I’ve just become a GeneaBlogger!!!! and I’m really excited because it’s opened up a whole new world of blogging inspiration for me. 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) designed as an opportunity to record memories and insights from our lifetimes and share them with our future descendants.
I think it’s a really interesting concept, so I’m starting this week with the topic of Home.
I grew up in the house my father built. And my parents still live there today. It was a smallish sort of house situated on a large, beautiful piece of land on a winding, country road in a small New England town. (It’s bustling suburbia now, but when I was young it seemed like the country.)
The property had apples trees, a babbling brook, and acres of woodland and fields where my sisters and I would play and have imagined adventures all summer long.
The really special thing about my childhood home was that it had originally been part of a 32 acre homestead purchased by my Grandparents in the very early days of their marriage in the 1930s. The house had been built 100 years earlier, around 1833, and my Grandfather, being an excellent carpenter, added onto it bit by bit, expanding it as the family grew.
Dad and Uncle Richard in front of Grampie and Grammie
As each of their four children reached adulthood and married, my Grandparents gave them a four acre piece of the property, and built them a house. (In our case, with Dad’s help.) And so, by the 1960s, the Varrieur Homestead boasted four additional homes, built around my Grandparent’s house – the heart of the homestead – from which they were able to remain physically close to their four children and could watch their eleven grandchildren grow up under foot.
Thanksgiving and Christmas were centered in the warmth of my Grandparent’s living room and enormous kitchen table. The youngest of the cousins sat at the “kids table,” and it was quite a rite of passage to reach the age when you were finally old enough to be able to sit with the Grown Ups.
Growing up under the nurturing umbrella of my paternal Grandparents,Aunts, and Uncles, in immediate proximity to my paternal cousins, was an amazing experience, and one which I totally took for granted. In my childhood innocence, I assumed it was how everyone grew up. Feeling that familial love all those years helped shaped me, and it’s an experience I wish everyone could know.
Lives evolve and times change. My Grandparents have passed away, and except for my parents and Uncle Peter, the rest of the family has moved on. Much to everyone’s delight, Aunty Mary has moved into my Grandparent’s house. She and Uncle Steve have added on and made it their own, but the memories of Grampie and Grammie and our times together there are still very real and I feel their presence whenever I’m there.
Welcome to the world of Geneablogging! Great post and photos!
Wonderful post!
I can so relate to the “kids table” which we had at my aunt’s house on the holidays.
I particularly remember my last couple of occasions at the kids table with cousins much younger than me, feeling that I didn’t belong. Graduation to the grownup’s table was indeed a very important rite of passage!
Beautifully written. Of course you know it made me cry.
I cried a little when I wrote it
Welcome to the Geneabloggers family. Hope you find the association fruitful; I sure do. I have found it most stimulating, especially some of the Daily Themes.
May you keep sharing your ancestor stories!
Dr. Bill
http://drbilltellsancestorstories.blogspot.com/
Author of “Back to the Homeplace”
and “13 Ways to Tell Your Ancestor Stories”
http://www.examiner.com/x-53135-Springfield-Genealogy-Examiner
http://www.examiner.com/x-58285-Ozarks-Cultural-Heritage-Examiner
Thanks Susan and Bill for the warm welcome to Geneabloggers. What a great site!! I’ve already found lots of inspiration for new posts and my mind is racing in a million different directions right now, wondering what type of post I should do next
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What a lovely description of your home and family! Most of my mother’s family only lived about an hour away from us when I was growing up, but I always wished that we lived closer together so that I could play with my cousins. Your description of how the family lived so close together sounds ideal.
Thank you Greta,
It was a very nice way to grow up
Welcome to Geneabloggers and what a wonderful post!
welcome to Genea bloggers world. I am barely a year member, can say that it brings a lot of changes with wonderful support.
I enjoyed reading your blog, I think it helped jar some of my memories which will help when I get my story written – Lewisville. You write so well. I wish you continued fun and sucesss. jo
Thanks Teicha and Jo,
I’m already enjoying Geneabloggers. I feel so welcome!! It’s so nice to find others who share my passion for the past and knowing more about those who came before us. And I really love the daily prompts.