Most extended families gather round the campfire to swap tales. But on Tuesday, June 4 several relatives on my mom’s side gathered round the tombstones instead. We made a $3.79/gallon of gas trip to north central Iowa. In one day we visited the cemeteries, houses and churches in Eldora and the surrounding countryside that constituted our grandparents and great-grandparents’ stomping grounds.
My mom and her sister and two of their cousins served as elder stateswomen and historians. The next younger generation, including myself, three of my cousins and two second cousins, followed them. What with the elder generation’s gimpy right hips (a family inheritance) and our younger one loaded down with cameras and notebooks, we were quite a sight, waddling through the wet grass like ducklings following their mothers.
Some of Mom’s cousins joined us at different points during the day. Some of them hadn’t seen each other in decades. My cousins and I met relations we’d never seen before. We heard stories untold for too many years, saw homesteads and churches too long unvisited, and paid our respects to ancestors too often ignored. We took our time, held precious and private for too many decades, and shared it across generations until our past came alive.
The rest of this week will be a blur, trying to catch up after spending the day gathered round tombstones with my relatives. But my cousins and I have hundreds of pictures and dozens of stories to write down and share with our families. It was a day well spent, even better than stories around a campfire.
For me, it is a shining memory, never to be forgotten. Thanks to all, living and dead, who made it so.
