Sunday, October 4, 2009

Family History

A couple weeks ago I went with my Granny to her hometown to learn about some of our family history and meet up with her siblings. It was a great trip and I loved hearing about her childhood in the 1930's. So interesting!!
Granny's sister Joyce, her brother E.W., his wife Edna, and my Granny, Jean.
We went to a local gathering of families effected by the TVA (Tennessee Valley Authority) overtaking their property. My great grandfather lost many acres of property to the TVA and many other families did too. This is a picture of my great grandparents, probably in the mid 1920's.
We went to several cemeteries so I could photograph all of my distant relatives tombstones for names, birth, and death dates. This one was so interesting. This is a very distant grandmother (maybe my great, great, great?) and there were no dates even recorded. Also, there is no first or middle name...everyone just knew her as "grandma" and so that is what was on her tomb.
This is the church where my Grandmother was saved and where her family worshiped when she was a child. I thought it was interesting to know they only had "church" one Sunday a month. Everyone had to spend their time farming, working on their land, and just trying to live. There was no time for Sunday morning, Sunday evening, Wednesday evening, church! Now we (modern churches) feel like we have to have our doors open for everything and constantly be involved in small groups, accountability partners, Bible Studies, meetings, worship 3 x's a week, etc. and in my opinion all we are doing is pulling ourselves away from our homes and families. At this time in our countries history families went to church once a month and really learned about the Bible from their home life. They probably had family devotions and they also learned about the Bible and memorized scripture in school. I think we should learn from them and have a healthy mix.
One of the cemeteries we visited, it is on the same grounds as the church.

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