Sunday, May 21, 2006

Aunt Donna

Michael and I drove up to Park Rapids on Friday to witness the interrment of Aunt Donna. She is my Grandmother's Aunt and she married my Grandfather's Brother, so she is both my Great Aunt and my Great Great Aunt. :)

My Grandmother passed away in 1983 and every time since then when I see my Aunt Donna I think of her. She was at Junie's funeral (we called Grandma "Junie" - I don' t know why except that my cousin Elizabeth started that) and I remember how she smelled and walked and talked like my Grandma. Ever since she has been a living reminder. She was the youngest of 10 or 11 children and my Grandma was the daughter of the oldest of those children. With Grandma Klicker having debilitating arthritis, My Great Grandma Hattie raised my Grandma Junie along with her youngest sister Donna. So June and Donna were only a few years apart in age and grew up in school together. They courted and married two brothers, Doug and Duane DeYoe. Since they were all from Park Rapids, MN they are all now buried there in the cemetary near one another.

All my life growing up I heard about Park Rapids. My grandparents left Minnesota shortly after WW2 for California. No one seems to know exactly why they did this except that Junie really wanted to go to California. So my mother and the rest of us were born and raised in CA and the west coast. But we heard all our lives about Minnesota, Park Rapids, and all our relatives out there.

My Mom and her sister spent many summers in Park Rapids with their cousins. They would spend time figuring out if they were first or second cousins based upon which side of the family they were looking at. I think my mother learned to smoke and kiss in Park Rapids as a teenager. She was the "California Girl" but those Park Rapids cousins seemed to find many ways to creat mischeif and laughter.

So, these pictures are a bit of our journey up there to look at things and bring back some memories for my family. It was important to me to go up for Aunt Donna. And it was a blessing for us as well.

I've been having a lot of trouble uploading pictures here and even at another site I'm test driving, so please go to the link below to see pictures:

I hope you'll look a the pictures you can find on:

http://s55.photobucket.com/albums/g135/donelle98/

1 comment:

Jenni said...

can't find the pix!