Family History

This weekend was pretty busy for us. Friday after a half day at work, Hubby and I piled into the car and drove down to my mother's in Asheville. Once we got there, we bought a few treats from a small farmers market (bagels and chocolate) had dinner at a yummy BBQ place! Mom thought our waitress looked like one of my oldest friends and insisted on calling her by my friend's name once or twice, after which she switched to calling her random girls names. That poor waitress. She handled it like a champ and got a big tip out of it. It was nice to see my mom so loosened up and enjoying herself. I got Mom and her boyfriend to try fried pickles for the first time. They're hooked now.

The next morning, we headed off to a small town in Tennessee to visit an old family friend, Silver. She knew my great-grandparents (Grandpa's parents) and has been friends with my grandparents for years. We found out while we were there that she's distant cousins with my grandma! Something like her great-great-grandfather was the brother of my grandma's great-great-grandpa. I was fascinated by a beautiful table Silver had in her living room. It's made out of parts from an old wood wagon - the wheel is the table top (under a piece of glass) and spins like a lazy susan, the stand is a wagon axle, and the legs are part of a yoke. The part that really stood out to me was that the wheel, still in gorgeous condition with chips of the original red paint on the sides, belonged to my great-grandfather, a farmer. We also managed to use our GPS to find the graveyard where my grandfather's family is buried and Mom spent all day yesterday looking up who was who in the family using census data. I saw the graves of my great-grandparents and my great-great grandparents and learned their names. I found out that, by complete coincidence, my real name is tied to both my great-grandmother (my name means what her name was) and my great-great-grandmother (my name is a nickname of her middle name). I had no idea. I learned so much about my heritage this weekend, and thanks to the wonderful camera, I've got a lot of it videotaped (from Silver's stories) or photographed. I hope we can go back sometime. I want to find the family farm, meet the great-aunt I didn't know I had until his weekend, learn more about my grandmother's side...and all of this is in one little town in TN. If I don't do it soon, all of this knowledge is going to be lost. My grandmother knew her great-great grandfather by an old picture. How many people in our generation can say they're that in-touch with their history?

We said our goodbyes on Sunday, met my aunt and uncle for lunch at their cabin in TN, then headed home. Hubby and I decided to cut our trip short by a day to avoid the July 4th traffic. We spent most of yesterday with our friend H, hanging out, going to see Transformers 3 (very good movie!) and getting 5 Guys for dinner. All in all, an uneventful weekend for my Day Zero list, but a very good one all the same.