going to take a little longer. I hope you’ll forgive the long pauses between posts, but I promise to try to make it worth the wait. I have someone new to introduce to you today. I hadn’t known he’d existed till a few years ago, and I decided to delve into who he was and his story. Aaron Bradshaw Goodwill is my 3x great grandfather and he’d enlisted in the Civil War and died while in service. I hadn’t thought to look into his regiment or his activiti...

  One of my favorite things about starting this blog is that my Nana has called me three different times in 2 weeks, my uncle called me to say how much he’s enjoying all the stories, and even my dad has texted about it. And he doesn’t do the texting so much. I’m so glad they’re enjoying the stories - which I admittedly get very geeky about. And hopefully you’re enjoying them, too. Otherwise you wouldn’t be here in the first place, putting eyes on this lil blog of mine. I have another story for you today. On one of my phone calls from the Nana, she asked me about her great uncle. She couldn’t remember his name but told me who he was. I looked him up while I was on the phone with her, and said his name, which she said YES that’s him. She told me he’d gone to Harvard and had lived overseas in Sweden, she’d thought. So I went ahead and did some digging on the guy to see what we could find. I found him really interesting, so I’d like to introduce you to my 3x great uncle, Harris Eastman...

  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...

  In learning about my family’s history and looking through the archive of pictures my aunt keeps, there are certain people who are just compelling. I can’t quite put my finger on why, the look of their faces, the mystery of their life, the glamor of it, or maybe even the sadness in their wake. Today’s spotlight is one that just caught my eye. I don’t know why, maybe because she’s so stunning. I’d love to introduce you to my great-great-grandmother, Bertha May Watson Sawyer. Bertha was born to George and Susan Watson in 1879 in Boston. She grew up well, going to the local schools and eventually an all girl’s school. She had one brother, Arthur, who was a businessman and consulate to, what was then, Arabia. She had 2 sons, my great-grandfather Richard and his brother Gilman. As you can see from these two pictures side-by-side, her health deteriorated rather quickly. My Nana told the story of how she had diabetes and it took her life very quickly. A mere 7 years later after her death...