The circle of life

Fred and Alice Lindstrom at Rosewater a1950

It's been amazing putting together the pieces of my grandmothers family history.  Its been great hearing the old stories and looking at the old photos of my grandmother and her sisters as young women.  They were all such beautiful girls, and just natural stunners the lot of them.  They must have had so much fun too. 

In 1995 I started writing notes while my Nanna Jenkins talked about her past. A lot of it focused on the Mayo family who lived at Port Augusta and also past Hawker in a hut along the Wonaka Creek.  I loved listening to these old stories and staring into the old photos in her album.  I wrote like mad.  Took it all in, as much as I could.  I formed some sort of connection with the past into the present.

At the time I decided to send a questionnaire to Nanna's brothers and sister so they could write me old stories and I could compile a family history of sorts with information about their own children.  I few of them responded, the old reliables but the ones who may have a little secret or two, or just weren't really interested didn't.  

I still kept listening to my Nanna throughout time, and loved every minute of it. 

Then when I had my first son Charlie in 2007, I thought it might be a good chance to do some family history research.   I met up with Nanna's nephew Ray Hayward because Nanna's eldest sister Eva had a lot of history collected throughout the years.  She kept close ties with the Port Augusta family too.  Too bad I hadn't asked her more questions before she had died in 2004 around about the time of the bad Tsunami. 

Lindstrom Girls a1940

So from Ray, I took down first names, some second ones too.  Then started looking in the phone book for relatives and put an add in the Port Augusta paper asking for Mayo descendants to contact me. I did a few calls who were relatives so they were able to help me put the pieces of the puzzle together.  These were more distant relatives, probably 3rd and 4th cousins.  So that's where more self discovery began. 

I travelled all over the state visiting people, helped to organise a big group to the Wonaka Creek hut for a bbq reunion, reunited long lost relatives, uncovered hidden hushes, and identified people in old photos, and most important made new friends.  Throughout these travels I was blessed to be given the Mayo family bible more than 130 years old.  I collected information for more than 700 people in my database and thousands of old photos and stories. 

Since then I have started compiling the Lindstrom family book, who are my closest relatives in the Mayo family.  The book is dedicated to the memory of Fred and Alice Lindstrom. It will start with an early history about the Mayo family at Wonaka Creek.  There's a lot of information about the family written by a local reporter.  Also, some more information about the Lindstroms, Fred and Alice's life story and that of their children, photos and descendant charts.  There will be an descendant index at the back and a gallery.  I'm going to have it professionally bound and printed.

Lindstrom family picnic at Blackwood a1945

I've been talking with all of the cousins who are also very excited and most of them have now provided me with a lot of things to make a beautiful keepsake.  So hopefully I will have something to give to my Nanna Jenkins and Auntie Betty in the next few months.  My Nanna will be 93 years old in December 2010.  She's in a nursing home now, and her memory is fading.  This is so important to me, to treasure her memory and that of her beautiful parents and siblings.  They were just amazing people.  It sad to think there are only the two of them left. 

They've been passing away over the past 20 years or so.  They were all lovely.  Sometimes I wish I had more time with them.  It was lucky to know such wonderful people and hearing their stories though.  Sad to see them go but unfortunately that is the circle of life.

The Lindstrom family a1980