The 3 most important things I have acquired during my genealogical research are stories documented by my ancestors.
My great-grandmother Ada Belle Crawford kept a diary of the first few years of my grandfather's life. Handwritten on precious hard-to-come-by pieces of notepaper pinned together at the top, and a lock of grandpa's bright red hair (from his first haircut in about 1904) sewn to the paper, along with a scrap of the fabric from his first "dress". What a treasure!
Another cherished find was a story documented by great-grandmother Minnie Myrtle Harmon Fox about relocating her family to rural Nebraska during a blizzard, in which she and 3 children became lost, one my grandfather Harold. After being found and rescued in the nick of time, she and the children all suffered for days, the two youngest near death from hypothermia. They survived but lost all their fingers.
The 3rd treasure comes from Herm's grandmother, documenting their 1896 travel by conestoga across NE back into Iowa, where the family settled for good. Details about things like digging a hole in which to cook biscuits glitter on every page.
So, why have I not yet started documenting important stories to pass on to my descendents? Time, as always, is my best and worst excuse. Dread, of starting and not finishing. Awe, of how significant the above 3 stories are to me, yet none exceeds 10 pages. Fear, of filling volumes of cyberspace pages with details that won't mean anything to anyone but me, of appearing silly and insignificant to future generations. Concern, that I will invest time in this endeavor that perhaps nobody will ever see, when I have so many other things I should be working on.
But here we are, we have started. Who is this we? We are the Christian woman; the Mom of Travis & Trent; the wife of Herm; the sister of Ken, Ben* and Steph; daughter of Kenneth* and Jo Ann Crawford* Fox; friend to many (hopefully they all know about this LOL), T-shirt and sign business person, the community volunteer, the cattle farmer, the prairie enthusiast; owner of Little Annie (great pyrenees), Blue (blue heeler) and Red (red heeler); the genealogist, the cemetery documenter (aka Graver), the wannabe quilter and wannabe painter and wannabe grandma. I reserve the right to jump at will from one topic to another, without warning. So if you attempt to read this blog (aka diary), I guess you'll have to wear your neck brace and guess which person is talking!
So, welcome to my long-overdue blog. It will bore most of you to tears. But hopefully, something here will survive me, into the future, into the hearts of my descendents, or others who might shares some of my interests and experiences.
Praying God's richest blessings to all,
Deb
PS: * denotes deceased loved ones
