As some of you may know I have never been particularly close to my Dad’s family. Some of it is because of personalities but most of it was because of geography. I never grew up knowing any of them with the exception of the occasional letter and a short visit every 5-10 years. We just never knew each other.

When my Grandpa died this past February I was torn, I felt bad about his passing but I felt worse because it truly didn’t feel like a loss to me. My Dad and his sisters decided to wait until summertime to get together to have a memorial (my youngest aunt has MS so traveling is a bit of a hardship for her).

Mom and Dad went back to Boise this last weekend to visit with the family and settle things. Apparently the ‘memorial’ was the family going to the pub my Grandpa was a regular at. Mom mentioned something about 1/2lb burgers. I remember Grandpa taking me there once for lunch, back before I knew how irresponsible it was for an adult to take a kid to a pub and then drive her around town for a while after having a couple beers with lunch.

They were also going to look at their storage unit (don’t get me started on the topic of paying for a storage unit for over a decade) so I asked for just one thing…my Grandmother’s rocking chair. It isn’t a fancy chair, in fact I remember it as being quite plain. I also don’t remember ever seeing her sit in it since by the time I saw them more often they had their recliners. Yet I wanted the chair.

It’s ugly isn’t it 🙂

Just look at the fabric! A cornucopia of pineapples, apples, squash and grapes. Ick.

Turns out this was my Greatgrandmother’s chair. My Dad says he remembers her sitting in it.

She was a knitter.

The knitting gene may have skipped a few generations on my Dad’s side of the family but now the chair has found a new home with me. I think it is only fitting it finds a new knitter to take care of it (once that awful fabric gets replaced of course).

And following the family themed blog post.

My mom in her early 20’s. I’m not sure where this was taken but it was in the mid to late 1960’s.