Family Tradition

Lucy

"Hey, Kids!
Have I ever told you about the diamond clip?"

Opa and I had a Conference Party and I decided to teach a little family history lesson.

June and Gerald Bagley Wedding
April 1, 1946

"Sixty-six years ago my mom and dad got married. At the wedding breakfast my grampa gave a tribute to his new daughter-in-law. He said he had a special wedding present for her, something that had been in the family for years: a diamond clip.

"Then he gave her a black velvet box. Thrilled, she opened the little box and found . . .

a dime and clip."

(It was April Fool's Day!)

They lived happily ever after anyway.

(Pass on a story about your parents to somebody. Create a tradition!)

Make a Point: Use Yourself as the Bad Example

An Oma (Condensed) Storybook.

A true-ish story taken from Oma's childhood,
illustrated by photos from the Cousin's Club Photo Collection.

"Open wide," said Dr. Hall. I was sitting in the torture chair, with the dentist picking around between my gums. He looked over the holes left where my baby teeth had fallen out. "You have a little mouth," he said. "There's not room for your big teeth to grow in. We'll have to pull a few molars, use elastics and headgear to stretch your mouth bigger." We'll see about that, I thought to my chicken-hearted self. I'm basically a wimp who looks for the easy way off a painful path.

When I got home, I rushed to the mirror, opened wide and peered inside. Bubble gum had turned my tongue a ghastly purple, and I could see nothing pretty in there. Teeth twisted every which way—I needed a bigger mouth, and it wasn't going to be pleasant getting one.

Polly shoved me aside, wanting a turn at the mirror. Floppy white legs dangled over her shoulders with ribbons tied at the feet. My crazy little sister was wearing a pair of tights on her head, pretending she had long braids! "Why are you wearing Suzy-long-legs for hair?" I asked. "You look dopey!" She burst out crying. "You have a big mouth!" she yelled.

A big mouth—just what I needed! Maybe I could develop this skill and avoid some dental pain. It was actually pretty easy. I just said everything I thought, without thinking about it first. By the end of the day my sisters and my dad and brother, had all commented on my big mouth. Words were flying wildly and my tongue was out of control when I found Tommy pitching a pup-tent in the backyard.


"It's going to fall down," I teased. He didn't look up. "You're not a real cowboy," I said, and threw his pint-size ten-gallon on top of the carport. He pulled his cap-gun, but I took my best shot: "The fringe on your shirt is plastic," I whooped. Tommy looked down at his shirt with tear-filled eyes.

"That's enough, young lady," said a dark shadow behind me. "You can spend the rest of the day in your room." Mom's voice was soft and controlled. Mine wasn't.

"I hate you!" I yelled up at her. "I hate you!" I'll never forget the heartbreak in her eyes when I said those words. I had hurt the person who loved me most, even when I was the most unlovable. "I hate you." I said it softer this time, more to myself.

In my room I looked in the mirror. I saw a gargantuan tongue flopping around, out of control, and, just as everyone had told me, a big mouth. Even my teddy bear didn't want to get cozy with all the venom drooling out of my lips.

Mom knocked and then came in and sat on the bed. I couldn't stop looking at her lovely smile. And something I'd never noticed before—she had a crooked tooth!


"My mouth was too little for all my teeth," Mom explained, "and some of them crowded on top of each other. I didn't feel pretty for a long time. That's why I want you to have room for your teeth."

"Will I be pretty?" I asked between sobs.

"You know, Marty, ugly words always make a girl ugly, even if she has lovely lips and terrific teeth. Beautiful words always make a woman beautiful, even if her teeth are all skeewampus.

"Dr. Hall can use elastics and headgear to make your smile perfect, but if you have a big mouth, you won't be pretty." I understood what she meant by a big mouth.

At dinner that night I sat across from Polly. "I like your braids," I told her. Her dimple showed, and I knew my opinion mattered. That made me feel nice, so I said, "You can use my barrettes if you want to." I looked over at Tommy and asked, "Are you sleeping in your tent tonight?" He nodded, and straightened his hat. "Looking good, Cowboy," I said and felt even nicer.

"What did the dentist say, Marty?" Dad asked.

"He said my mouth wasn't big enough," I reported. "There's not much I can do, except be patient while he uses elastics and headgear to make it bigger."

Mom seemed to have forgotten my ugly words. "Marty's lovely lips won't have to hide anything unpleasant in her mouth," she said. "because her words are as pretty as her smile."

Not quite The End.

As Marty grew up, her challenge was always to control her tongue, and keep her big mouth shut a little more often. When she met Dee Halverson he told her his motto:

"Think over everything you say, but don't say everything you think."

Dee always said kind, thoughtful things so Marty decided to marry him. Even though she's now a 62-year-old Oma, she still has trouble controlling her tongue. She's learned to think over everything she says, but it's usually after she's already said it!

Luckily the people she loves are understanding. Her children and grandchildren are her best examples: they are beautiful because they think and say beautiful things. See for yourself!

(Just a few examples of teeth coming in every which way.)
The Cousins are all darling because of the sweet words
that decorate their smiles with love!

An Oma tip:

Tell a story about how you learned (or tried to learn) a lesson one of your posterity is working on right now. You'll have a new bond! It's good for kids to know Mom and Dad, Aunt Clara and Uncle Max and even Great-grandpa Hugh had a few habits to break and new skills to master.

Improvement can be a family affair!


Set a New Year's Goal to work on with a loved one,
just for fun!

Write a Children's Book

The Oma Storybook Collection is one of my hobbies.

I'm writing our family history as a children's book, with stories about Dee and I growing up, how we met, and anecdotes about our parents and grandparents. At the same time, I'm assembling materials and doing research for a children's book on our family in England from the Battle of Hastings until they came to America in 1630. It's an exciting and overwhelming project that I've been working on for the past few years.

But the grandkids aren't waiting! I want them to grow up knowing these stories and since they're growing up faster than I'd anticipated, I print out each chapter as I finish writing it, put a spiral binding on it, and send it off to them. Eventually they'll get the chapters all compiled and beautifully bound together in one book, but this way they can learn our history step-by-step as I go along. Seeing their excitement is my motivation to keep typing and make this a reality.

My biggest challenge has been how to illustrate my books without plagarizing other people's art work. I need to get away from scanning and learn how to create my own, so I'm trying out different ideas with each chapter I print for the kids. I just finished Dee and the Giselas, a story about Dee as a little boy, and this time I staged some photo-shoots using the grands as the main characters. It was so fun to have them learn about Opa as they acted out his story for the camera. Then I collaged them together (since the kids live in five different states!) I just have to share some excerpts:

Gordon B. Hinckley said our own family stories are worth telling and re-telling.
Have you recorded yours?

(I'm doing an Oma's Write Stuff Workshop in the woods this week,
so I decided to repeat myself in this post from 2009.)

Where Does Your Story Take Place?

Portaferry, Northern Ireland

Setting is where a story takes place.


Ferry Street, Portaferry

Mary Mullin lived on Ferry Street, in 1820.

Portaferry Castle

This was her view in one direction.

Yellow gorse on hillside, Portaferry

This was her view in the other direction.


The neighbors lived here,


Or here,


The Square, Portaferry

And here's where she shopped on Saturdays.

Could there be a more picturesque setting for a life? Sheep in the meadows, cows in the corn, cobblestones, fog horns, waves slapping the rocks—but Mary probably didn't think her village was unique or charming. It was familiar. Maybe she was bored. Would she have dreamed her descendants would travel thousands of miles just to see where she lived?

Mary's daughters, seven greats later.

Their lives would have seemed exotic to her,



Even though, they live by the ocean, too.

But this is where they go on Saturdays,

And bored is spelled board for the modern Mullins.


Marty's house at 2025 Twin View Drive

Our recent trip to Europe was all about setting. In London, Ireland, and Vienna we noticed details to include in upcoming books: architecture, colors, neighborhoods, scenery. It occurred to me that where I grew up would be just as unique to someone from somewhere else.

Dee's house in Provo

Subdivisions and suburbs tell different stories than apartments and row houses.
They tell my story.

Mount Olympus, Salt Lake City

Mountains, canyons, deserts and snow—that's what's familiar to me.

Think about your childhood bedroom. Picture your backyard. Take a mental stroll through your first home. This is where the first chapter of your story takes place. Recall details with all five senses: the way the furnace smelled the first time it went on in the winter; the way the couch itched your bare legs while you watched Fury on Saturday morning; the wind rattling the screen above the bathtub; how paregoric tasted when you had an ear-ache; the flowered wallpaper on your mom's bedroom ceiling that matched her drapes and dust ruffle.

Settings are more than just the way things appear—they comprise values and traditions, attitudes and behavior. In case your 7th great-granddaughters are interested in you, make it a little easier for them. Was your house cozy, messy, smelly? Were you proud of it or embarrassed by it? Did the decor reflect the times? Write the details into your story.

"More than just compiling names, true family history is about saving people from obscurity. Names are important in genealogical research, but knowledge of the historic context in which our ancestors lived, the details of their lives, and the experiences that shaped their personalities are essential to our understanding of ourselves. In researching family, we're really researching ourselves."

What are five words that describe the setting for your story?

Irish Immigration

Portaferry, Northern Ireland

In the 1800s all of Ireland was part of Great Britain. English barons owned the land and allowed Irish tenant farmers to live in small huts on their land and grow food, most of which they gave back to the landlord for rent. When the landlords decided they could make more money raising cattle and sheep, they evicted the tenants, tore down the huts, and sent the excess food to Europe for a good profit. Starving children watched ships leaving the ports loaded with food, while they were eating grass to survive.

Highways filled with farmers and their families, wandering aimlessly about begging for food just to keep alive. They lived almost exclusively on potatoes. In 1845 a fungus known as blight caused the potato plants to rot in the ground, giving off an appalling stench—the whole countryside smelled foul. By early autumn famine was imminent, not because there was no food—there was plenty of wheat, meat, and cheese—but because the peasants had no money, and no way to earn it. To add to the misery, that winter was the harshest in living memory.


One and a half million people died of starvation and disease in The Great Famine, and waves of immigrants fled Ireland. Never before had the world witnessed such an exodus; a million people sailed across the Atlantic in leaky, overcrowded ships to Canada and the United States.

Ferry Street, Portaferry

We went to Portaferry in Northern Ireland to trace one of them: James Mullin. Back in the day, local public records were sent to offices in Dublin for safe-keeping, but those buildings were destroyed in the rebellion of 1922. Now the information available is from diaries and letters sent back home by immigrants; the history of Irish immigration was hidden in attics and basements.

Portaferry librarians

One man's garbage is another man's treasure. Luckily, Portaferry historians collected and organized some of the local records. Two of them were expecting us, and pulled out a box.


We could visualize the experience of James and his family by reading letters and journals written by others at the same time, in similar circumstances. Twenty-year-old Hugh Quinn was about the same age when he left Portaferry within a few months of James. This is from a letter he wrote:


Tuesday, September 9, 1847

Dearest Honored Mother,
The wind so long looked for is at hand, and I’m ready to leave Portaferry. I dread as death the moment of my separation from you.



He wrote this in his diary that same day:

I found myself surrounded by my mother and sisters, having my coat buttoned, unbuttoned and buttoned again by each of them. The walking stick fell from my trembling hand and was handed to me by little Alice. I could not move from the spot nor could I get out a word. I turned hastily from my mother to hide my swelling tears. ‘It will be forever,’ I said. ‘It is still not yet too late,’ she said. ‘Stay at home.’ I looked back through my tears to see my little brother crying on the dock, and I stepped onto the boat.

Axel Lundgren 1913

My grandpa left Sweden at seventeen, and it was forever. Like James Mullin, he married, had children, made a life in a new land and never returned.

I can't imagine what it was like for the mothers.