Family

I've been thinking about my grandparents lately. Dreaming about them.  Dreaming their homes. I still remember their faces but I can't hear their voices anymore, just my maternal grandmother's Grace's laugh. I wish I had be able to have more talks with them when I was older but college intervened and marriage and before I had children they were all gone.

Both of my grandmother's, Grace and Laura, were short, barely 5', and had very curly hair, one dark brunette and the other auburn. Both were of Irish descent.  Both grandfather's were tall, over six feet. Or so I've been told, my maternal grandfather was never in the picture. Dad's poppa was home and retired as long as I could remember. He had been a logger and a mill worker, and was missing three fingers on his right hand. Gone in accidents at work. He's one of the reasons I just shake my head when there are calls for people to work until they are 70.  There are so many jobs that simply wear a body out, sometimes long before 65.

Grandpa Richard came to this country from England when he was about 12, with his brother Tom who was around 14. They were put into foster care in New York City.  Their family was from Scotland before London.  Their mother died when they were very young, about 4 and 6 and their father was absent and somehow they raised themselves on the streets of London's East End until Tom went into the British Navy and Grandpa became a cabin boy on another sailing ship. My Dad didn't think there would be much in the way of records of Grandpa's family as they lived near the docks and to quote my Dad "much of the neighborhood was bombed flat in WW2."

My maternal grandfather Fred is something of a mystery. A mystery four curious granddaughters unraveled somewhat over time. We were told he had died in WW1. He had been a soldier in the war but survived. By the time we discovered this he had died and it turned out he lived not 20 miles from me in King County, WA .  So close. But who knows if he would have wanted to see any of us.

So next week I am taking my little pile of gleaned data to the local LDS Church Genealogy Library here in town.  They are free, open to the public, and will assist me in my search.

Meanwhile I have been dreaming of the honeysuckle that completely covered my Dad's parents front porch in the summer.  I used to nap on a lounger in the shade and listen to the bees hum.  And the scent, that wonderful scent.