This post is about my family history & the family tree that my mom and I worked on while we were away for a Mother/Daughter weekend.
At Christmastime, my mom told me that part of my Christmas gift was going to be a girl's weekend away at the Village Green. The Village Green is a resort in Cottage Grove, OR where my mom used to go with her family as a little girl. The resort had recently undergone a transformation under new management, and they were trying to generate new business, so they put a deal up on Groupon. My parents bought it, used it and had a fabulous time. They then got another Groupon-like deal after their stay, so my mom said she wanted to take me in January or February, just the two of us.
For my mom, the entire thing was very nostalgic for her. She was beyond excited. For me, well, I can't say I was originally thrilled at the prospect of a weekend away in Cottage Grove. I didn't see how it was a gift for me, exactly, but I went with it, because my mom was treating me, and she was so excited.
I left work early on a Friday afternoon. It ended up being a gorgeous day for the drive, which was so nice. We hit the road after a quick lunch at Bridgetown Cafe (née Paradise Bakery).
On our way, we made a stop in Corvallis to take care of some business. My Nana and Papa passed away in 2008 and 2010 respectively, and while they were both buried together in a cemetery plot at my Papa's memorial, they still did not have a headstone/grave marker. My mom was finally in a place where she felt like she could pick something out, and asked me to help her.
And thus began our trip down memory lane. Of course, as we're picking out their grave marker, we couldn't help but share memories about them. And Corvallis, is a nostalgic place for both me and my mom. She grew up there, and I spent every summer there as a little girl, as well as my college years at Oregon State.
After deciding on a headstone/grave marker, we got back on the road and continued our trip to Cottage Grove. As we drove, my mom read me a letter she'd found. It was from Charles to Sophia and dated 1890. We knew that Charles and Sophia were relatives of ours, but my mom always thought that Sophia was Charles's mother, and Charles was born in the early 1900s so there was no way it could be the same Charles. As my mom read the letter, we pieced things together. The letter had all the potential to be romantic love letter, unfortunately, it was everything but. Charles wasn't a great writer, and the whole letter was a run-on sentence with misspellings galore. And the content was completely lackluster. While the letter was quite dull, and in no way the beginnings of a Nicholas Sparks novel, it was still clear it was a letter between a boyfriend and girlfriend, and not a son and mother.
This letter, along with my Papa's "book" and my mom's memory helped us begin to piece together a family tree, where one of the first connections we made was that Sophia was married to Charles and they named their son Charles as well.
We'd arrived in Cottage Grove just as it was getting dark, and checked in to our room. We made appointments for pedicures at the Salon for the next morning, and then headed to dinner at the resort's restaurant.
We ordered dinner, and sat there for a couple of hours as I sketched out a family tree on an 8.5" x 11" piece of paper. My mom helped me fill in dates and names, and even details like marriages, divorces, birth dates, professions, illnesses, causes of death, etc. We did this for both my Papa's side, and my Nana's side, which is of Swedish descent.
I learned so much about my family history that night, and over the course of the weekend, but mostly, I learned the importance of family, and knowing where you come from. I was fascinated to hear stories from my mom. I learned a lot too, and found similarities and interesting patterns in our family, like professions. There were lots of doctors, lawyers, and construction careers in our family tree. And only one set of twins. I'd heard before that twin births could be genetic and passed down, but in my family tree, as far back as we could trace, there was only one set -- my mom's dad and his brother.
The weekend with my mom also taught me how important it is to treasure the moments we have with out family while they're here on earth. I think family is something that is very easy to take for granted and especially with the (fairly) recent loss of my grandparents, there isn't a moment that goes by when I don't wish I could tell them something I know they'd love to hear, or a questions I'm dying to ask them, because only they know the answer.
When my mom tells me that she wishes she'd taken the time to ask her mom questions, she is teaching me to slow down and take the time to talk to my mom and my family and to really value and appreciate the time we all have together, here on earth, because it could all be gone in an instant.
An Oregon Freeark Family visit, August 2009
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