My great-grandma’s house was always one of my favorite places to go when I was young.
She had a big closet with toys for me and my siblings to play with. She had crafts for us to do involving stacks of colorful paper, highlighters, and giant calendar pages from the business she and my grandpa ran. And let’s not forget the scraps of fabric and ribbon from her sewing projects she allowed us to use, the tea parties she set up for us, or the games like Chinese Checkers and Battleship she played with us at the coffee table in the living room.
But when we weren’t occupied by any of those activities, we turned to the bookshelves. The bottom rows were filled with thick photo albums. My great-grandma had carefully organized the pictures, glued them into the books, and written captions with names, places, and dates.
All us kids would sit scattered around the room, slowly turning pages and studying pictures, sometimes turning to Grandma with questions. She always said that seeing us look through her photo albums made her work feel worthwhile.
One of those thick albums held few pictures, but it lured me back again and again. It was filled with stories. Tales my grandma had collected from letters written to distant family members or research she had collected as she searched family cemeteries.
Those stories fascinated me. They told about great-great-great-great-great grandpa Henry who could outwalk any man and was known to swim across strong rivers when he traveled 50 miles to the nearest trading post for supplies.
There was an uncle who married his young bride and set off by covered wagon to claim a homestead.
There was the story of great-great-great-great grandpa Thomas who was orphaned at a young age and basically raised himself from age eight onward. He came to Nebraska–to the very town where I grew up–and became a well respected member of the community despite his difficult beginnings.
Through that one book on my grandma’s shelf, I learned to see stories all around me. I took a closer look at my surroundings and discovered that each little farm, each brick building in town, each marker in the cemetery, was all part of a grand story. I wanted to discover more and explore the what-ifs behind what had happened decades before on this same land where I now walked.
After my grandma passed away I inherited her genealogy chart which now hangs beside my writing desk as inspiration. Each name has a story, sometimes one that I know, other times one that’s a little murkier.
I still keep my eyes open for those stories. When you live in a community where everyone knows all about each other’s families, stories from long ago can still pop up. And besides, oftentimes the best stories are found in unexpected places.
My Home to Osceola series is another attempt on my part to take a deeper look into what life might have been like in the 1880s. Interested in stepping back into the past with me?
Then jump into the series with one of these books:
Prequel: A Bargain to Keep
Book 1: A Choice of Love
Book 2: A Time of Proving
And now I’ve got to share this review from A Choice of Love with you because it assured me I’m on the right track to bringing the past to life:
“A great story, Ms Mentink. Well researched and that research was all brought together into a fine story. I am 81 and spent a lot of time on my Grandparents farm in the Midwest. I can relate to many of the things you wrote about. My ancestors were emigrants from Sweden and Finland. They worked very hard to find/make their place in this land. Farming is STILL hard work but where would we be without these good people.”
Amazon reviewer
Words like that make my heart happy. It’s a story told in countless families across the country, and I hope my books can give the same sense of nostalgia that family lore brings to me.