André Cramblit: Treasure your aunties and uncles for their histories

One of my favorite purveyors of family stories was my Great Aunt Violet’s treasured cousin Ramona. Back in the days of her spritely late 80s (she passed away when she was 97), I would pick her up from her home in Eureka (sometimes with little or no notice) and take her out to visit Auntie Vi out in Orleans. In her youth, this trek by trail and ferry crossings would take several days. She and I would make the same trip in a mere two hours. Her eyes dimmed by cataracts and body ravaged by arthritis, she would still twinkle with mirth as she entranced me with stories drug up from her long memory.

After an uninterrupted yet invaluable lecture of 45 minutes, she would take a deep breath and slyly say, “NOW, let me tell you something.” She would then proceed with another lengthy session of family stories or lessons to be taught — humorous narrations and deeply personal memories that I was honored to share with her. Ramona would talk of when she was sent to a distant boarding school. She told me of how her brother was forced to ride on the running board, desperately clinging to the car that was whisking them from Orick where they had hiked down to from outside of Somes Bar to Crescent City, on their way to a train station that would relocate them from their homeland and families for several years.

She didn’t relay any of this with remorse or sadness. It was just her matter-of-fact manner, serenely understating the impact this journey into a foriegn world, light years from the village of her youth, would have upon her and in turn the resulting ramifications for her family.