Introduction

For as long as I can remember I have believed that the soul of a writer rested in me. Unfortunately, I have never developed the skill nor talent needed to be a writer. I always thought that someday I would write quite a book. Many times I have begun a journal. IÆve tried to write down my thoughts and feelings so that I could go back to find them when they might be needed to help me write my great story. But I have never been very consistent at keeping my journal. I seem to lose interest or get distracted too easily. Then just a few years ago I became very interested in genealogy. I was luckier than most and very quickly found a family connection that leads one branch of our family back to the time of MacBeth in Scotland. After discovering this line I wanted to put my work together to present to the family at a family reunion in 1994; it was a difficult task. I worked on it every free minute just to have the data arranged so everyone could follow my findings. The missing element was a narrative, my introduction of the work. I know that the narrative information on myself and the other members of my family will be what makes the genealogy valuable to my great-greatgrandchildren and their great-great-grandchildren. What I would not give, for example, to have the journal writings of one of my ancestors. Infact as I researched and uncovered little bits of information about the lives of each member of our family, I dreamed of finding letters and journal entries that would help me know them better. Suddenly keeping a journal had a whole new significance to me. Unlike the more private motivation that stimulates many writers of diaries and journals, my motivation became allowing my descendants to know me. Now I have a strong need to help the children of our family grow stronger and more secure by knowing the story of our family. I want to explain why, at a time when our world is constantly changing, I have become interested in the past and the future of our family. I would like to develop a style of memoir writing that will help my descendants know me and keep them interested in the genealogy of our family. Then I found a source to begin this process: I would develop some of the abandoned writings I had started last fall.

Fall 1994

Since the sun was shinning today for the first time in a while I decided to take the homework for my new class outside to read. I enjoy setting in the sun on cool fall mornings. I sat in the swing that Steve, my husband, built for me a couple of summers ago. The sun was warm but there was still a chill in the air from the days of cloud cover and rain that we had just had. The branches of the evergreens to both sides of my swing lay still and I could smell the freshness in the air. There wasn't much traffic on the street this time of the day. The only sounds I remember were those of the two dogs running after each other in the neighbor's yard. It was a quiet, fresh and sunny morning, ideal to begin my reading, Much to my suprise I opened the text book entitled Bridges Not Walls to find an answer that I had been searching for. A way to begin my book about our families' genealogy. The author John Stewart began the text book on Interpersonal Communications with autobiographical information on himself. In a paragraph or two he told me just enough about different aspects of himself for me to feel like I was reading what a person had written for me to read, not merely a text book. That's particularly important to me in my project because, unlike so many authors, I am neither noteworthy nor famous and I am not an expert on the material that I am about to present to you. Instead I am a granddaughter, a mother, and hopefully someday a great-great-grandmother who wants to share with our family as much as can possibly be shared over the erosion of the years. So let me barrow from John Stewart's style and begin to tell you about myself.

As I made reference to earlier, I am currently a student. Yes I am a bit older than most students. Yet at 33 years of age I am considerably younger than many other students today. I believe myself to be a lifelong learner. My current student status has been earned by my enrollment in an adult completion program at Concordia College in St. Paul, Minnesota. I will finish my bachelors degree in just a little under a year, and then I intend to continue on toward a masters degree. After that I may work toward a doctorate. You see, I really do enjoy learning. I'm fairly good at it as well. My first quarter at Concordia I earned 21 credits and made the Dean's List, which are both facts that I am quite proud of. I get a lot of satisfaction out of learning new concepts and skills and then being given the opportunity to demonstrate them. I must admit that my enjoyment is much more directed at social science and human resources classes than those of math and purer sciences. Although something I take great pride in, being a student is only one role I am currently playing. I am first and foremost a mother. I find my greatest pleasure in that statement. Jacquelynn is a lovely young lady just about to turn 12. I know without hesitation that through her I have yet and shall continue to find my greatest pleasures. I enjoy looking at the world through her eyes and watching her grow and learn. Many mothers may feel this as well, but I honestly believe that Jacquelynn and I are dear dear friends, as well as mother and daughter. We enjoy sending time together, just us girls. A few weeks ago we took the day and drove downtown to the Minneapolis Art Institute. After spending several hours sharing our opinions on which works we liked best, we treated ourselves to lunch. Jacquelynn always enjoys our lunches out and we try to pick someplace new that we do not visit often as a whole family. We chose a small cafe downtown. I enjoyed a curried rice dish that I would never have been able to season just right at home. Jacquelynn wanted to try something new. She ordered pasta with shrimp and artichokes just so she could try artichokes. As it turned out she didn't like them but that didn't take any fun out of the adventure of trying them. After lunch we shopped all of the nicest downtown stores. The skyways between Sak's and Dayton's were crowded. It seemed as if half of Minneapolis had decided to go shopping. The crowds didn't bother us, though. We enjoyed being around other people enjoying their day out as much as we were enjoying ours. Our outing ended with a much quieter stop for tea at a cute little English Tea Room. Small round tables covered with traditional English lace tablecloths and fine china added to the old-world charm of the tea room. We could almost forget that we were in the busy Minneapolis Gavadee Commons. We each tried a new flavor of tea and talked over the pleasant events of the day. I must admit that Jacquelynn was much happier with her selection of Japanese Cherry than I of my Jasmine selection. Still the ceremonial moment out of time, set aside to sip our tea and steal away from the crowd, was delightful. It was the first time that Jacquelynn had seen real sugar cubes. When she opened the fine china sugar bowl and saw cubes rather than granulated sugar, her eyes sparkled. She just couldn't get over how cute the cubes of sugar were. I hope that is something that we are able to hold onto for the rest of our lives.

I am also a full time employee. I enjoy working and find rewards far beyond the salary I am paid. I have worked full time since I joined the Navy in 1979 and simply can not imagine not having a position of responsibility that challenged and stimulated me. I am the Career Director at PrimeNet DataSystems in Bloomington, Minnesota. As the Career Director I manage most all of the Human Resource, Training and Career Development issues of the company. I like nearly everything about my job ? the constant contact with employees of all levels within the company; the challenges and excitement of keeping up with the changes in my field; the satisfaction that comes from conducting a good training program; and the pleasure I feel in knowing that I am helping other employees understand how to achieve their career goals.

I also like riding horses along the sandy beaches of a Caribbean island. One of my fondest memories of our last family vacation was the half a day that Jacquelynn and I took to ride horses along a St. Marten beach. The sun was bright and warm as we road with a tour group of less than ten riders. The horses were well kept and very well suited to tourist riders. Lean muscular animals that were spirited enough to satisfy the accomplished riders, such as myself, yet disciplined enough for the beginners. I could smell the old familiar smell of the horse, the leather of the saddle and hay the horses had been eating as we slowly moved through the streets of the small town toward the beach. Once we reached the beach our horses were unsaddled and we rode bareback into the warm, salty ocean water. I reached forward and patted the neck of my horse and talked to her as we picked up speed. The saltwater glistened and sparkled as the horses kicked up the sand and water against the bright rays of sun.

I also like the taste of freshly made yeast rolls as I take them out of the oven and melting fresh creamery butter on top. Of course my yeast rolls are never quite as good as Granny's. I worked for years as a child to learn to make bread as good as my grandmother's. It wasn't until recently, with the development of the home Bread Machines, that I've mastered good rolls nearly every time, and of course they still are not quite like Granny's. At home I also enjoy things as simple as watching our pet hamster fill her mouth full of seeds and food then climb up into the tubes that lead her to her wheel and run as fast as she can while her cheeks are still puffed full of her treasured food. Steve enjoys our pets the most. He treats the animals like his friends and takes great care of them daily. Having grown up on a farm, I've had difficulty getting accustomed to treating animals like a part of the family.