It began when I stopped in Sumner for directions to a local graveyard and the man at the Coop asked me if I had the centennial book about Sumner. I didn't. I met Margaret, an 80-some year old woman, at Tub's Pub in Sumner, quite by accident. The man at the coop told me Tub's wife still had a few of the centennial books for sale. So I went to Tub's Pub (local bar/eatery), hoping to get one. While talking to Carol (Tub's wife) about my family and that book, a few ladies having coffee overheard my conversation. I sat down with them, and after they found out how I fit into the "Spellmeyer/Barnebey" families, Margaret shared a few stories about my great grandmother and others that she could recall. And that's how it all started.
Margaret (the woman with the platter), and Carol are the ones who put this centennial book together after Margaret lost her spouse. And, the kicker to this story is that both Carol's husband (Tub) and Margaret are related to me - distant, or by marriage. Genealogy gets so complicated, but yet rewarding, interesting and, to me, a very fun hobby!
In about two weeks I will be meeting another relative of my Great Grandfather Barnebey. They are passing through on their way to annual Ohio event they attend. It's been so fun to actually connect up with distant cousins, especially when my own family unit is small, and fading. I've also enjoyed the stories about what my Mom and her siblings' lives were like back then ... learning about the great aunts and uncles I vaguely recall from childhood.
So often I see this:
"The family uses people, not for what they are, nor for what they are intended to be, but for what it wants them for— its own uses. It thinks of them not as what God has made them, but as the something which it has arranged that they shall be." ~FLORENCE NIGHTINGALE, Cassandra
I wish it were more like this:
"Family values are a little like family vacations -— subject to changeable weather and remembered more fondly with the passage of time. Though it rained all week at the beach, it’s often the momentary rainbows that we remember." ~LESLIE DREYFOUS, New York Times, Oct. 25, 1992
"Family likeness has often a deep sadness in it." ~GEORGE ELIOT, Adam Bede
Like my story of the platter ... a feeling of melancholy; bittersweet. ~nr lenz
"As a child my family's menu consisted of two choices: take it, or leave it." -Buddy Hackett
Some do, some don't. ~nr lenz
"Our lives are shaped by those who love us and by those who refuse to love us." ~Unknown
So very, very true! ~nr lenz