Last
week my hubby decided he wanted to travel to his hometown to check things out and
reconnect with cousins he hasn’t seen in many years. When I say many years, I
mean many years. I had never met them since we have been married and that is 53
years. I thought, OH Boy, this could be interesting. We stopped at a gas
station to take a break and he asked if there was any of his relatives still
living in Emerson. Well, lo and behold, there was one cousin still there. A customer
was just leaving and volunteered to show us the way. When hubby knocked on the
door, Kirk knew him instantly. Hadn’t seen each other in over 45 years. I was
amazed. After a nice visited we toured the town. Took pictures of the house he
lived in before they moved to Shelby. Found out the farm house where is dad
worked had been torn down and the three stores that the family owned on Main
Street had been destroyed in a flood in 1982. That was kind of sad but all and
all it was a fun time.
We
then traveled a couple of more hours to the home of his cousin who he hadn’t
seen since he was a kid. We have been keeping in touch though at Christmas time
via cards and letters. It was so nice to finally meet someone I have been
writing to for years. It was a fun visit hearing about the summers hubby spent
at their farm. Came home with pictures of his mother’s graduation, his
grandmother and an interesting fact. We knew that hubby’s family was descendants
of an Indian tribe but know ever said or knew which tribe. Well, thanks to Dorothy’s
granddaughter who researched it for a term paper, they now know they are one
eighth Cherokee.
It
was a two day trip I can truthfully say I wasn’t sure about but it turned out
to be a very fun adventure. Just goes to show you. Never be afraid to venture
out and do something out of the ordinary.
The
next day we toured Winterset, home of the covered bridges of Madison County and
the birthplace of John Wayne. More on that in my next post.
Some photos from our first day out.
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| Jerry's grandmother on the right and her sisters. |
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| Jerry's mom. |
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| First childhood home |
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| Directory at entrance of Emerson Cemetery |
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| Rural Iowa |
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| An exciting fact we learned from the trip. |
Rose.
I love this stuff - genealogy, researching family roots. I haven't seen most of my cousins since I was like 17 years old. I am connected to about 15 of them, on Facebook. Lately what I have been doing, is I check out old census, find the address on it and then google the address. Now these go back to the 1900 and through 1940. I am surprised that many of the homes my great great grandparents etc lived, are still standing - just in a run down area. Some are vacant lots. The hospital I was born in, has a brand new one in it's place. Maybe one day I will post about it. Anyway I even enjoy other families adventures into their past. :-)
ReplyDeleteHis mom is beautiful! Looks like it was an interesting visit--even if you aren't related!
ReplyDelete