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Brent,
I am the family genealogist for my Moore
family and have been trying to track down the descendents of my grandfather's
sisters. One of them was Amy Moore who had married a Surber. They had a son,
Robert. Robert died by drowning. Robert had a daughter Coriene.
I did an Internet search of the California
birth index and found Coriene's birth date. Then I searched the Social Security
Death Index and found her death date and her last name. I then checked the
newspapers for that area of California and found your tribute to your mother
(January 19, 2000 column).
Is your mother the Coriene I am looking
for? If so, we are second cousins once removed ...
Harry Moore
Now that was different. I often get emails
from people I don’t know, mostly readers responding to a column. As very few
begin by laying out my family history, this one had my undivided attention.
Mine is a small family, at least what I know of
it. My father died when I was 8 and we mostly lost track of his relatives. My
mother was an only child, so there are no aunts or uncles on that side. I did
grow up near one of my grandmother’s sisters, whose daughter and family I remain
close to, but aside from a 1991 family reunion populated largely by distant
relations I’d never heard of, I can’t recall being in one place with much more
than a dozen kin at a time.
I tend toward the “What you don’t know can’t
hurt you” school of genealogy and never had much interest in spelunking the
family tree. (I know, mixed metaphor, but I like it.) Then again I’ve never
had a branch of it land in my lap, and though “Amy Moore” didn’t ring a bell the
other details were right on the money.
My sister knew the name immediately and even
had a few photos from our mother’s old albums. She reminded me that one of the
pictures hangs in her hall along with other musty relatives I don’t recognize –
some likely more worthy of another kind of hanging if family lore is true.
Curiosity piqued, I recalled the memory book my
wife and sister helped my mother with the last months of her life. Wracked with
amyotrophic lateral sclerosis, or Lou Gehrig’s disease, she could no longer
write but dictated in spurts as strength allowed. The journal has been in a
stack of belongings I haven’t had the heart to touch since her passing; surely
her grandmother would be mentioned.
Grandmother Amy loved me to pieces. I was
the only granddaughter. She was a big woman – heavy and tall, 250 pounds.
She’d pick me up and squeeze me! She would scare me, (but) she loved me to
pieces.
I remembered the stories. My mother was 5 foot
3 inches as an adult and slightly built. Grandmother Amy had seemed a mountain,
scary and welcoming at once. And a woman of strong convictions.
Grandmother Amy was the first to talk about
God with me ... my parents (would) hide their playing cards and cigarettes ...
(She) could really sing at church. Her voice carried over the others in
church. A good person, kind of radical.
Grandmother Amy gave me my
first Bible when I was a little girl. I still have the Bible. (She) died one
year after my dad died and near the time I was hit by a car.
That was a tough time for my mother, helping to
form and strengthen her, and, in turn, the children she raised. The foundation
laid by her grandmother played no small part in seeing her through.
So thank you Grandmother Amy, for
your blessing on this generation. You too, Harry, for not letting us forget.
© 1997- 2002 Brent Morrison
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