The Link

I’ve been blessed with many, many cousins – hundreds probably! The vast majority of them are on my Mother’s side – down home cousins like Maureen and Carolyn; Montreal cousins; second cousins; second cousins twice removed; and even newly found cousins in the USA. But there is one cousin on my Dad’s side that has always been near and dear to my heart – Graham. Until the last few years, Graham had been my only paternal cousin that I ever knew and it’s all because of the special link that our mothers shared.
My father and Graham’s father were brothers. They both served in World War ll. My parents grew up in the same small town on the Gaspe coast and married after the war. It’s my understanding that Graham’s parents met during WWll in London, England and were married. So how did our Mothers ever meet and become friends? After the war, when Graham was a baby, my Aunt and Uncle moved back to his hometown where our Mothers met and became lifelong friends. Then both families moved on separately. My parents and oldest sister Faye, moved to Ontario where they would make a life. Graham’s family moved to Montreal briefly until Graham and his Mother moved back to England. That could have been the end of that. But that true friendship between our Mothers endured.

L-R:  Our paternal Grandmother and our Aunt 1945

I remember the packages that arrived for my Mother from Auntie Ivy in England, when I was a child. I recall the smell of the paper that the magazines she sent were rolled in. Our Mothers always wrote to each other sharing who knows what but certainly telling each other news about their offspring. I saw my cousin Graham grow up in only a few photographs his Mother sent us.
After my mother passed away when she was only 45 years old in 1975, I began sending my Auntie Ivy Christmas cards every year to stay in touch. When we went to London, England in 1977, I arranged a visit with my Aunt and Graham, now grown up and married with two children. We met in Hyde Park then took a taxi to a museum, which was closed. The meet-up was short but sweet and I finally got to meet my cousin Graham in person! Auntie Ivy came to Canada for a visit in 1981 just before we moved but she stayed with us for a few days anyway.
Life went on as usual – Christmas cards every years exchanged updates on family life. Then one year, I received my Christmas card back stamped ‘deceased’. I was quite upset with myself for not getting Graham and Valerie’s address – how was I ever going to find them now?
One sunny, summer afternoon a few years ago, I received a phone call from Graham in England – he had found my phone number in his mother’s papers and hoped that I still had the same number. Hurray!! We were back in touch. After a long conversation, we exchanged emails and the promise to visit me in Canada. The next year, Graham and Valerie came to stay with me and travelled down east to our family’s hometown where he briefly lived as a baby. My sister Faye also came to stay for this impromptu family reunion.

Visiting the National War Museum:  Graham, Me, Valerie, Faye

Graham and Valerie have made a few trips to Canada to visit with me in recent years. We’ve enjoyed each other’s company – day trips to the War Museum or the Rideau Canal locks or just watching TV at night. In 2012, we met up in Florida when we were both there with our families at the same time visiting Disneyworld! We hadn’t actually planned it that way, but it was fortuitous. One of these years, I’m going to visit them again in England.
I am SO grateful to both our Mothers who, despite being separated by an ocean for decades, managed to remain close and keep in touch with each other. Their gift to both Graham and myself, was that lifelong link of family.

Wild Raspberries

Sorry, but I won’t be making wild raspberry jam this summer.  Or pie.  The rain has been favourable for my wild raspberries – there’s a good area just before the lawn swing along the side of the backyard where they’ve totally taken off this year.  Every time I walk down to the garden, I pause and pick a berry or two……actually a handful or two.  They are perfect with no bugs, mold, or rot.  Better than the cultivated raspberry patch.  In fact, they are so perfect that I can’t seem to get them into the house.  I just keep eating them!  When my hand gets full of raspberries, I just pop them in my mouth and eat while picking another hand full.

When I was a young girl in the 1950’s, I used to pick wild raspberries at my Grandparent’s farm on the Gaspe coast when we visited.  My Grandma, Mom, would tell us that if we picked a potful, she would make a pie.  So my cousins, Maureen and Verna, and I along with my sisters Betty and Faye would walk along the back road and pick wild raspberries along the fence lines.  We’d talk and play while we walked and picked a pot full.  Sure enough, Mom had a pie or two ready later that afternoon.

I wish that now I could resist eating all the berries that I pick.

So, again, I apologize in advance for NOT making jam.  Or pie.

International Women’s Day

 

Today I celebrate International Women’s Day.  I honour all the women who are part of my life and I pay tribute to all the women who have influenced me in the past.  Some of these women include:

First and foremost, My Mom

My sisters Betty and Faye

My daughters Kristi and Nellie

My granddaughters Kalia, Olivia, J & H

My daughters-in-law Amanda, Jeannette, and Nici

My Grandmother “Mom”

My nieces Brodie, Jennifer, Kari, Kathryn, Terri, Melissa, Meg, Kate, Emily, Dana

All my darling cousins like Maureen, Carolyn, Verna, Dale, Jacklyn and all the rest – and their daughters and granddaughters

My sisters-in-law Janet, Cheryl, Amanda, Penny, Wanda, Debbie, Lynda, Wendy, Mimi, Holly

All my Aunts

My long-time friend Kristi

Cherished friends Sharon, Aleta, Andrea

My mother-in-law Florence

Lil

Good neighbours

High school friends who have reconnected

Wise women like Elsie Cressman, Ina May Gaskin, Margaret Mead, and Marian Thompson.

My friends in La Leche League and all the mothers I’ve been honoured to help over the years.

The women I assisted with the births of their babies while I was a Midwife – and all those baby girls, many of them now adults themselves

The women around the world who I will never even meet who have impacted my thoughts and actions over the years.

I apologize if I haven’t mentioned any lady in particular who has been part of my life.  You are still important to me.

 

 

 

The Secret Wish

My dear, sweet Grandmother lived until 102 years of age (1904-2006).  She witnessed the most incredible changes in the history of mankind:   she was born in the horse-and-buggy day where most people still lived on farms with no electricity or indoor plumbing and used hand tools.  She saw the introduction of the automobile in the early 1900s followed by airplanes in the skies…….. and watched a man walk on the moon in 1969.   She bore witness to 2 World Wars.  My Gramma lived when electricity was discovered and distributed to homes across North America!  She raised a large family through the Great Depression.   My Grandmother watched the revolution of television followed by home computers and the internet (even though she never had a computer).  She gave birth to a large family in an old farmhouse with no modern conveniences.  My Grandmother was an amazing woman – my cousin Marc describes it best “Her door was always open, they were not rich, but there was always a pot of barley soup on the stove. She raised her own 11 children and many grandchildren and even great children were always at the farm.” Whew!  What a time in history to have lived!

my Grandparents

I knew her for my entire life but I had no idea that she harboured a personal secret wish:  to simply find her long lost sister Alberta (‘Bertie’).   Alberta had moved to the United States to work when she grew up in the 1920’s and my Gramma kept in contact with her until the 1960s.  Alberta had two children, Frederick and Lloyd and had two husbands.  Then they lost touch.   Recently I discovered that, when she was 100 years old, my Gramma told her daughter that she wished she could find out about her sister ‘Bertie’:  “the best gift I could ever have would be to find out where ‘Bertie’ was, if she was dead or alive or her last known address.  I know it is in Norfolk” (VA, U.S)…….. Sadly, we were never able to fulfil her secret wish before she died.

Our family history reports that my Grandmother had 7 or 8 siblings but I never really thought about whatever happened to them.  I met her brother Kermit and her sister Gladys because they lived down home in the same town as my Grandmother  (a.k.a. ‘Mom’ as we affectionately called her).  I feel guilty now for never inquiring about her siblings and parents…..    My Grandmother’s parents, William and  Ellen,  moved back to New Carlisle, Quebec on the Gaspe from Shirley, Massachusetts in the U.S. when my Gramma and her sister Bertie were just babies in the early 1900s.  They cleared the land and built a home where they raised their family.  The foundation of that century homestead still exists.  Our family historian, Auntie Mary says that when her mother was a teenager, her and Bertie moved to New Brunswick to work.  Then Mom’s Uncle John and Aunt May brought Bertie back to the U.S. with them to work.  My Gramma moved back home where she married and lived for the rest of her life.

1930s Only picture of my great-grandmother, back left

When technology and computers were developed, my Gramma often wondered where Bertie was and said she’d love to find her again.  But it was not to be during her time on this earth.   Then, a few years ago, my cousin Marc was playing around with a free trial of Ancestry.ca and my Auntie Mary wondered if he could “find Mom’s sister on that thing?”  They typed in Alberta’s name, her birthday, and the names of her two husbands and incredibly, her name popped up in someone else’s family tree!  My cousin sent a message to the person who entered the family tree information and it turns out HE was Bertie’s son!  Marc wrote to him saying “It is hard to believe that my grandmother searched half her lifetime and even on her deathbed and we have finally found you and your family”.  Now our family has been reunited once again.  My dear sweet Grandmother who spent her life giving, has once again given us another gift of dozens more family members by her simple, solitary secret wish.  I can’t wait to get to know my new cousins and even meet them some day – we share the same great-grandparents.

My Aunt Mary said it best:  “it’s never too late….. better late than never”.

3 Generations – early ’70s