Family Tree

Frustration  In Spades

When I first started working on our family tree, it was but a whimsical idea.  My sister and some cousins thought it would be interesting to see how our tree had grown, how many different nationalities and cultures we had embraced into our midst, how far abroad we had spread our branches, how many career paths we had imprinted, how many lifestyles we had wandered into, how many beliefs we had adopted, etc. etc. etc.  A fascinating subject, right?  Well, try it!

This sounded like an intriguing project and my sister got it started by gathering some basic genealogical facts.  She did not have a computer and did not type so she did it all in longhand on foolscap sheets that she kept in a large envelope in her desk drawer.  As she got older, she found the task burdensome as she had reached the limits of her personal knowledge and found other sources of information beyond her reach.  So who gets stuck with the continuation and the extension of this fantastic project?  Of course, the most likely candidate will be 1) someone that expressed interest in the project originally, 2) someone who has some basic computer knowledge, and most importantly 3) someone who is too naive to realise what she is getting into. The sum total of those factors at that time equalled ME.  I took that pile of foolscap home and entered a phase of my life that I had never encountered before.

With the aid of a computer program called the “Family Tree Maker” I organised the information, ran up monumental phone bills tracing (or visiting) reluctant or indifferent relatives, browsed through reams of Homecoming Books from places I had never even heard of, searched through countless unproductive archive files, visited graveyards throughout the prairies peering at unreadable gravestones and performing other unspeakably lunatic manoeuvres.  

Consequently, I have learned several very important lessons.  This project is monumental. It is exhausting.  It is “never-ending”.  It is time, energy and brain consuming.  It is costly.  It is thankless.  And worst of all, it is hopeless!   I give up!

Letter to My Mom

Letter to my mom

I can’t believe it has been fifty five years today since I last saw your weary face, those eyes that barely could move to acknowledge our presence.  Yet how I miss you still, and even now I am wracked with feelings of guilt about wanting it all to end.  It wasn’t that I wanted you gone, Mom.  But we could not relieve your pain, could offer you no help, could not make anything even just a little easier for you.  You were suffering so terribly those last two weeks, yet still you waited – and waited – until your last baby could be at your side.  Only after John was able to come did you let go.

I know you are in a better place where you are, and I am grateful to God for relieving your pain and taking you to His Home.  Yet even now, I still miss you after all those years. We celebrated Mothers Day today and my memories took me back to that sad day when we lost you.  I still need to talk to you sometimes, because I know you would understand, would empathize with me, would rejoice with me at the good things and would cry with me about the bad.  Yet all I can hope for is another dream.  At least I get those.  They feel so real and as we go about our dream world tasks.  I feel that peace, that connection and that comfort of working alongside of you even if we are only attending to mundane tasks together.  Thanks for coming to visit me every now and then.  Good Night Mom.  See you in my dreams.

Introducing the family

MEET OUR FARM FAMILY

In order that you can fully appreciate my stories, you need to know the characters in them.   You need to know my family and the backdrop to all my stories.  The stories are true experiences that were part of our lives on our farm.  So come  join me as I introduce you and walk with me down my "MEMORY LANE".

Our small family farm was located in central Manitoba, three miles from Ethelbert, forty miles northwest of Dauphin.  Basically we specialized in grain farming on one section of land and ran a herd of about a hundred and twenty head of beef cattle, with a few milk cows. 

To round out our family circle, there was my husband John, myself, three children, “Jim” (John Jr.) our oldest, and the two girls, Carol, three years younger than Jim, and Connie, our youngest, a year younger than Carol.  Then there was "Dido" (grandpa) and "Baba", (grandma).  They were John's parents and they often helped on the farm.  Baba was a constant babysitter when the kids were small as I was out working in the fields.  Also, John had an Uncle Leon, - Strayo, we called him - whose very unique personality inadvertently brought much mirth to our family, particularly to me, who often got paired off with him during harvest time.

In some stories, you will also meet my brother, John, nineteen months younger than I, and Betty, my next sister, seven and a half years older than I.  They shared my early adventures.  John and I grew up together as our other siblings were much older and working out in the city by that time.

Besides the human members of our family, there were also the special animals that played an integral role in our farming operations.  There was Bimbo, Rascal and Kennedy, the dogs; Dolly, Mitzy, Tommy and Silver the cats; Little Mite the saddle horse; Dukey and Pokey the ponies; Spotty, Suzy, Jessie and Faline, the milk cows; and Jacky the jackrabbit.  The beef cattle also all had names, Lucky, the steer, Tweety Pie, the calf, who thought he was human and would gladly have followed us into the house had we allowed it.  Then there was Rita, Mabel, Jessie, just some of the cows, and Charlie, that notorious big white Charlais bull who was such a typical philandering male that he would jump any fence just to see a new face, yet he was a total wimp because he had to be penned in for vaccination and he bellowed like a baby when you gave him a needle.  He was unlike Joe, his predecessor,  a much smaller Hereford bull, who was so docile, we could come up to him anywhere in the pasture, rub his rump, jab the vaccinating needle home and send him peacefully on his way.  Each of these members of our family had their own fascinating personality and an interesting story to tell.  In this blog, you will meet them all.

Some of the stories and poems are about my own years growing up, first on my parents’ farm in Ukraina and later Kulish, northwest of Ethelbert.  Most of the stories, however, deal with events that happened after I was married and are set at our farm in Loon Lake area where our kids grew up.  However, after we moved to Dauphin, I had more leisure time on my hands, particularly when I started traveling. Hopefully, as you skim through my stories, you will empathize with our tragedies, cringe at my indiscretions, laugh at my absurdities and revel in my triumphs!  Many of my idiosyncrasies came later in life, when I really should have known better but I did learn something new each time and became smarter after each mistake.  Such is life!