Our Family Story Keeper

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Abstract

emaker, the responsible babysitter, and the only sister that the boys confided in like a friend.She kept track of the family’s genealogy from a young age. Not everyone is good at being a story keeper. You have to be born with the gene for story keeping. My mother had that genetic trait and used it effortlessly. She made telephone calls to crabby aunts and listened while they complained for hours at a time. When her mother, Grandma Lela, remarried and moved out to California, my mother would spend her summers visiting there and taking care of her and her husband Bob. Some of her sisters visited, too. But grandma always asked for Nadean by name. She was the dependable listener.<figure id="ebe1"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*eKmBGOi81tO2SNm2W_8Ltg.jpeg"><figcaption>My mother and her brother and friend, Uncle Carl</figcaption></figure>It’s only been 2 years since we lost her after a treatment to keep her lung cancer in remissi

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on. She had already lost 3 sisters and 2 brothers in death, but once she was gone, the family threads began to unravel and to slowly get weaker. Yes, there’s a family group page on social media. Not everyone is there, and conversations are mostly about current events. It’s not the same somehow.<figure id="51bc"><img src="https://cdn-images-1.readmedium.com/v2/resize:fit:800/1*-Zd1epRwpinZlbjJwYIjBw.jpeg"><figcaption>Nadean Frances Bolton Osborn (1939–2019)</figcaption></figure>There’s a family story keeper in just about every family. But it may be a dying legacy with families so divided by geography and lack of time and energy. Perhaps that is why we feel the need to remember old friends and build new communities with others whose interests are similar to our own. To find people in a community of our own making. To be reminded that we have a history that we want to share, and stories we still want to make.Until we meet again, Mom.</article></body>

My Mother’s Legacy

My mother in California at Grandma’s house.

My mother Nadean was always the keeper of family history, family news and family contacts. She kept up with new babies and who was whose aunt or brother-in-law. She could tell you where they were married, and where they lived until they moved to some other city. And when. She had the answers to any question you had.

And later in life, when her memory began to fail, she would keep her little black address book near her chair. One of her most important documents, it had everyone’s phone number and notes on how they were related.

My mother was a Depression-era child. In a family of 9 children, she was smack dab in the middle. When it came to her siblings, she was the peacemaker, the responsible babysitter, and the only sister that the boys confided in like a friend.

She kept track of the family’s genealogy from a young age. Not everyone is good at being a story keeper. You have to be born with the gene for story keeping. My mother had that genetic trait and used it effortlessly. She made telephone calls to crabby aunts and listened while they complained for hours at a time. When her mother, Grandma Lela, remarried and moved out to California, my mother would spend her summers visiting there and taking care of her and her husband Bob. Some of her sisters visited, too. But grandma always asked for Nadean by name. She was the dependable listener.

My mother and her brother and friend, Uncle Carl

It’s only been 2 years since we lost her after a treatment to keep her lung cancer in remission. She had already lost 3 sisters and 2 brothers in death, but once she was gone, the family threads began to unravel and to slowly get weaker. Yes, there’s a family group page on social media. Not everyone is there, and conversations are mostly about current events. It’s not the same somehow.

Nadean Frances Bolton Osborn (1939–2019)

There’s a family story keeper in just about every family. But it may be a dying legacy with families so divided by geography and lack of time and energy. Perhaps that is why we feel the need to remember old friends and build new communities with others whose interests are similar to our own. To find people in a community of our own making. To be reminded that we have a history that we want to share, and stories we still want to make.

Until we meet again, Mom.