Tell me about the good old days

Back when I was in Junior High, I became interested in genealogy. I don't remember whether I started researching my family's history for a school project or just for fun, but it developed into an interest, perhaps even a passion, that has added an incredible dimension to my life ever since those days in Junior High.

When I was a young boy of six, my grandfather (Grandpa Horace, my Dad's father) died suddenly and unexpectedly of a heart attack. We were living in South Texas, and Grandpa Horace and Mama Grace lived in Crowley, Louisiana. We made the long trek into Cajun country to attend the funeral and to be with Mama Grace. Grandpa Horace was then brought back to East Texas to be buried at Laws Chapel Cemetery in Cass County, just outside the small town of Atlanta, his birth place.

Some time after Grandpa Horace's death, we moved Mama Grace from Louisiana to South Texas, into a cute little house just across the street from us. Quite often I would spend the night across the street at Mama Grace's house. She made the best banana bread in the whole world! Cornbread was another of her specialties. And, boy howdy, did she love to talk! I remember sitting for hours on end, listening with fascination to the stories of her childhood.

She had walked to and from school every day, barefoot, in the rain and snow, up hill both ways. OK, so maybe that's a little bit of an exaggeration. But she did talk about her memories of going to school as a child, and of later teaching other children at Rocky Branch School, a little one-room school house in rural Cass County, when she was just eighteen. She spoke with fond recollection of the many adventures she had shared with her brother Harwood, whom she loved dearly. She recounted how she and Grandpa Horace had met; and recalled, often with vivid detail, the early years -- raising two young boys in the sweltering heat of South Texas, while Grandpa Horace slept days and worked nights in the oil field for Humble Oil and Refining Company. Mama Grace's face would always light up as these wonderful memories came flooding into her mind!

I was young and naive, and had no clue as to the precious memories of my own that were being created during these interview sessions with my sweet grandmother. I was an inexperienced genealogist who had just discovered the hobby, and I was looking for "just the facts, ma'am". But every time I would ask a factual question, it would start her on another string of stories.

On several occasions, I took a tape recorder along and recorded the interview sessions on cassette tape. I ran back across those tapes a few years ago, shortly after Mama Grace died. As I listened once again to her stories, I was reminded of her incredible zest for life and her contagious enthusiasm. Mama Grace enjoyed life immensely, and invited others to enjoy it with her. And even though her voice was now confined to a cassette tape which had been recorded some fifteen years earlier, the sound of that sweet voice still brought forth all of the magic that filled her soul.

Those cassette tapes are a priceless treasure. The stories contained on them are journeys into an era long past — when the mailman delivered mail on horseback down country dirt roads; when life was simpler, without all of the modern conveniences that clutter our world today; when divorce was still a bad thing.

Those were "the good old days — when the line between right and wrong didn't seem so hazy; when families really bowed their heads to pray; when a promise was really something people kept, not just something they would say" (from an awesome song performed by the Judds, called "Grandpa, Tell Me ‘Bout the Good Old Days".)

That's the real beauty of climbing the family tree and listening to the old folks tell stories about "the good old days". Those stories remind us of the good things in life. They help us appreciate what we have today, while at the same time reminding us that there is no real correlation between having a lot of "stuff" and being genuinely happy. Times were often difficult back then, and Grandpa's stories can help us to appreciate some of the hardships that we don't have to endure. Times were also much simpler back then. People seldom locked their doors. The government hadn't yet started meddling in every little aspect of individual citizens' lives. The term "drive-by shooting" didn't even exist. Perhaps stories of the good old days can help us catch a vision not only of how things used to be, but of how things CAN be. Mama Grace's stories always put me in touch with what is right about this world — and we all need to be reminded of those things once in a while.

And so, to anyone who has even the slightest interest in digging up your family's roots, I would strongly encourage you to pursue that interest with great eagerness and determination. It will open up worlds that you never knew existed. To young people especially, I would urge you to sit down with your parents and grandparents, perhaps even with a tape recorder running, and ask them a few questions about "the good old days". Then sit back and listen, and just let the magic happen!

Paul O'Rear lives in Waxahachie, and can be reached by e-mail at paul@orear.com.