I thought I would blog a bit of my family history since I found it very interesting. I was curious where my family came from. I always knew that my Grandma (my dad's mom) was of Norwegian descent, and I knew that my Grandpa (my dad's dad) was of Scottish descent, however I never knew much about my family.
Since I met Dario I have been introduced into a world of all things Italian... and let me tell you, Italians are the most proud culture I have met. Obviously I haven't met a lot of cultures, but it just seems that Italians are very proud of where they come from.
I have learned a lot about the Italian culture throughout these last two years. Growing up in a small town where there were no Italians at all, it was a HUGE culture shock at first. As time went on I started to see all of the little things that Dario's family and friends do. They are extremely family oriented, which I find to be such a great thing to see since most modern day families don't have much to do with one another. They love to get together for any occasion, eat, drink, and laugh the day/night away.
I won't lie that the more I see their culture, it makes me a little envious that I don't have one of my own.
I decided I would ask my grandma about our family. The only people of that generation left alive on my dads side of the family, is my grandma and her sister Irene. Irene is no longer doing too well, and my grandma isn't in the best shape herself. She has had a lot of heart problems for a good 15 years now and only recently are they getting worse and worse. She underwent a quadruple bypass surgery and continues to take what seems like hundreds of different medications to regulate her blood pressure.
I realized that if I were to have never asked, I would have never known since my own dad and aunts do not know the history themselves. When my Grandma is no longer here that whole connection is lost along with all of her stories and memories.
I e-mailed my grandma to ask about our family tree. I don't know all of my great aunts and uncles. I was interested in knowing their names and just a little bit about their lives.
My grandpa's family settled in Ontario, his parents originally from Scotland. He had 4 brothers and 1 sister. A few of the men in his family grew up to be ministers, and some in the newspaper business. There is a wing in a university that is believed to be named after one of them. It is called the McConnell Brain Imaging Centre.
Of course much of the information my grandma included was of her family history since she knows it first hand.
My grandma has led a very interesting life. Her mother - Elida Undjheim - was sponsered by distant relatives in Saskatchewan to come to Canada. In 1912 she left her home town - Isfjorden, Norway - and set sail from Oslo to England. She saw the titanic leave, and was actually supposed to be on it. I am not sure what happened to change her mind but thankfully she had.
She arrived in Halifax and took the train to Young, Sask. and worked as a housekeeper. Two years later she met her husband - Andrew Anderson - and they moved to their homestead about 20 miles out of Young.
They didn't have very good land, it was very rocky and hilly, but they did have the best water around since the Saskatchewan river had run through their property many years before.
She goes on in her letter to tell me what the property looked like. In the spring it was beautiful, the hills were full of wildflowers. They had very hard winters and didn't always have the supplies to last so they ate a lot of boiled wheat and oatmeal. Whenever they could they would send care packages to Norway where her mother's family were suffering from the German invasion in WWII.
They had the usual life of farmers and all the chores to go along with it.
My great grandfather (my grandma's dad) was originally born in the States to parents that were also from Norway. They lived in Minnesota and North Dakota before finally coming to Canada to homestead. The Anderson men and women were great carpenters. The farmhouse that my grandma grew up in was only destroyed a few years ago when skunks and birds took over the empty building.
My great grandpa was a fiddler and was apparently amazing at it. He had an infection in his leg when he was 9 years old and as his life went on the bone was reduced to next to nothing. He suffered a lot throughout his life and was in constant pain but still lived his life.
He would make some of his own violins, and he also specialized in leather work. He had 3 sisters, Bertha, Anna, and Christina.
My grandma included a bit of the medical history. My great Grandma Annie (grandpa's mom) died of Lou Gerhigs disease, her husband Charles of a heart attack in his 50's.
My grandpa's brother Mervin died before he was even 2 years old of pneumonia. One brother died of emphysema, and his other siblings all died of heart problems and dimentia. My grandpa died of cancer and dimentia.
My Great Grandma Elida died of stomach cancer. My Great Grandpa Andrew died from a fall, he was rotten drunk and smacked his head at his doorstep.
My grandma's sister Bertha died from old age at 92. Her brother Alvin died of a ruptured appendix at 21. Her sister Mary died at the age of 8 with what they suspect was her appendix. Her brother's Ole, Edwin, and Obert died of heart disease, as well as her sister Alma. Her sister Pearl died of lung disease.
So that's a bit of my family history. It's really interesting to know that when my grandma first came here they couldn't speak English. The oldest girls had to teach their parents once they learned English in school. It's sad that eventually they all forgot how to speak their national language and grew to only speak English.
It might seem odd to most but there's a part of me that would love to carry on something from my family. I won't get to keep my last name (by my own choice of course) so I have always said I would like to pass down a name to at least one of my children should I have any. My dad was named "Spencer Lloyd" ... Lloyd being the name of my grandpa. I liked that there is that connection there. I'm not sure exactly what name I would pass down yet. However the name "Anna" holds a very significant meaning to me. My grandma's name is Anna and she has been such a huge part of my life. What is most interesting is that Dario's nonna was also named Anna.
Even my great grandpa's sister was named Anna.
So I hope that should I ever have kids, that maybe we can pass down the name Anna. Be it a first name or a middle name, who knows, but it would be nice to keep it in the family/families. It has always been a name I've loved, and now that it has so much more meaning behind it I only like it that much more.
Just me and my Gramma.
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