Family History

My father's family has roots here in Wisconsin that go way back.  They came as Norwegian & German immigrants to the area and were primarily loggers & farmers.  I've loved to listen to my dad tell stories since I was a small girl.  I remember once when we lived in Southern Wisconsin, he had to come up to Menomonie for business and instead of dropping us all off at school, he just kept going and took us along for the day.  He drove us around his old stomping ground, showed us the houses he grew up in.  Shared funny & crazy memories from his childhood.  We stopped into see Great Uncle Dale & Aunt Hazel when they still lived out on Tainter lake.  He even took us on a tour of the Mabel Tainter Museum.  It was a great day!  He's a wonderful story teller and the ability to captivate an audience is a gift he possesses. 

I'd been bugging him for a while to drive me around before I leave to show me some of our family history sites that I'm less familiar with.  We piled the kids in the car and set out.  Immediately he begins with the stories and I can tell his mind is wondering in and out of childhood memories and going through the catalogue of photos he has tucked away in his brain.  For the next few hours I am his captive audience, trying my best to remember everything he's saying and filing it away in the recesses of my own brain.

We walked an old cemetery and he pointed out various tombstones of relatives long since passed.  A few years ago I scanned all of my parents old photographs into my computer, so it was fun to be able to put a faces to the names I was reading.  It made things a little more personal to me.  We saw a few old family homes and farms.  An old logging town that is now defunct and forgotten.  Nothing remains of the town besides a few home foundations in the woods.

My Dad

I fell in love with these trees in the cemetery.  They were so huge and old...very awesome!

May

My dad was so excited to come across this tree.  It's an Indian marker tree.  When the tree was young they bent that crooked branch and folded it over on itself so it would grow this certain way.  It's telling you to turn left!!!

We also explored this cave a little.  My cell phone wouldn't work inside and we didn't have flashlights so we didn't make it too far in.  It was neat though.

It was a lovely drive and a lovely day.  I hope I can remember which roads to take in the future because it will be fun to return with my children when they've grown.