It is amazing how your memory can just fail you and for whatever reason block out memories, experiences, et cetera. I experienced that this week in a rather unusual and surprising way.
For those of you who follow my anchoring and reporting work on KSFY Television, you know that in late November I, along with Troy Timmerman and Jonathan Wachter, produced a story called “The Secret Of The Tree”. If you would like to take a look, click the YouTube link below.
This story was about people who are researching their family trees. I visited with an amateur genealogist and I visited two historic sites; the Ingalls Homestead in DeSmet, South Dakota and the Laura Ingalls Wilder Museum in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. Both locations are fantastic to visit if you are a history buff. To my knowledge, it was the first time I had visited either location.
Turns out, that wasn’t true.
I have a small blue photo album that I have carried with me in my travels, ever since I moved away from home at the age of 20 to work in the real world of broadcasting. Lately I have been thinking about my family a lot. At the end of the month it will be 20 years since my Grandmother died and it is really weighing heavily on me.
So I was flipping through this photo album and I came across a picture. It is a picture of me. I am maybe 9-or-10-years-old. I can’t tell. There is no date written on the back. The picture is of me standing in front of a covered wagon and written on that covered wagon are the words “Walnut Grove, Minnesota….On the banks of Plum Creek….Home of Laura Ingalls Wilder”.
What?!?! I don’t remember this trip at all. But there is clearly evidence that I visited Walnut Grove as a child.
On my way home from work last night I called my Mom and had the following conversation;
Me: “Mom, did we ever visit Walnut Grove, Minnesota?”
Mom: “Yes, don’t you remember?”
Me: “No!”
Mom: “You begged us to take you. You were reading the “Little House” books and you wanted to see where she lived.”
So not only had I been to Walnut Grove, Minnesota….I asked my family to take me there and they did…and STILL I forgot about the entire thing. Poof! No memory whatsoever.
This is a picture of me taken sometime in the 1980's in front of a covered wagon in Walnut Grove, Minnesota. BTW, I am rocking those high top socks.
And that’s not all. Apparently we went to the Ingalls dugout site along Plum Creek in Walnut Grove and saw Jack The Dog’s grave. Again. Poof. None of this is clear to me now. All I have is the picture.
Thanks again for all of you who are taking the time to read this blog. I sit here and write and don’t expect anyone to click on over and take a look. But a lot of you do. Thanks for doing it.
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Speaking of family trees, mine has connected with yours. Technically, it did that a long time ago, but I am just finding new information, or old information which I may have forgotten, as the case may be. You apparently come down through Lucius>Amariah; I come down through Lucius>Lucius. Your photos are a welcome change from some of the mugshots I’ve been pulling up when googling other branches.