Reflection

            Family is a short word with deep substance to it. The word family is in fact more than just a word; it is a meaning of love, security, and belonging. Although some may not choose to accept their family as the people who are blood related to them, no matter the person and the situation, everyone has a family. Whatever the family unit may be it is simple to say that families can help us to survive and prosper socially, culturally, and spiritually.

            Growing up in a family allows a person to grow socially. This, I think, can especially be the case when growing up with siblings. Learning how to interact with others in courteous and mannerly ways allows a person to develop the social skills they need to obtain to maximize their relationship with others throughout their life. I am grateful that my parents taught me how to be kind and thoughtful of others, and I am grateful for my brothers, who got all of my practice efforts laid out on them for years.  

            We can learn so much about the culture we are raised in through our families. Every family has a history; good and bad things we can learn about our past. When we research and find out more about our ancestors that came before us, we can really start to appreciate family members, and the members that sacrificed so much and worked hard in order for us to be living the lives that we are now. As John Florez explains in The Family Endures, “[families] gave me a sense of community, a sense of belonging.” (Notarianni 6) When we know where we come from, it can help us be appreciate for our family, and to have the motivation to work hard to be a good addition to the name.

            Our families also help us spiritually. Coming to know whom we are is a big part of live. You often hear people saying that they are still trying to figure out who they are. Our families, through nurturing, play a big role in who we are and who we become. We exude characteristics from the people we love and spend time with. We reflect upon what we love about family members and apply those characteristics into our own lives. It is also important that we develop who we are as individuals, too.  We are as Wild Oats: “…Wild oats…as reckless and carefree as a significant misnomer…equipped to make strong attachments to the place it lands…wild oats wait with faith and certainty for the opportunity to make itself a home. To quite literally sow wild oats, then, suggests a resolute will to take root in the community of vegetable sisters, wherever the wind blows you.” (Funda 31-32) I believe we are similar to a wild oat. We need to go into the world to find ourselves. However, we also realize that out families help up us to develop too, and we are grateful to establish roots with people we love. Once those roots are deeply established, there is a sense of happiness and comfort that nothing else can fill.

            Families can bring us true happiness in life. Who are we with ought them, really? Our families help us to survive and prosper socially, culturally, and spiritually. Without my family, I don’t know where I would be today. I have learned so much from them, and throughout this semester and this class-where I am always thinking of them-my appreciation and love toward them has only grown. 
 

Works Cited

·      Exerpts from “Wild Oats,” third chapter of Weeds: A Farm Daughter’s Lament, By Evelyn I. Funda

·      The Family Endures: A look at Utah History, By Philip F. Norarianni

Interview

Sitting in my grandmother’s living room after yet another wonderful Thanksgiving dinner, my mom, dad and I were able to have a conversation about gathering together as a family to enjoy a traditional meal. Our bellies and hearts both full from a day of great food and great company, I asked them questions about Thanksgiving, ranging from topics such as what their favorite parts are, and what we can learn from it.

            The first thing I wanted to know from my parents was their favorite part about this year’s Thanksgiving.  As we went over the evens of the day, we had to laugh a laugh about was the outcome of this year’s dinner. At around noon, my mom and I were preparing the dinner roles for Thanksgiving at 2:00, when we get a call from my grandma saying she had forgotten to put the turkey in the oven. It was a Thanksgiving tragedy! No turkey, no happiness. So our dinner was delayed until 6:00 pm. I found this pretty fitting, however, considering it is called Thanksgiving dinner, after all. I don’t know how or why this whole “lunchtime-dinner” tradition started. My mom said that she just loved the fact that we were all together as a family; I was down from school, and we had our relatives from out of state there. My dad liked that we were able to do out traditional “Turkey Shoot” that morning. He loves taking my brothers and I shotgun shooting, so the Turkey Shoot is always a fun one with everyone there.

            After hearing these answers I came to the conclusion that neither of them said anything about the actual dinner; both of their favorite things were simply about the family being together. So I asked, “What do you think a purpose of having a big traditional meal is, then?” My mom responded pretty quickly to that one. She brought up the fact of us getting together with her side of the family for a monthly dinner. Is it the dinner that we all really gather for? No, it is the company of the people we are eating with. My dad said that good food is just a good excuse to get everyone there, and to ensure a good time!   

            After talking to my parents and analyzing Thanksgiving myself, I realized that sitting around my grandma’s table this year was a wonderful experience for me. We were blessed to have my Uncle back from Afghanistan, and his family from Arizona, and also my Aunt’s family from Idaho. My step-uncle was also there; a few days previous I learned that he is now going through a rough divorce. However, when we were at that table, almost all of us together, It allowed me to step back and feel the gratitude in the room and all the negativity slip away. Being able to be with family over Thanksgiving truly is a blessing. I will miss that group of people when I leave for Oklahoma. My Thanksgiving will be a lot different next year. But that is the great thing about family. I know that they will all still be thinking about me. I also know that I will foster relationships in Oklahoma that will make me feel like I am still at home.

Legand, song, gift or prank!

            A fun little “prank” that my family likes to do is one that has started very recently, in the past couple of years. My dad is in the hotel business, and often times he will bring home free knick-knacks that he gets when he goes to conferences around the country. Sometimes we get lucky and actually get some pretty cool stuff, but most of the time they are truly just knick-knacks…really cheep and rather cheesy stuff that we usually end up just throwing away.

            However, we do have one cheesy knick-knack that we do find amusing; it is a small, maybe four-inch plastic Travelocity gnome.  This little guy quickly became a funny topic of the night be got back, and we tossed it aside not thinking much of it. Little did we know it would stick around…whether we liked it or not!

            I think it was my mom that started this to keep us all on our toes. Sooner or later, the gnome started showing up in the most random places all around the house. From the fridge to the blanket closet, he was everywhere. It started a war that is still ongoing.

            Whenever you spot the gnome around the house, it is your responsibility to place him somewhere new.  So, some day you will be walking around the house, minding your own business and all of the sudden this gnome is right there staring you in the face! I have found the gnome in various places: vases, behind picture frames, among the foosball players, inside cabinets…you name it!

            This is a fun little on going prank that we do to each other to keep things interesting at my house, and it is always fun when I am the one to find the gnome.

Legend Trip to the Logan Cemetery

I went to the Logan cemetery the other day, to learn a little about some of the families that have chosen to be buried there. Why there? What was their family like? I dug a bit to find some of this information. Taking  this "legend trip" to the Logan cemetery was an intersecting experience for me. To be perfectly honest, I have always had a hard time understanding why it is so common to find cemeteries next to schools. I find it a little bit creepy; but don’t worry. Only a little bit. The Logan cemetery to me has always just been the place that everyone goes in the fall to take “selfies” or “roommate pictures” and post them on social media. Actually going into the cemetery for my first time, and to go in with a purpose of finding out about the peoples’ lives that are now there at the cemetery was actually a very cool experience. I was able to look around and critically analyze a lot of different grave markers of individuals; but I was most interested in how these individuals were connected with the family members of whom were buried next toe each other. I was able to look around and make my best guesses about the lives of these people and how they came to be. 

                              

The first family I looked at was the Thatcher family. The first thing that caught my eye was a giant statue of an angelic looking man holding a book. I figured out that this man was there representing the whole family; it wasn’t just one member’s grave marker. I thought that was interesting, and I wondered what family member decided that would be a nice symbol for the family. At approximately 15 feet tall, it is quite a bold symbol; as if the Thatcher’s are making a statement such as “Hello, here we are!” it is quite a bold although the death dates were different depending on the member, all of the family members died within about the same time. Most of the death dates were from 1900-1980, and one from 1991. I found online that the Thatcher family moved into Logan city around the same time I was founded, (1859,) so I wonder that if after the 90’s the Thatcher’s have relocated, or if it is something more serious like a family tradition that has stopped.

                             

                                           

The Thatcher family. I loved the Sphere head stone. 

The Nibly family was the second family I looked at. My first thought upon walking up to this family’s grave marker was if this was the family that founded the city Nibly, only a few miles south of Logan City. I looked that up, and I found that Nibly City was in fact founded by Charles M. Nibley, who seemed to be the head of this family. When you walk up to the grave markers of this family, you see a larger monument looking stone in the middle of the family area with Charles’s name on it. His headstone is a little to the east of that, lined up with his three wives. Yes, Charles was a polygamist. What I loved about this family, though, was that they had wooden panels placed in the ground all around this family, to form a rectangle around them. I quite liked that and wondered if the family planned that out; if they thought it would be nice to, in a small way, become isolated from everyone else in the cemetery. Charles and his wives were at the front of the rectangle, and as you keep walking West, toward the end of the rectangle, the death dates start to vary. As you walk west, the death dates are in the 70’s, then two from 1966 and 1980 in the next line, then, the next line is all very recent. The dates are from 1999-2013. However, at the very end of the rectangle, in the corner, there is one death date that goes all the way back to 1956. So this family has a variety of different death dates; some members must have decided to be buried there, where others haven’t. The thing I found the most interesting was Charles’s big monument; he must have thought he was pretty hot stuff.

                                  

                                 

  Charles and all his wives. Oh, and let's not forget his own monument dedicated to himself there in the background.

              We can gather a lot of information about families by simply taking some time to analyze their grave markers and determining the ties that they had or didn’t have with the city they are buried in. This can tell us a lot about our own families as well; and we can understand better where our own families came from.

Works Cited:

http://www.uen.org/utah_history_encyclopedia//LOGAN.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nibley,_Utah