Ask Questions of Your Elders

I’m thinking about my Dad this week because his birthday is February 19th. If alive, he would be 90, but he died in 2001 of heart failure at age 66. My complicated relationship with him stemmed from his addiction to alcohol, something which I understand much differently now than I did when I was young. But our time together was limited, and he’s no longer here for me to talk to about that or anything else.

I know some of his life history, but now I have specific questions about his childhood, his interests, his feelings about losing his own father when he was a young teen. I know from his high school yearbook that he played basketball, and graduated a year early. The photos show how much my son Ben favored him, including the same copper wavy hair.

Every other weekend or so, we’d drive two hours to his boyhood farm home in Versailles, Missouri, and visit my Grandma Mac. It seemed like another world; a simpler, quieter place than our house in the suburbs of a big city. My grandma cooked delicious comfort food and talked and laughed a lot, Her “man friend” Al came to visit from town. Sometimes Dad’s older brothers would bring their families, too, so we could play and visit with various cousins.

Dad often took us hiking in the woods to see an old lime quarry, which included a look in a big rusted metal container to view old animal bones. We’d play in the barn, building forts out of hay bales. Grandma Mac had a few cows, both a vegetable and flower garden, and wild blackberries that she’d make into huge pans of cobbler.

At night we’d snuggle deep into beds topped with numerous old quilts and blankets. In the morning, someone stoked the fire in the old stove in the dining room, and Grandma Mac made us hot chocolate so steamy it had a skin on top. Before 1968 or so we had to use an outhouse for the bathroom. What a relief when an indoor toilet finally appeared.

Trying to figure out all the nuances of the six McMilian brothers, their wives and twenty-plus children was a lot to sort out. Because I was young, I didn’t know to ask questions, and I wasn’t involved in their grownup conversations. I didn’t find out until I was an adult that one aunt, who was married to my dad’s brother Jim, had previously been married to their oldest brother Larry (whom we called Arthur, another mysterious element). Once, we visited him in Florida, but he didn’t come to Versailles that I knew about. His son, Mike, came to live with Grandma Mac for a summer, which was fun. That’s when I found out about two other brothers and a sister that I have never met (except through social media).

My last surviving aunt was kind to me, and I visited her in the later years of her life. She told me stories of my dad as a teenager, which is when she married his older brother. She answered questions about why my grandparents got divorced in the 1940s, and said that if the boys saw their dad in town, they didn’t speak. Years ago a second cousin of my dad’s put together some family history, and he told me my grandpa was arrested for fighting; I assume because he was drunk. He was also diabetic. I can make up a history but I wish I could ask my dad more about it.

I resemble my dad in many ways. He was outgoing and loved people. I look like my McMilian female cousins and their daughters. Now that I’m older, there’s much I wish I’d asked about years ago. Unfortunately, that’s not how learning takes place. Life is complicated. We don’t talk enough to the people we care about, and then it’s too late.

A few years ago I went camping with my grandsons, and as we stoked the campfire, my grandson Isaac began asking me questions about my family. I realized then that I didn’t talk about them much; my parents and two brothers died years ago leaving only myself and another brother. These grandsons are the children of my son, Ben, who died in 2004, so they don’t hear his stories, either. Now I make a point to mention my family members if something triggers a memory or story. I try to answer their questions as thoroughly and honestly as possible.

If you have older relatives, now is the time to talk to them about their lives. The world has changed so much, so fast. Or maybe take some time to write down or record your own remembrances that might spark interest in a younger person. You may have answers for your progeny that can help explain your family’s history.