52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks – Week 19 “Nurture”

google images

Nurturing is “the process of caring for and encouraging the growth or development of someone or something.”[i]

Nurturers not only provide food, clothing and shelter, they also instill the values that are important to them. Things like respect for themselves and others, willingness to serve the community, patriotism, love of knowledge and the love of God.

Among my ancestors, the women were the primary nurturers. This is probably true of most families, and I say primary because the men were also nurturers to a degree.

My grandparents and grandparents instilled the love of God in us by being role models in the practice of religion.

My maternal grandparents nurtured their children with a love and respect for education by sacrificing to provide a good education to all of their children. All of their children finished high school and most of them attended some college. This was in the early 1900s when it was not common to attend school for so long. In fact, I was very surprised to find in the 1940 US Federal Census that both of my grandparents had finished high school before leaving Ireland for the United States.[ii]

Volunteering was another quality that was modeled in our lives, again by showing and doing not by preaching. We quietly observed as our mother, a busy mother of nine, found time to serve as a youth leader, and later she volunteered to hand bead sweaters for a charitable group to raffle in a fund-raising project. As a result, most of my siblings have volunteered in their community as room parents, youth leaders, teachers, hospice workers, and community leaders. I feel that this is an important aspect of life and one that is easily passed down in a family. Children imitate what their parents do.

As time passes, I watch with pride as each generation passes these values down to the next generation. This, I believe is how our civilization will survive.

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[i] google

[ii] Year: 1940; Census Place: Chicago, Cook, Illinois; Roll: T627_982; Page: 9B; lines 57 and 58, Enumeration District: 103-1927; ancestry.com, images online, accessed 11 May 2019,  https://www.ancestry.com/interactive/2442/M-T0627-00982-00637/144292794?backurl=https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/112758812/person/3201042