Cousins and All
In these days of recession and cutbacks with the economy is at a standstill one area of my life that continues to be a growth industry is my family, especially my maternal side. Now at 265 (with news of 2 more from my sister’s family coming next year), the count of direct descendants for my grandparents, Lucille and Aloysius Wunderle, is mind-boggling. It started in 1917 with grandma’s first born, my Uncle John, now 92. Mathematically it worked out to nearly three new members of the family a year. Jumping forward to 1941, when the first grandchild was born, and dividing the number by the 68 years that has passed since the average is 3.72 per year. My grandparents had 10 but one of their daughters had 11. Of the grandchildren the largest family is 6. The families are generally smaller but most of them are still having children. In the mix includes seven adoptions just among my branch.
I am not the keeper of the family records merely an instigator who asked that a roll call be made. Aunts & cousins came back with the numbers. Because I can name all of my Aunts & Uncles and their spouses, my 6 siblings and their spouses, 43 first cousins, my 26 nephews and nieces and 29 great nephew and nieces I will give myself a star. But it isn’t about remembering names it is about being part of the troops my Grandparents began. From what I have learned from my Facebook connections the Wunderle family lives up to its name, a family of Wunderkinder. a fun loving, life enjoying, hard working and emotionally generous group. This last year I encouraged the family jump on the Facebook train and now randomly peak into their lives, if only to see the latest grand nieces and nephews, and first cousins 2 times removed and what they are up to not to mention the kitty and pooch parade that are part of the families.
On my paternal side (Norris) my sibs and their offspring are probably 2/3rds the count. There is a handful on Facebook and from what I can have discovered, they too, love life, family and travel. I feel I have some strong genetic links to the Norris side. My love for writing is one and maybe this whole thing with statistics and analyzing comes from the Norris side. As the Norris side originated in Minnesota and most moved to the West Coast I know less about them. Thanks to cousin Bobby I have pictures and stories that keep me linked in.
At bedtime my mother had me and my six siblings say, what I have discovered, is a 18th century prayer….
Now I lay me down to sleep,
I pray the Lord my soul to keep;
If I should die before I wake,
I pray the Lord my soul to take.
We would end it with the “God bless Mommy and Daddy, sisters and brothers, aunts and uncles and cousins and all”
Now I understand why we didn’t bless them by name….we would have never got to sleep on time.
This entry was posted on Thursday, December 10th, 2009 at 6:28 pm and is filed under Philosophy. You can follow any comments to this post through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
