Digging up the past, minding the skeletons

I love history. I love the idea that there once existed a world where people as familiar to me as my grandparents lived, that can never exist again. Like an archeologist that tries to reconstruct the past by picking up the pieces found today, I too am digging up remains... the remains of identities, personalities, memories, and paradigms. And photos when I can find them.

It all started by accident- I picked up one of those family history fill-in-the-blank books about 3 years ago. And I started filling in blanks. But the blanks weren't good enough. The content wasn't exciting or juicy enough. And my entries were spilling out of the allotted blanks and onto the margins and covers anyway. I also came to realize that the two paragraphs on Cuban history taught to me in 9th grade were insufficient to understand the contexts of the characters who were developing in my mind. The more the characters and the setting and the stories developed, the more I realized that they deserved to be recorded. My interest in my family's past has evolved into a book.

The Bible says, "Fools despise wisdom and instruction. " The don't-trust-anyone-over-thirty mantra that clouded the sensibilities of the baby-boomer generation, and has been eagerly adopted by my own, is absolute foolishness. It's like saying, "Let's make our parents' and grandparents' mistakes over again!" My grandfather wont be around forever to lecture us during Thanksgiving dinners. I don't have a very good memory and my children might ask me one day why I believe in things like hard work and education, the inherent faults of socialism, or in not wearing white shoes after Labor Day. Now I can just say, well let's just look at the books. I'll make it part of their homeschooling curriculum :o)

Now for some fun stats:
My maternal grandmother is the oldest of our grandparents (she'll be 88 next year)
My maternal grandfather was jailed 7 times for political dissidence.
My paternal grandmother was an only child who never met her father.
My paternal grandfather is 22 years older than his youngest sister... They share the same parents.

Danny's maternal grandmother is the youngest of our grandparents (she'll be 70 next year)
Danny's maternal grandfather is 1/4 Scottish.
Danny's paternal grandmother was 8 years younger than her husband
Danny's paternal grandfather had 2 brothers and 4 sisters. Yet he had 4 sons and 0 daughters.

My family tree has 730 names in it between Danny's family and my own.

Most prolific ancestors- Jose Elias Garcia & Maria Regla Rizo (my mom's dad's dad's parents, with 45 grandkids.)

Oldest living person*- Andrea Dorila Garcia (my mom's dad's sister) who is 90 years old (unless
Danny's dad's dad's sisters Dolores or Estrella are still alive in Cuba, in which case one of them would be the oldest at 92 and/or 97)

Person who lived the longest*- Fabiana Borrego (died in 1993 at 101; Danny's dad's dad's mom)

Oldest birthdate on the chart- 1816 Maritiña Escubiña (Danny's dad's mom's mom's mom's mom's mom. She also lived to be 101 years old)

* I don't have dates for all 730 people on the chart

Considering that my heart goes a-flutter anytime I find that I'm in the presence of a centenarian, I might look into doing this for others. For lots and lots of money. (It's not easy, you know!)


We still don't know if #5 is a boy or a girl, and Danny starts his first full-time day-on-the-road as a certified police officer tomorrow at 6:30 in the morning. Ka-chow!