Having just spent a month in South Africa with all four generations of my family, I’ve been thinking a lot about family history, and that the lives that came before us are still beating in the hearts of future generations. And how some of us carry the names of our ancestors.

 

I was named after both grandmothers. Lyndall and Anne.  I was fortunate to know them both and spend a lot of time with them. Being the only girl helped.  They spoiled me and indulged my every whim.  Gaga Lyndall (pictured left) regaled me with wonderful stories of her life and our family history.  She gave me the gifts of a hunger for reading, concern for those less fortunate, sewing and knitting.  She also told me the story of how her mother named her.

 

Magritte, my great-grandmother, was a feminist although that wasn’t the language used in the late 1800’s.  She was enamored with Olive Schreiner, a South African author, anti-war campaigner and intellectual who is remembered for many quotable quotes, one of them being: “there was never a great man who had not a great mother.” She is also remembered for one of her novels, The Story of an African Farm.  Lyndall is the main character, named after Olive Schreiner’s mother.  The character Lyndall reminds me so much of my grandmother Lyndall– independent, outspoken, passionate about doing good in the world, a no-nonsense truth-teller.

 

Gaga Anne was the opposite.  A bit stern, old-fashioned, rather Calvinistic (from Dutch and French Huguenot roots), and I felt rather protective of her because she always seemed so sad.  I am disappointed not to know too much about her family history but I know she was generous and devoted to her family. I wonder whether she struggled with depression, which is another word that wasn’t spoken in “those days.”

 

We remember stories.  They live in us. Each time they are told they change a bit with embellishment, interpretation, and just plain covering up some tough truths!  And then there are the threads and themes that weave together and repeat a pattern across generations.  They also have a DNA that then gets passed on to future generations so that perhaps one day those younger generations can live into and be informed by family members from the past – be they grandmothers, aunts, cousins.

 

We all have stories to tell.  Ask a younger member of your family out for coffee, tea, or a glass of wine.  Regale him or her with stories you’ve been told before they’re lost forever.