Jane Scriven & Sentimental Sunday

.
.
I was thinking some more after yesterdays post. Of speaking about dead relatives.

You know when you miss or want to see someone today, all you have to do is phone or email or go visit. I like writing paper letters so I do that too. & most cell phones now & computers you can see your person when you talk to them ( I confess I am not that advanced, Ahem! ) You can call and hang up - call again a second later when you remember something - and call again - again - again...

I visit with people all over the world and we are really seconds away from each other this way.

When someone dies, all you can do to visit is go to the grave. At home you can pull out their pictures or letters & momentos.

You don't have to bury them away from your life. Talk about them to family & friends. Quote things they said or did, to others. Tell stories about them. You don't have to get long winded and get boring or turn others off. But injecting funny things about people or

"my Grandma Alma once did that too, she ....."
"I heard my Uncle Douglas was there, he......"
" I got this ........ from my Granny (my great grandmother Alla) "

It's like spending time with them, if you can say their names and remember them.

I've wondered how Jane must have been sadly heartsick to live so far away, from her old family back in Ireland. And then as the years go by that she was the last one of them all alive. Even with her own many children around her and their families. Her own children were under 10 years of age when they left Ireland. My Great Grandfather EWM Evans was 9 years old when they left in in 1869. When she became an old lady here, was it easier to put the old family back in Ireland away in a box of photos & letters. Who could she talk to about them? How many of them did her own children remember from so long ago?

Think about your own family now
How many branches you have & last names

Jane had the same back in Ireland, & relatives I'm sure her own children never met. As we do here now. So don't put your people away in a box in the closet. Talk about them when you can. Genealogy and family history are made for this. You don't have to make the kids sit down for a class about the old people ( tho wouldn't you love to have a captive audience) . Just be sneaky and inject little stories about them whenever & wherever you can. One day you'll be amazed at how much they soaked up from you.

Happy Trails, Katiebird