All My Ancestors

I recently found the obituary for my mom’s one surviving cousin from her father’s side of the family. There were only six of them to begin with, and with my uncle’s death last year, there’s now only one.

This cousin died 5 1/2 years ago. I feel a little guilty for not knowing sooner–I called her and let her know when my mom died, but I heard nothing about her death. I should have traveled the 75 miles to visit her or at least called her up. I sort of went into hiding for a couple of years after my mom died–actually, my mother and both of her parents, my grandparents, all died within 6 months of each other the end of 1998. It took me a while to do anything more than what was absolutely necessary and I didn’t really even know I was operating in a fog. So I didn’t keep in touch.

At any rate, I regret not knowing about Lavada’s death. But her obituary is the model of what an obituary should be. It lists her maiden name, her nick-name, and the maiden name of her mother. It lists the full names of her husband, her parents, and her children–it lists the in-laws full names and the names of her grandchildren. It also lists the towns where they each live–I’ve been thinking about giving them a call. We only know each other from the times we’d be visiting Aunt Edna’s–their grandmother–at the same time they were there visiting. We didn’t really overlap all that much. I probably know more about them from my mom keeping me current than I do from first-hand experience.

Her obituary states where she graduated from high school–she must have been living with her aunt, my great-aunt Lorene of bladder-training fame, in Kansas, at the time. Her wedding was there as well–and the obituary listed their wedding date–all information I didn’t know. What an obituary can reveal.

I found the obituary on the USGenWeb Archives page. I had to hunt–there is no apparent link between the Payne County webpage and the Payne County archives. It’s the archives that has the obituaries, as well as the cemetery listings and lots of other good information. I first found an SSDI record which gave me the date of death–the only way I could find her obituary since I wasn’t certain I was spelling her surname correctly–it’s sort of tricky. But find it I did.

I’m sorry I didn’t talk to her before she died. In the past few years, I’ve learned how much I depended on my mother for “family news.” I’ve come to know that I have to put forth the effort myself if I want to maintain those ties. The hunt for this obituary also reinforced what I know about searching the internet–you can’t just put in a name and expect what you want to know to pop up. You must know the resources and how to use them.

I’ve always appreciated the USGenWeb project–I was a county coordinator for a time for the Texas county where I grew up–before they had good internet service themselves. There’s a great deal of variety among what is offered on the various county websites, but that’s part of the chase–you just never know what you’ll find. But you cannot depend on Google to search each page and “find” what you’re looking for. You have to know where to look.

So I learned some things about my cousins, I learned a bit about what goes into a good obituary, and I reinforced what I know about searching that wild animal known as the Internet. This search prove a worthwhile, though bittersweet, experience.

Update:  I went to the newspaper on microfilm to look at the original, and there was a photo!  Again, it often pays to go to the source.