Hiding Out

I've been ensconced in my house for a couple of days, after a long day of travel and friendship that was great but really wore me out!  I start thinking about the negatives of hiding out, and do beat myself up a bit about it.  However, as I am seeing the devastation across the east from hurricane Helene, I snap out of my funk and feel pretty danged grateful.

Insomnia and a heavy lethargy are bearable.  Surviving the flooding and wind damage from this storm - not so much.  I have a nephew who attended Warren Wilson college in Asheville, NC, so I was curious as to how the campus faired.  They are doing better than areas around them, but they are cut off by mudslides and have no electricity.  No electricity means NO WATER.  No wifi and spotty cell service so frantic parents are having a difficult time finding out the status of their children.  It reminds me of the Loma Prieta earthquake in California when I was working at the university in Santa Cruz.  

One of the things I've been doing these past 2 days is looking back at family history.  This handsome fellow is my great grandfather Oscar Tilley in 1907.  I knew him as an old man; he died when I was six years old.  He was still strong, and tall, and tolerated us little ones invading his house. His wife, my great grandmother, was a tiny woman (like Nancy Reagan).  She was his physical opposite - delicate and small. I had the pleasure of knowing her as well.  Her sister, my great great Aunt Lou, lived in a studio across the breezeway.  I count myself lucky indeed to have known these ancestors.

The maternal line in my family boasts early California settlers.  My grandparents were a part of my childhood, but not as much as my paternal grandmother.  They owned land in the Sierra foothills and operated a Christmas tree farm that was wildly popular with people as far away as the San Francisco Bay Area.  Upon my grandparents deaths, the farm was sold and two of their children used that money to buy their own farms, closer to town.  

The earliest ancestors I know of were operator/owners of a stage coach inn in Siskiyou County, California.  They gave it the family name, and Cole's Station was born.  I remember meeting my great grandmother Cole once, as she lay in a hospital bed in a nursing home.  I was quite young, and her visage was a little scary to my young mind.  She was a great friend to my parents, however, and helped them purchase their first home.  My mother's parents were not keen on her marrying my father, but grandmother Cole was, and helped out the young couple.

As a grandmother (Bubbie) myself now, I think a lot about the generational knowledge we are able to pass on.  Keeping the stories alive and honouring the past seem very important to me now.  I am a fan of the PBS show "Finding Your Roots" and how astounded people are to discover their ancestors' past.  People's stories are forgotten along the way, until we are older and more reflective.

I feel my ancestors around me from time to time.  Even the one who caused a family scandal and absconded with family money and left his pregnant wife with his parents.  He was found decades later by my grandmother, living in a sleepy mountain town in Northern California, having formed an entirely new family.  My grandmother felt the call of her long lost uncle, who was never mentioned after his abandonment.  His name never appeared in any writings by my great grandfather. It was as if he never existed.

So, this is what I've been up to. Lost in the past and dreaming about the enormity of life.