I'm interested not just in where my ancestors lived and died but in how they lived their lives: there's something about farm living that seems meaningful to me. I'm careful not to romanticize farm life, as I know how endless the work can be, and how subject farmers are to the elements. But somehow a lifetime of working the earth and gaining sustenance from it seems a better existence. Another aspect of life "back in the day" that has so much poignancy for me is the fact that so many died so young. In doing research on my father's side of the family I learned that neither of my paternal grandparents knew their mothers - in both cases their mothers died while they were still in infancy. My paternal grandmother's mother married at 15, gave birth to two daughters, died at 21. There's only one word for that -- heartbreaking.

I'm interested not just in where my ancestors lived and died but in how they lived their lives: there's something about farm living that seems meaningful to me. I'm careful not to romanticize farm life, as I know how endless the work can be, and how subject farmers are to the elements. But somehow a lifetime of working the earth and gaining sustenance from it seems a better existence. Another aspect of life "back in the day" that has so much poignancy for me is the fact that so many died so young. In doing research on my father's side of the family I learned that neither of my paternal grandparents knew their mothers - in both cases their mothers died while they were still in infancy. My paternal grandmother's mother married at 15, gave birth to two daughters, died at 21. There's only one word for that -- heartbreaking.