Friday, April 3, 2009

Looking Forward #18

As life goes on for us we seem to reflect more and more on where life has brought us. My dear mother, when I was young always told us, when we were in a hurry to be older "don't be in a hurry to be older because before you know it will happen sooner than you think", she never wanted us to grow up to fast. She always had a hard life and later what did life do for her, it threw her a curve ball and took the only man she loved at an early age, also leaving her three girls to raise alone. She had never worked outside the home, had no skills, so she went to work in the pottery, mom also got a pension once a month from the Steel mill for us girls, I never ask her how much the checks were, my father was only 32 years old when he died.

I look at my two boys and our grandchildren, also our great grand children, I realize what my mom said is here, it has happened right before my eyes, seems like just a blink of an eye. We spent so much money in court that we only took a couple vacations, I am sorry I did not make memories for my grand kids, like I did for my two boys. Even their parents did not take them anywhere, Bonnie came and took them to the carnival a couple times and a few movies, but Ron never did, he only played with them, when he was around. I am not a person that gets depressed, I get mad, there is no time to wallow in depression, things need to be done and I am a doer, actually I can't remember having time to become depressed.

Life moves on, no matter if you don't want it to do so sometimes. We drift in and out of our lives, we do what ever is call upon us to do and move on. We all have sadness, happiness and tragedy come into that life, it depends upon us to handle it in a way that best suits us. I have read on many blog sites about all three of these, it is amazing how we tend to bounce back and continue back into the stream of life. I am sure each of you have handled these situations and came out on top.

In 1980 we went back to Ohio on vacation, to see my last Aunt and Uncle on my dad's side of the family. The aunt I mentioned in my story about bringing my mom out to Michigan is the one we saw first, her name was Ore, the Uncle was Bud. My Aunt Ore's husband was Uncle Os, they were glad to see us and ask us to stay a few days with them. We had the time of our lives, we re met our cousins and had a BBQ, the guy's bought cowboy hat's, I will definitely post on my pictures showing them with the hats on. We saw my Uncle Bud next, he is in my pictures already, they were so glad to see us. My uncle had not seen me since I was about ten years old, we did not do anything with them but visit. This is because my uncle was in poor health and so was his wife. We did stay at a motel with a pool the last three days, they had a pool which pleased the kids.

I also found another cousin, he was working as a fireman and it seemed nice to see his name tag that said Allmon, my maiden name, everybody while I was growing up tried to tell me we spelled it wrong, it should be Allman or Almond. I also found out from him that my grandfather (my dad's father) was still alive but in his late 90's. I did not know this even when growing up that dad's father was alive then, we had never met him. We were young when dad died and mom never mentioned dad's side of the family, not even when dad was alive. This is so sad, all those years, if I would of known when in my 20's I would of tried tracking them down. You know, so many of our older generation have passed on and you never think to ask questions about them and the relatives, all that valuable information gone. My father's mom had remarried and we did know the step grandfather and his kids, his name was Luther Jackson, a very nice old man and so were his kids, Wilbur and Wilson, they always took me to the show, carrying me on their shoulders.

My cousin Jean Butler, in 1973 did a gynecology on our side of the family, we found out we are descendants of Lord Joseph McKinnon from the "Isle of Skye", in Scotland, he was born in 1794. That was such an interesting read, I get it out often and browse through it. There are many relatives I never knew about, she only sent me the sheets that pertained to me, I wish she would of sent more. I thanked her because it was quite a report and had to of taken her a long time to compile. I have tried to get a hold of her over the years but no luck. It is a shamed we don't think to ask the older generation about our relatives and about themselves until it is too late. I got curious after she sent me the report, but all older relatives were gone, so it would be wise to my blogger friends to start asking questions, not only for yourself but for your children.

19 comments:

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

yes life does pass by so quickly as you stated.
My dad died when I was three so I don't know much about his sidde of the family, I did start to do my family tree a few years ago got so far back and got stumped on one person. I enjoyed your write, seems you have led a very interesting life.
Take care.

Yvonne.

Gigi Ann said...

Yes I agree, life passes by very quickly. It was a pity that the judge didn't see that Drew should be left with you and Wayne. But, life isn't always as we would like it.

We don't take many vacations either, and as I get older I'm happy to take my vacations in my Lazy Boy and set back and watch shows of other places, I think I see more things of interest than if I went there in person. Most of our vacations our taken to visit our children who live about 850 miles away. We visited them in July of 2008, and have no plans to go anywhere this summer.

Have a wonderful week-end. I'm off to visit your pictures now.

Ann

RHYTHM AND RHYME said...

thanks for visiting, sorry about the expereience
you wrote about. Makes mine look small in comparrison.
Take care.
Yvonne

Judy said...

Life certainly does take some strange twists and turns as we travel down its highway. I don't know much about my dad's side of the family and never had grandparents around when I was a child. That is one reason I want to be there for my grandson as much as possible. Enjoyed reading your post.

Puss-in-Boots said...

I agree wholeheartedly with what you say about keeping contact with the older members of the family. I took my middle granddaughter to New Zealand last year for her birthday and so she could meet a lot of relatives she didn't know. She really enjoyed and appreciated the experience and the old ones loved seeing a young relative, too. Time goes by so quickly we have to do the things we want, not just think about them.

Joseph Pulikotil said...

Hi Margaret:)

I also wanted to grow old faster when I was young. But now I wish I was young. Those were the carefree, happy days which will never come back. Time flew.

I admire you mother. She was a very courageous woman. To bring up three children on her own is amazing. To have no skill and to find a job to support a family is so difficult. The hardships she had to put up with, the pain and anguish she must have experienced, the sacrifices she had to make would have been unimaginable.

I liked the way you said that you don’t give in to depression and you are a doer. This is inspiring! I am sure you imbibed this wisdom from your mother. It is an admirable quality in a person.

I am happy that you could meet so many of your relatives and had a good time. Perhaps I should also start doing this before it is too late. Many thanks for sowing this idea into my mind.

Have a wonderful day, Margaret:)
Joseph

Patty said...

That's what Abe has said. He wished he had asked more questions of his Father. His Father was about 30 years older than his Mother, so he died in 1955 at the age of 77. Now there are lots of questions he has but no one to give him the answers.

He tells me I should ask more questions of my Mother. Like who was the first boy she kissed and etc. Well I assume since she got pregnant at 13 and Dad turned 18 two months after they got married, that he was the only one she ever kissed. I told her in this day and age, they would have had him arrested for her being underage. They got married in May, he turned 18 in July, I was born in Oct. and Mom turned 14 in Dec. I was suppose to have been born in Dec, but came two months early, but even at that she was several months pregnant when they married. And you know the funny thing is, my sister and one brother were also pregnant when they married, my other brother married a woman that was pregnant with another man's child. (Now that is a whole story in it's self. LOL)

Abe and I were married two months before I got pregnant and if he hadn't received an extension on his furlough I wouldn't have gotten pregnant then.
So when he was sent back home from Japan, I was very pregnant, delivered our first one, we went to Baltimore, MD when the baby was two weeks old, for him to finish out his Army hitch and I got pregnant for the second one, so our first one was one year old on June 1st. and the second one came May 10th. Actually the third one came along the following year on July 5th. So by then we had one that turned 2 on June 1st., 1 on May 10th and the third one came July 5th. And the house we were living in had only a pump in the kitchen. Cloth diapers back then, so that meant heating the water on the stove before I could do the laundry, no dryer so they were hung outside even in freezing weather. Good ole days, no thank you, I like my automatic washer and dryer. Believe it or not I didn't get my first automatic washer until 1981. I was still using a wringer washer when we moved into this house. By the time we left he other house, we finally had both hot and cold running water and a bathroom.

Well here I go again, writing a book on your post. Sorry about that. Have a good Sunday.

Margaret Cloud said...

Once again I want to thank you all for taking the time to come by.

Anonymous said...

"Yes" life does go by fast.I must admit there are things I wish I could change and sometimes the sadness is overwhelming.Yet we must move forward as life waits for no one.

DeniseinVA said...

I know what you mean Margaret, time is just flying. Great post and an interesting read as always. Thank you so much for sharing your life with us.

Becky said...

I know exactly what you mean by not asking any questions when you are younger. I never knew my anything about my great grandparents, and after my husband and I were married 25 years, we decided to do a genealogy on these GGrandparents. So much wonderful information was found, and someday our grandchildren will have all of this. Another good story Margaret.
B.

Mary Isabella and Kiley too! said...

Wanted to wish you a happy week..m.

Midlife Mom said...

Great post as always. You are so right about time going by so fast. I feel like I should be 45 not almost 58! Time just has a way of getting by us so we have to make each day count.

momsbusy said...

wow! alot has happened since i last had a chance to come by and visit.

one of my aunts did a family tree of my dads' side of the family. it was really interesting and sad. so many infants and children died. medical knowledge has advanced so much since those poor little ones passed away. one thing we need to get from our relatives is the medical information of everyone. the important things that are hereditary. things like cancer, heart disease, diabetes and even birth defects.

Midlife Mom said...

When we couldn't find Noodles we left the garage door up about 6 inches and then he can come in the garage and go through the kitty door that goes into the kitchen. They use that door during the day. :o)

ancient one said...

Hey..

I finally got back and have caught up again. Life goes on... Us here on this side of sixty can look back and see what lies behind... lot of stuff under the bridge... but still stuff lies ahead that we don't know yet...

But GOD does Know... and he will keep us safe just as he has in the past.. Life goes on...

The Furry Kids said...

We really like the 3rd paragraph. Mama needed to read that today. Thank you, Miss Margaret!

Back Through Time said...

When I read your posts and also speaking with my grandmother it amazes me how much everyone used to go through. most people nowadays just don't know how lucky they are!

Margaret Cloud said...

Once again I want to thank you friends for coming by and commenting.

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