Description: on family and history and life
When I was a kid, an announcement that my dad’s brothers or sisters had come to visit sent us kids straight into cockroach mode, scurrying from the light of their curious eyes and head-patting hands. I have no idea why we were shy like that as kids, especially with our own relatives. There were seven of us – four girls and three boys – and we lived in a world and a house that was its own kind of crazy. I suppose anyone who dared disrupt the delicate balance of our 1970s childhood universe justly deserved th
By the time I was in my mid-20s, I had three kids of my own, and my interest in learning about my family history was really beginning to grow. Suddenly my aunts and uncles, especially my dad’s older brother, Jack, seemed less like alien invaders and more like wonderful resources to help me learn more about my family’s past.
Uncle Jack was fifteen years older than my dad, a WWII Navy veteran who had seen action at some of the key locations in the Pacific including Midway. In the mid-90s, Jack, recently widowed, had started visiting my dad more. Always interested in family history himself, he had begun to share many of his discoveries with my dad, and when I expressed an eager interest in all of it, with me as well.