As a child, my family would travel to North Idaho to visit my grandparents who lived up the Clearwater River in two small towns, three miles apart. This was what seemed like a long trip where we traveled through towns where my mother's people were buried and had lived. While driving through these little towns north of Walla Walla, my mom would tell me stories about the women who proceeded me; many I did not ever meet.
My favorite story was that of my Aunt Jose who was married to a logger. He would go out to logging camp and then come home during the winter. When he came home he often found that my great aunt no longer lived there so he would ask around to see if anyone knew where she'd moved. My mom said that sometimes she lived in Dayton, other times she would be in Pomeroy or Pataha and sometimes she moved to the cities across from one another, Clarkston, WA and Lewiston, ID. This made me think a lot about Jose's life and what it was like being married to a logger who was hardly home. Was she independent? Did she take in work? What was it like when he came home? She must have driven or ridden a horse or something. If she drove in later years, did she change her driver's license between states?
Later in life, as an adult, my Great Aunt Jose's life and I seemed to paralleled a bit and I started thinking about her more. For the first twenty-five years of my marriage my husband worked out of town Monday through Thursdays. He came home on the weekends and left on Monday. My daughters and I lived for two times a week: Wednesday nights at 7pm when dad called (we didn't have a cell phone although he did, but long distance cost money) and the weekend where we devoted our time to hang out with dad. To this day, I have a problem planning things on the weekend with friends and it took me a long time
Lately since I a great discussion with one of my online friends from The Awesome Ladies Project while I was at Awesome Ladies Live, I have been thinking about making books about these amazing family members. Since I didn't know them, I might include what their communities were like; where did they shop; what kinds of clubs could they join? I feel like I could learn a lot about them and it would help me in my genealogy and help me understand who I am and why I am here.
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