This week for thanksgiving I will be going to Alabama for my first Wood Family Reunion. Out of the generations that are represented at our family reunion I am the only one who has the responsibility of carrying the namesake of the Wood family forward. I have grown up hearing stories of my great grandparents, but I have very little memory of my great grandmother, none of my great grandfather. My experience with them are stories and granite. I have never been to Lucy's house. In fact I never knew Lucy. I never knew what a family reunion on the fourth of July was like. The oldest dog I remember was Smokey who I quickly found out when I was young was not a squirrel hunting dog of a legend that Spot was. I have never had fresh milk from a cow. I have never played dominoes and honestly I don't know how. All of these things are things of legend in a family where I hold the namesake.
This week stories will be told about people that I never met or who had died before I had ever been born. People will remember things that have been outdated by my generation. To many people the stories and legends would me nothing but not to me. I will hear stories about people that I never knew and those stories will mean something to me because they are who I am. To me my last name isn't simply a name but it is a heritage that I have fallen into. My last name is a point a pride because of the people that it connects me to, people I have the privilege of calling family. The stories that I have heard all my life and will surely hear again are the same stories that I will tell to my son when I explain to him that his last name isn't just a name but a connection to a proud heritage that is our family. And even though he will never go to Lucy's house he will know the stories about her and about so many other people that have added to the our family legacy.
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2 comments:
Great one Joel,
Lucy looked much like the old "Aunt Jemimah" packages of products. She had that great smile and she was short and rather heavy. She always carried a white cloth sack to carry groceries, what thing she could "beg" from folks and money she had gotten from various folks for her church. A little boy heard many stories and songs while Lucy was washing clothes from the old wash pot up by the spring. Also, he sat in her lap while she was churning for butter in the old butter churn while we were looking through the old Sears Roebuck, Montgomery Ward or Speigel catalog saying, "I'm going to buy that or this when I get rich. When that growing little boy got hungry between meals, Lucy would poke a finger in a cold biscuit then fill it with good home made cane syrup, or crumble cornbread into a glass and soak it with fresh churned buttermilk. Two special treats that he was given were: 1. Fresh baked molases cake that she called "Sweet Bread" and as she was taking up freshly cooked turnip greens, she'd put a big dollip of them on the corner of the cabinet for him before she cut the rest up to serve at the table. After that little boy went to college, he'd go by her house each Sunday afternoon to pick up his made from scratch layer cake to take back with him. That little boy was called "Sonny" and noone else used that name. You may have guessed that "Sonny" was your Grand Paw.
Love ya
That was nice - and the comment made by Jim Wood was equally as nice. Great memories to keep.
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