Beginnings

BORN FROM STEEL

Geographically, all of my grandkids are "Sconnies" - born in Wisconsin, specifically in Dane County. Maybe they will inherit the family tradition of travel, exploration, and relocation. Or, maybe they will build their homes and lives  right where they are - with beauty, grace, timelessness, and committment. 

When I volunteer as a Wisconsin member of DAR, I often volunteer at Fort Winnebago Surgeons Quarters in Portage, Wisconsin. It is there where I most often feel the pull of beginnings, since the cabin on the property was there for all of my local Wisconsin ancestors to see, just about the same way I see it today, in brilliant, in-person color. 

My daughter and I are 'Hoosiers" - born in Indiana, in "the Region" where Chicago-land crosses the state border. She also shares my birthdate, missing an exact twenty-year age difference by only five minutes. Her childhood memories are mostly set in Wisconsin, which has been our home for many years. We have lived in other states but we have always come back to Wisconsin. For me, this is a permanent move (as far as I know - who can read the future?)

My mother's beginning occurred in the same city that introduced my sister. Chicago was exciting and fresh when her parents traded rural for Urban in the late 1930s. By the time my sister arrived twenty-seven years later, Chicago was the metropolitan backdrop to our suburban main stage. Familiar, alive, diverce and delicious; when I'm asked where I'm from, I say, "the Chicago area."

My father was born in Arkansas, as were his parents and his maternal grandmother. His father's side of the family came to Arkansas from Mississippi, His mother's family came from Tennessee. They moved around for the same reasons we all do - economic opportunity. My father's family found their way to Indiana. I suppose they were encouraged by the opportunity to land good-paying steel-mill (and related) work in East Chicago, Gary, and Hammond. My mother's father spent his career as a mechanical engineer in support to the steel industry. Their descendants can truly say they were born from steel.

My mom's parents were both from Wisconsin. Their heritage goes back to a time before Wisconsin was a state. This territory was the new beginning for their families. They came from Vermont, New York, England (by way of Canada), and Norway. They endured slow journeys by land and water to begin anew somewhere. They changed the portrait of "home town" for their descendants, leaving the old homes in their own memories.