YOUR FAMILY TREE

With the advent of Facebook and other internet services, someone is always asking me to please sign on as his/her relative.  Sometimes these are real relatives, occasionally it is someone I have never heard of. Usually I look at the invitation, but at some point it seems to be too complicated for me to get into.  However, it did give me the idea for cpntinuing our family blog, as  I was wondering how much each of you really knows about our family backgrounds.  There are all kinds of interesting characters there, and so I thought I would search my memory in order to share with you all your relatives in both Dad's and my families.

As far as the immediate family, you are all very familiar with my side of the family - the Kennedys and Albrights -  but you may be less familiar with your relatives on Dad's side of the chart.  You lived with the Kennedy clan in Africa al of your lives, but not so much with Dad's family, except for occasional visits during a furlough.  This is not meant to be a linear report of your extended family, but rather the memories I have of different family members on both sides.  So here goes.

Your Grandma Kennedy's maiden name was Best and that family (except for Grandma) lived all their lives in the Beaver Valley of Pennsylvania.  Most of the Best family lived on farms in a fairly concentrated area of Western PA.  Stories are told of how my great grandmother was quite a horsewoman. She also loved to drive her horses hard in front of her wagon as she travelled around the country.  That is really all I know of her. 

But I do remember well her son, my grandfather, and his wife, my grandmother.  He was a tall man - over six feet tall. And she was a very short lady of about five feet.  They also lived on a semi-farm, in Marion Hill, PA, but Grandpa Best worked full time at a large factory about twenty five miles from home, called St. Joe's Lead Company.  He actually died in that same factory, electrocuted.  My grandmother was so overcome with grief for him that she never recovered, and several months later died herself of natural causes.  I was just a little girl, but I can still remember when that word came at Baramba, Mali,  by our mail carrier who brought our mail by foot from Koutiala. 

There was an older Best boy, my mother's brother, but he also died young and I never knew him. Uncle Merle was the youngest brother and my favorite as he was only a few years older than I and often played with me when we visited. Merle became an alcoholic, married my Aunt Theresa and had several children.  He died of a freak accident when he was fixing his own car in his yard one day - had hoisted it up with a pulley and was underneath. The pulley broke, the car fell with force and killed him!  I never did keep track of those children.

My mother had a brother, Rodney, who went to Europe in the Second World War, was killed in battle and is buried somewhere in one of those beautiful military cemeteries in northern France.  I thought of him recently whn we visitd an American cemetery in Tunisia, where many of our soldiers lie buried in Tunisian soil, the cemtery carefully kept by Amrican miliary personnel.  He was never married. 

Some of you may remember Uncle Henry and Aunt Virginia. We visited them often when you were growing up. He was Grandma's brother and he also served in the military but was one of those lucky ones who came home again!  They lived for many years in New Brighton in the same home that they owned.  She found the Lord before Uncle Henry did, but when he was very ill - before he died - Aunt Virginia led him to the Lord. You no doubt remember Aunt Virginia and what a wonderful person she was. In later life she taught women's Bible studies in the area.  They had two children, both of whom married. The last I know of the married son and family was that they lived down on the Gulf Coast of the U.S. and he ran a rather prosperous pizza business. They also had children. The daughter, Nancy, and her husband, John, lived out in the midwest - we stoppd overnight with them once when you kids were little. They never had children, and the last I heard from Aunt Virginia was that they had lost their faith and become atheists.  They were very nice, middle class people, but have never kept in touch.

Grandma Kennedy also had one sister, Alice.  Aunt Alice was a fairly tall woman with deep auburn hair - I remember her well from my childhood.  Unfortunately she was both a chain smoker and an alcoholic.  She had a daughter, Mary Ruth, (whom we all called Dumple).  Aunt Alice's significant other and father of Dumple, was a partner alcoholic with her and they spent a lot of times in bars.  She also died fairly young, but her daughter was grown, contacted by the church, was saved, and was present at my mother's funeral with some of her family.  So that is one bright spot in that family! 

Thast pretty well sums up what I know about the Best side of the family, and next installment will be about the Kennedy clan.  As I go back and remember some of my ancestors - and yours - I realize what a lot of losers in life some of them were - and are.  It is only as we allow Christ to transform our lives that we can enjoy a godly heritage!