Wednesday, December 19, 2007

Aunt Maggie's visits

December 20 - Christmas and Deceased Relatives
Did your family visit the cemetery at Christmas? How did your family honor deceased family members at Christmas?
Our family did not have a tradition of visiting a cemetery at Christmas or a special way to honour them at Christmas.
I would like to talk about my great Aunt Margaret. She was my mom's aunt. She lived across the lane from the farm house in which my mother was born. Aunt Maggie never married. She acted as a hostess at my mother and father's wedding reception as my grandparents were not able to come to the wedding.
I don't know when Aunt Maggie first came to our place for Christmas. She left Manitoulin Island after the death of her mother and had come down to southern Ontario to live. She did housekeeping and cared for elderly people. In her last position, which lasted for many years, she also was a live in housekeeper and helped raise two children. She would come to visit us during her time off.
When I was small, our first place was a one bedroom apartment above our corner store. The three children slept in our tiny bedroom and mom and dad in the living room. Aunt Maggie slept in the hall on a divan. She continued to come most years to our place for Christmas until she moved back to Manitoulin Island.
Aunt Maggie was interested in family history. She wrote by hand information on her family in a small notepad. Not all of it has been proven to be 100% accurate but what a wealth of information and clues she has provided me as I do my own genealogy. I wish I had asked more questions when I would visit her up on the Island.

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