It’s been almost five years since I’ve posted! I didn’t forget about it, I just took a break.
I had planned to go through Mother’s things and get rid of much of it. My husband wanted to get a dumpster and just toss all her old papers, but the boxes and closets contained a lifetime of memories that I wanted to honor. So I began to go through everything piece by piece, black-and-white photo by photo, letter from her mother by letter. But it was a tedious process and I didn’t know what to do with the material once I had seen it. That is, until my next-door-neighbor invited me to go with her on an adventure one sunny March afternoon.
My neighbor had been interested in genealogy for a number of years and frequented a website called Find-A-Grave (FAG). I think of FAG as a kind of Facebook for dead people. You can open an account and create memorial pages for friends and family members who have passed away. Photos of the person, their grave marker, and a biography can be uploaded, and hyperlinks can be added to their deceased spouses, parents, and children who are also on FAG. And if you don’t live near where the person is buried, you can request that a FAG member who lives in that area visit the cemetery and take a photo of the grave marker for you.
Well, my neighbor was responding to a request for photos at a nearby cemetery and asked me if I wanted to go along. She gave me a copy of the names she was looking for and we set off. It was actually quite lovely walking around the old, historic cemetery in the warm sunshine, and between the two of us we were able to locate and photograph the graves.
I was curious if my parents had memorials on FAG, so as soon as we got home, I looked up the site and searched my parents names. And there they were! While there were no photos of the headstones, there were bios from their obituaries posted and I was able to add photos. It seems that a third cousin had created the memorials!
Suddenly an idea began to form in my mind – I could use the information contained in Mother’s photos and letters to get to know my ancestors better. Instead of my great grandparents simply being names, dates, and places, they could become real people to me, people with likes and dislikes, strengths and weaknesses, and personalities. Come to think of it, maybe I could find out whom I took after and, therefore, who to blame for my own quirks! Now I had a plan!