Family Wedding

Sometimes it's good to go home.  I'm getting to that middle age when you only get to see your extended family at funerals.  Last weekend we traveled to Illinois for a joyous purpose - my brother's wedding.  My four brothers and sisters, husbands and wives as well as most of their children, were there to celebrate.  We are really quite the crowd:

I didn't realize my immediate family was so big until I looked at this picture.  Not only did my immediate family attend, a good number of my cousins with their kids (and a few grandkids) showed up.  I had 23 cousins on my mother's side growing up and counting their spouses, children and grandchildren, there were 21 family members there representing the original 23.  That might not sound like a lot of family members to some people, but my cousins are scattered from Boston to Virginia, from New Orleans to Eau Claire, Wisconsin, and everything in between, especially southern Illinois.  The best part?  Because of social media, I feel like I still know what my cousins are doing most of the time.  Gotta love it.

We don't get too many chances these days to gather for occasions like weddings.  My mother was one of five girls and in the last four years, 3 of them have died, including my mother.  It's wonderful to know that even as my mother's generation is waning, their children still enjoy getting together and introducing new members of their families.  How ironic that probably the last wedding of the cousins is my brother's, the oldest cousin.

My kids were very surprised to find out how many "cousins" they have.  Here are the first cousins:

My daughter kept asking how she was related to all the other family she was meeting.  I kept repeating that they were all "cousins," some just farther removed.  During her week in Illinois, she also visited with my husband's family, including "cousins."  After we returned to Arizona, she missed being so far away from her extended family on both sides.  As the unofficial family genealogist, I was thrilled to see both of my children so interested in their family roots.

My cousins used to comment that such a large family came from the five "Wilbourn girls" (my mother and her sisters).  As we get older, our families have become very extended.  My kids and their cousins will now look to the five "Hendricks kids" as their source.

Mom and Dad would be so proud.

cindy

My Old School

Last weekend I visited my Alma Mater where I met my wonderful husband:

The University of Illinois at Champaign-Urbana is a large sprawling campus that is gorgeous at any time of year (yes, even in the winter).  We were so blest last weekend to have a perfect autumn day to walk the campus.

We walked around campus with my Arizona family, including our kids.  It felt strange to be there with the kids, but they enjoyed it.

On a campus this old, time seems to stand still.  The same stately buildings where we (mostly) studied look exactly the same.

There are so many memories floating around that place, and I felt wistful thinking about the time I was there and the friends I met (especially my husband).  I realized I am living the life I could only dream about when I was there.

Then I remembered trudging across the frozen tundra in -25 degree wind chill on the January night I met my husband and reminded myself why we live in Arizona :)

cindy

Back in the (School) Day

At the risk of looking really old, I've been thinking back on my high school days in the '80s.  It's September now, and I'm reminded of all those Friday nights when we went to the football games.  I went to a Catholic high school in southern Illinois and we didn't have our own football field, so we used the stadium of the big public school about 5 miles away.  (For those of you still in Belleville, that's my best guess.)  I specifically remember those games as a freshman, because we didn't have cars or rides from anyone but our parents.  God forbid our parents would drop us off at the stadium - NOOOOO.  We would have them drop us off about a mile or two away and then we would walk down West Main Street.  Now that I think about that, we were kind of stupid because that was a long walk and sometimes it was cold.

Back in the day, we wore big hair and clogs.  I was never too much into the big hair thing, but I did have clogs.  You know, backless shoes with wedge heels.  Our heels were never that high, but they were wooden and made a lot of noise when you walked.  I can also remember how much my feet hurt at the end of the day - my heels from walking on a wooden block and my toes from scrunching them to keep the clogs on.  But as my mother would say "Beauty knows no pain."  (Although I definitely don't remember her saying that about those clogs.)

Yeah, we went through some weird clothing trends during my high school years.  I started high school at the very beginning of the 80s and went off to college toward the end.  We started with the "preppy look."  For most of you who were born after my high school years, that consisted of plaid skirts (preferably pleated), long knee socks and loafers.  You could wear a button down blouse with a ribbon tie at the collar, with a muted sweater over the blouse.  You could always wear clogs instead of loafers.  By the end of high school, we were teasing our hair and getting "punked out" with the big shirts/sweaters, bright colors, leg warmers and leggings.  Yep, we wore some crazy stuff.

I remember my freshman year at Homecoming.  We had a parade down West Main Street and every class (freshman, sophomores, juniors and seniors) also had their own floats on flatbed.  Everyone used wood forms, chicken wire and tissue paper flowers to make figures for the float.  I made so many of those tissue paper flowers, my fingers were cut up by the floral wire we used to keep them together.  (See, even then I was crafty!)  The freshman float always looked pretty sad.  I remember that year the seniors made a giant Pac Man eating a player from the other team - impressive.  That year at football games, we saw the appearance of a new mascot - the Crusader.  Here was a guy dressed in armor (yep, the real thing), riding a big white horse and carrying a banner.  It was very cool.  We never knew who the Crusader was until the last pep rally of the football season when it was revealed to be one of our school priests.  Oh man, was he awesome!

Yep, the 80s were a very strange decade.  We saw the birth of MTV and music videos, very crude video games (remember Pong?), crazy fashions and awesome music.  I was there and I wouldn't change that for all the world.

Go Althoff Crusaders!

cindy


I'm participating in the SITS Girls "Fall Back into Blogging" this week.  

Shaking the Tree

I've been working on a quilt - it's one crazy quilt.  There are lots of fabric colors and designs, and I had this insane idea to hand embroider over the seams.  The squares are uneven and the embroidery is crude.  It's a bit of a hot mess, but one of a kind.  And I am spending a LOT of time to finish it.

When my dad died, I realized I knew almost nothing about my family name.  My dad was the only child of essentially a single mother.  That's when I became interested in genealogy.  I've been shaking the trees on both sides of my family since then and I've been amazed and amused at what I have found.  I have learned that even though it's exciting to know you are a descendant of Charlemagne, Holy Roman Emperor (really!), at some point the names become meaningless without some backstory.

The Old Clock

This is my grandmother's clock

It doesn't work, but I remember it in my grandmother's house and then in my house as a child.  Women in my family are strong.  My grandmother raised five girls after my grandfather died - the oldest girl was about 14.  My mom has been gone for a couple of years now, but another one of the surviving sisters, my Aunt Hope died last week.  That leaves only two sisters left.  This is a picture of four of the sisters in about 1934, a couple of years before my grandfather died.  My Aunt Betty isn't in the picture because she wasn't born yet.  My mom was the smallest one on the left.  The picture has been colorized, but you get the idea.

My Aunt Hope lived in far southern Illinois in a area where people knew each other.  She raised six children with my Uncle Sam and they were well known in the community.  They had the house on the hill.  I remember that house - big with two stories and lots of bedrooms.  I can still see it now as I close my eyes.
I didn't get to go to the funeral, but my two sisters did, as well as my oldest brother.  My two older siblings were born in the middle of a large group of cousins (about 9 within 5 years).  They all lived in the same area of southern Illinois and all used to gather on that house on the hill.  I've seen old home movies with lots of kids running around during Easter egg hunts with my aunts standing by, except my Aunt Hope who was chasing after the youngest child of the group.

On Facebook, one of my extended cousins, who also did not attend the funeral, wrote a nice memory of my aunt.  She received nearly 40 comments, mostly from non-family members who remembered my Aunt Hope.  It was truly touching to see the broader impact she had on the entire community.

My mother and her sisters were part of a generation that is waning.  My cousins don't live in the same area - we are scattered all over the United States.  Our kids didn't have that house on the hill where they all gathered.  It's a bit sad, but it's O.K. because we all have pictures, old movies and most importantly, the pictures and movies in our mind.  It's important that we share those with our kids so they know where they're from even if they've never been there.  I know I remember.

Rest in peace Aunt Hope.

cindy