A speaker today in church talked about the importance of knowing your heritage, knowing where you came from. He said studies show that kids who know more about where they come from have better self-awareness and are more successful.
Then in Sunday School we were talking about our ancestors and the importance of being connected with them.
I can name all of my great-grandparents. Helmut Kelm and Anita Wolke, Glen Taylor and Susan Barker, Garret Hutchison and Myrtle Windchester, and Ralph Vaile and Olive Cox. Everyone but Garret and Myrtle (my mother's paternal grandparents) were still alive in 1980 when I was born. I really have only 3 that I have clear memories of. I also have all four grandparents in my life that I have personal relationships with today. I know this is very unique and special.
It is a treasured blessing.
This is my paternal grandmother and her mother, my great-grandmother.
Aline was born in Canada and lives in Hurricane, Utah. Olive was born in England and traveled to Canada in the early 1900's to find a cowboy. She found him. She passed away in 2006. That means that I had a great-grandma until I was 26 years old. We wrote each other for years and I still have a box full of those exchanges. Our family visited her once in Canada when I was teenager. I also remember seeing her at my uncle's wedding, she gave me a pearl necklace. It is costume jewelery, but a piece I treasure.
Olive's cowboy was named Ralph. Here I am with Ralph in B.C as a baby.
He passed away in the 1985. I vaguely remember my parents telling me he passed away. I think I cried, because that it what you are suppose to do. I don't have any memories of him, but I do know a little of where he came from. His mother was Agnes Tilton. At a family reunion when I was 10 years old, all the relatives said I looked like her. (She must have been one beautiful lady!) She lived a good portion of her life blind. Ralph's father Charles Vaile was the son of my Mexican ancestors. That is right, my great-great-great grandmother Maria Sandoval Armenta was born in New Mexico, which in the early 1800's was Mexico! Soy mexicana!
On my mom's side of the family I have memories mostly of Glen and Susan Taylor.
Every summer on Memorial Day the family would gather in Elba, Idaho at the Taylor home. My cousin's and I thought their house was pretty cool because is had a pool table in the upstairs room, a two-seater outhouse, a well pump in the front, bats in the attic, a giant trampoline, and an old creepy cellar that we never went into but the giant freezer at the top of the stairs always had those twin Popsicles. While the adults went to the cemetery on Memorial Day, the kids went to the junk yard next to it and caught lizards.
Glen lived with my maternal grandparents my freshman year of college. Susan was in a nursing home in Idaho at the time and he didn't want to be alone. I cherish that year of college, going to do laundry at Grandma Hutchison's and getting to spend time chatting with Great-grandpa Taylor. The thing I remember the most was when he told me that he didn't believe in death-bed repentance, but if he had given religion more thought he should have joined the Mormons. He told me how proud he was of each of his daughters for getting married in the temple, even though he never practiced that faith. He passed away in April 1999 after returning to Idaho to be closer to his wife again. Susan was a sassy lady. She made delicious giant rolls and called left overs "Be Gones". She also never joined the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints, although for years she participated in the Relief Society. After her husband passed away in April, she followed him in August of 1999.
Here I am as an adorable baby in the arms on my grandma Vera, next to my mom, with great-grandma Susan on the end. Four generation pictures are awesome!
Just this summer I got to hug this exceptional lady. Grandma Vera, my maternal grandmother. She has 20+ grandchildren and over a dozen great-grandchildren. And, she is just as sassy as her mother, Susan Taylor. Maybe even more so, but don't tell her that. Once she played with us in the backyard and injured her knee. She had to get it scoped. The best was having family water fights and seeing grandma run around the yard screaming. I remind her all the time that I am her favorite granddaughter, which she denies having a favorite...
but at least I have the title of her first ever grandchild!
Grandpa Jack is my maternal grandfather.
I was a third generation BYU Alumni because of him. While going to school he hired me to work in his insurance office. He also bought me a car to drive while I was in Utah as a student. He is the biggest BYU and Yankee fan I know. I mean check this out, he planted white flowers to look like a Y surrounded in blue.
And lastly, but not least, we have my paternal grandparents Wolf and Aline.
You already know a little about Aline's heritage. She was born in Canada, married a German, and eventually moved to Utah. It took me 30 years to ask her, but this past spring I asked her why they left Canada to move to Salt Lake City. She said it was the genealogy. She felt the pull to be near the records so she could do her family history work. Aline has submitted thousands of names on programs such as Family Search (and others in the past), linking her with a great host in heaven. She also is a fabulous grandma to the family she has here on this earth!
Check out this beauty. No, not the car. The handsome man in it.
He likes to call himself Wolf the great. Great he is! This octogenarian
was born in Germany. He loves chocolate more than life itself. He is also well versed in old Westerns, Hogan's Hero's, and Bob Newhart, just to name a few. He recently became the proud owner of a cell phone and is even getting the hang of texting! I met his father Helmut who died in 1997 in Germany, and I don't remember his mother Anita, she passed away in 1983. He must have come from good genes, because "by their fruits ye shall know them".
So back to the beginning. Does knowing who you are and where you come from give you self-confidence? I believe so. I know more than I realized. I'm proud of the people I came from. They each have a legacy, and knowing that will help me leave mine.
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg)
.jpg){kind=link}