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Me Musing .
. . March
19 ,
2007
Yowie! How
can people be bored with life????
It has been
almost a month since last I mused and what a new direction life
has taken in the past month!
As my friend
Kenzan said this morning, 'the sap must be running in the trees
as it seems everyone is on the move again since it has been feeling
like Spring in the air'!!!
About 3 weeks
ago my friend Winifred had just returned from a 10- day trip to
Zurich, Switzerland and I awoke that next morning with the thought
on my mind: "I wonder how far Zurich is from that place on
the France/Germany border where 'my people' come from????
Sooooooooo
out with the world atlas and I found they were only a few inches
away from each other!
Two years ago
I began researching my genealogy from a hand-printed outline that
Mother had done for me to get me started on a 5th grade project
of researching our 'Family Tree'. I was able to find that on Mother's
side, the Reebs came from a place called Keskastel, Bas-Rhin, France.
I was amazed to see that my great-grandparents were born there and
at 23 were married and living in Columbus, Ohio! I just couldn't
get my head around how two young people, back then (1857)
had made their way clear over to Ohio!
At that time
I was only able to trace Daddy's side back to his parents. There
seemed to be no record past that . . . so I put it all aside . .
. until that fateful morning in early March!
Having the
idea in my head, I googled 'Keskastel, Bas-Rhin' and found information
about the area . . . one being that it had been part of Germany
until 1742 when Napoleon decided he wanted that area along the Rhine
River as part of France. That explained why Mother had said she
had German blood and never mentioned French!
Then before
my eyes, appeared the information that a whole website on the Reebs
of that area was online! You can imagine where I spent the rest
of the morning . . . yes! . . . exploring that site. It even had
ship records of names and dates and ships that the Reebs traveled
on to America.
Needless to
say, my life took off on its own . . . and I just followed along
. . . willingly!
I contacted
the woman whose site it was, especially intrigued that she lived
in Sandy, Oregon . . . which was where I lived for 9 years before
moving to this little valley in far-northern California. She told
me that I should contact a Reeb in the San Francisco Bay area who
was 'the expert' on the Reeb lineage . . . so I did. I was amazed
to see him write that he lived in Alameda, which was where I lived
before moving to Sandy!
Hmmmmmm. You
know how I relate to synchronicities, so I filed those little 'amazements'
on the back burner.
A few days
later, in the mail, I received an inch thick packet tracing my lineage
on the Reeb side back to 1599 in that little area of France/Germany!
It was a little
disconcerting I must say, to see that my great-grandparents were
both Reebs . . . first cousins it appears . . . so it got
me wondering if that meant my family tree 'didn't fork'????
Catharina's parents had 13 children and Heinrich's parents had 7
. . . so they were well on the way to populating the world!
I then found
that a woman in Hilliard, Ohio (having moved there from the Reeb/Hess
farm-stead when I was three) has websites for all the cemeteries
in that county and they keep adding gravestone photos as they are
able to take the photos and add more information. Talk about 'virtual
reality' traveling. It was amazing!
Growing up
we always thought we had a small family. Mother had a brother who
had two sons and Daddy had a sister who had two daughters. I had
two brothers and Mother's parents were a big part of our life. Period.
End of family.
Once I began
surfing the cemetery sites I found gravestones for all kinds of
relatives and ancestors!
I called my
younger brother in Georgia to see if he would send me back the older
family photos I had sent him a few years ago. He said he had a whole
album of Grandma's that had people in it he had never heard of .
. . some photos marked, some not. And I had never seen that album!
He scanned
the photos and I began matching up names in the photos with names
and dates on gravestones, all the time learning who was married
to who and the names of their children.
I never was
a jigsaw puzzle person, but this was fascinating. Out of 35 photos,
I was able to figure out all but about 6 of them (the ones whose
names didn't match anything.) I decided that there should be a list
of questions that children ask their parents and grand-parents before
it is too late. Stories and comments began coming back to me and
one that Mother had always told me: 'you come from a long-line of
old maids' made sense as I was able to find the 3 old maids and
the old bachelor!
Course, after
seeing how many of the children/mothers died in childbirth or shortly
thereafter, I could understand why some would elect to stay single!
(And could have been the seed planted in my 'depths' that made me
decide early on that I wouldn't have children!)
I also found
out that what used to be the 'little town of Hilliard' where we
grew up (pop. about 3,000 back then) was now a City of 60,000 people!
Just like here, they are populating all the farmland . . . 'urban
sprawl' from Columbus.
It was wonderful
to find out they have begun a Historical Society, collecting the
old train station, a church, a one-room school, log cabin, granary,
covered bridge, WPA outhouse! All this excitement got me to thinking
that I might have to make a trip back to Hilliard . . . and that
was a shocking thing to consider as I had not been back since Mother
passed in late 1996.
In an email
to the lady at the Historical Society Library she mentioned the
name Stoner as she had seen it on my correspondence. She said her
kids had an art teacher by that name . . . which, of course, was
my Mother! She told me that the other art teacher from that era
was alive and well at 91 and helping out at the Historical Society!
I couldn't
believe it . . . I adored Esther growing up! So I looked up her
phone number and called her up . . . "a voice from your past"!
We had a great
conversation and I look forward to seeing her when I travel there.
I also learned
that one of my best friends from 1st grade through college was probably
related to me! As it turns out, a woman in Montana I made contact
with had researched that lineage and sent me records that show the
three of us are related!
Each day my
family grew.
And that led
me to wondering what ever happened to my sisters-in-law from my
Ohio marriage way back in 1969. Once we moved to California later
that year (near Tracy, one of the sisters-in-law) she and her dear
husband, Owen, became my 'California family'. As often happens when
people divorce (mid 70's), you really don't want to divorce some
of the family members, so we stayed close for a few years.
Is interesting
as I write this, I have no idea how/when the bond broke. Some years
ago I attempted to find them, but no luck.
I figured since
I was on a roll, I'd try again and found a phone number for Ann,
the other sister-in-law still in Ohio. So I called up and left a
message . . . I was getting pretty good at this "a voice from
your past" calling!
A few days
later Ann called from Florida where she and her husband live part
of the year (getting away from Ohio winters!). It was just like
yesterday hearing her voice! By the time I travel to Ohio they will
be back also.
She told me
that Tracy and Owen had moved to Arizona about 15 years ago. I couldn't
believe it as I had always known them as California folks. I got
their phone number and called them too . . . but no answer and no
recorder. So I tried their cell phone and left a message . . . yep
. . . "a voice from your past"!
The next morning
the phone rang and I just knew it was Tracy! They were vacationing
in Hawaii! We talked and talked, again like no time had passed.
And this
is really wild . . . they bought a place in Sedona
in 1992 and moved there in 1993 . . . the same year I bought a little
house about 50 miles from Sedona! They now split their time between
Flagstaff and Carefree . . . and I can't tell you how many times
between 1993 and 1997 (when I sold that little house to buy one
here) that I traveled up and down the freeway and roads that were
within a few miles of where they live.
Soooooooooo,
if you have been counting, that is number three in
the 'amazement' category. I was told years ago that when synchronicities
happen in 3's to pay attention.
Since I had
already filed the first two on the back burner, this one brought
all three to the front burner and I immediately thought of my favorite
Caroline Myss phrase: "I smell God in
here"!!!!!!!
All this got
me to thinking about the Carter family song, "Will the Circle
be Unbroken".
Who would have
thunk it . . . 30 years later, here we are back in touch again,
excited to share stories and join hands again . . . our hearts never
having 'unjoined'!
Until soon,
Che'usa
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