Family is important.
There is the family you are born into. You can’t do anything about it. However, when it’s a good fit, it’s so lovely to observe a family who really enjoys being around one another.
There are the friends that we choose to be as close to us as our immediate family, our lifetime friends and newer friends, the ones we meet in times of adversity. Those people you know you can call on anytime, and they will talk you into happy land again.
I grew up only knowing one side of my family, basically my Blougher cousins. Five boys: Morris, Neil and Kurt Hansen and Larry and Gary Ward. Since I was about 11 years younger than the eldest, we just didn’t make great playmates at family reunions or holiday meals.
Our socializing went like this. They ate dinner, dumped my sister and I and went hunting or snow ball throwing at the traffic. That turned into Grandma telling a patrolman off that had a couple of them by the nap of their coat neck because her angels would not or could not be involved in such a thing. But the trooper begged to differ because it was their heads that popped out of the ditch as they nailed his cruiser.
The boys also acted like motor heads, checking to see how many of the cars parked in the yard could be started with the same manufactured key. Other than that, they played Houdini and just left my sister and me in the dust. Yes, intentionally . . . always.
But contrary to their wishes, Aunt Ruth would allow us to play with their race cars and other boy toys upstairs, things we never got to see, let alone play with. The cousins’ arrival back in the house meant their stopping to ask us what we had broken now, as they ran upstairs to check.
I remember a few tried to babysit for us, but they never much came back. I don’t think it was because we were too ornery. It’s more likely the job was a bit boring for men like themselves.
However, my world changed around Memorial Day 2018. You see, I’m a self proclaimed junker and pride myself in awesome finds that can be repurposed, resold or reused. While I was shopping at the Salvation Family Store in Ames, around the end cap came a guy who began talking to me.
Let’s just call him Salvation Army Guy. He enjoys the hunt, a kindred spirit, so I told him my junk business would be at a show in Webster City over Memorial Day weekend. He promised to come, and he did. He even brought along one of his married couple friends. I think they had a fun time at Junquefest.
Within the month, the trio came to my shop to check out my treasures. The woman about my age asked where I grew up. I said about five miles south.
I asked her that same question, and she quipped, “My relatives are from Dallas Center.” As soon as she said that town, a funny feeling came over me.
I said, “I’ve got family there. That’s where my mom is from. What was the last name?”
She said, “I’m a Hawbaker.”
I said, “My mom’s two Greif sisters married two Hawbaker brothers!”
She ask me their names and when she heard, “John and Edith,” she exclaimed, “That’s my grandma and grandpa!”
We immediately fell in family love and then began talking about what people we did know, but there wasn’t a lot of common ground.
Her name is Dyan Paulding Bell, and she’s had some pretty serious health issues the past few years. So for her, just to be here is a miracle.
We vowed to stay in touch and in this day and age of social media, that isn’t very tough to do if you have the desire.
My mom passed in June, and Dyan, who was unable to drive, hitched a ride with Salvation Army Guy. Dyan had such a great time meeting some of our relatives, and she introduced me to her aunts who are my first cousins, women whom I’d never had the opportunity to talk too much about anything with.
We say that we know that funerals aren’t suppose to be fun, but I think my mom, who passed at 90 and had a good life, would be happy that some family ties were made that day.
We picked out our selective group, which includes my uncle’s granddaughter, Kim Richardson, who lives in Jefferson. She and I had been together some as children. Added to that were Dyan, who reigns in Huxley, and from the southern town of Casey is Mary Ellen Hawbaker Simons, who is Dyan’s aunt.
So now occasionally our new messenger group, “Greif Cousins,” chats and enjoys learning about our family members and hearing stories that we never would have if Salvation Army Guy wouldn’t have been talking to me that day in Ames.
Many years have passed since the days that we had Blougher reunions, but I see all the guys periodically. I’ve got a new respect for the men they have become and love each of them.
But it’s the girls who are planning an outing soon to celebrate birthdays and spend the whole day together. Four of us cousins, all girls, couldn’t be looking forward to it more.
Now I have girl cousins on the Greif side, and it feels good to know there’s a future in getting to know them.
