My Family History 101

Over the years I've been asked about my childhood. I've shared various bits and pieces with assorted people. I've tried to consolidate the facts here in one blog. 

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It happened again. Yesterday, in talking with a friend, I tried to explain about my family of origin and how little I knew about them. It becomes quite evident that my situation is unusual. I was asked about my mother’s family….how she grew up.

I don’t know.

I can say she was from a family of 12. I have been told she moved to Kansas in a covered wagon. When I was born, both grandpas were dead and only one grandma remained. I saw her once before her death when I was nine.  I never met any of my mother’s brothers and sisters. I have cousins I’ve never even heard of.

I was born in 1942, back before the instant communication of today. Letters conveyed information. Rarely did an actual person come to the door to converse. I lived in an isolated universe.

I’ve been told the home I was born into housed my mother, several married sisters and the brother seven years older than I. We moved from that house when I was four. I barely remember the small apartment my mother, brother and I lived in for a few months. My memories of home life began when I was six and we moved across town to two rooms in the upstairs of a house. We had an outside stairway that connected to a screened-in porch. The two upstairs bedrooms of that home (still connected with an inside stairway) was my whole world. One bedroom was our living room/bedroom where I slept with my mother.  The other bedroom was our kitchen/dining area. No sink. My brother had a cot on the landing to the inside stairs.

That’s where life for me began.

I rarely saw most of my sisters. Two died before my birth. One I never met. One lived in the same town, but she died at the age of 42. My brothers were non-existent in my life…one married and living in another state and one who joined the Navy as soon as he could.

So my growing up years were just my mother and me. She was 45 when I was born, so by the time I was 15, she was 60. That’s when she told me the church had decided I would marry the preacher’s son. I never dated.

We had no car. No telephone. Certainly no TV. Any outside influence in my life came from school and church. At school I was to have no conversation with the other kids. They weren’t “one of us”.

I thought everyone lived that way. 

I was in Junior High before I realized I didn’t have a dad. Oh, I knew the fact, but the effect on me came to light when we were given the assignment to give a speech about our fathers.

I didn’t have one. 

He died within hours of my birth.  I’ve been told various stories of what disease caused his death.  I never saw a picture of him. Mother never mentioned him. He was non-existent. Listening as the other students told of trips with their dad, fishing with him, playing ball and generally having a good time, made me realize I was missing something.

I cried. The one and only time. I was different.

I walked to school. Came home for lunch. Walked back. No interaction with the other kids. They ate lunch together. Went to the Y after school. Went swimming at Lake Kahola on the weekends. Attended movies together. Went to the school dances. Went to movies. Bowling.

I had my mother. When that is all you know, you think it is normal.

I listened to sermons on the radio all day. The school kids heard the Beatles and Elvis Presley. When George Harrison died in 2001, I attended a Toastmaster’s meeting that morning. They were all talking about his death. I asked, “Who is he?” 

I had never heard of him.

I believe it is hard for others to understand just how isolated I grew up. 

Definition: having minimal contact or little in common with others

That says it all.