Ancestors Speak – Family Trees

One of the things that I have noticed as I have been working with people over the last four years, is that people are proud of their family trees.  Not the “son of a son” type family tree, but the big old trees in their yards or on their acreages.  These trees have stories of time and family involvement. 

Let me give you a “for instance”.  We have an apple tree in our yard that is now six years old.  Her name is BJ.  She is our family tree.  

 

 

This is a picture of BJ in bloom taken in late May of 2009 by Judy

 

 

When Roger and I married, our neighbours gave us a gift certificate as a wedding gift.  We bought an apple tree and named her with the initials from our neighbours.  That was in 2004.  She was hardly a twig!  We have nurtured her, fed her, sang to her, and babied her. The second year, she had five apples. Since then, she has always produced apples, although we have lost many of them to heavy hail storms.

BJ is a living record of our life together.  Our Ancestors understood the importance of being able to have visible legacy, such as a tree or a grove, that they could point to and show that the family not only honoured Mother Nature and the Green God, but that the tree or grove was distinctive, and honoured the family. 

The summer that I was nine, my parents had forty small maple trees shipped to the farm.  My Dad said that they were needed to create a wind break along our quarter of a mile lane and some of them would shade the garden and protect it from the wind.  The trees did not seem much taller than me.  They grew quickly and sturdily, and, by the time I left home, the maple grove was fully grown.  Every time I returned to the farm, the grove was a touch point for me.