Link the chain... LINK IT!!!

Great-Aunt Alice (Warfield) Darby and  My Dad! 

Tomorrow is my Great-Aunt Alice's funeral. She passed into the next chapter of her transition at the Age of 95. Let me tell you there is LONGEVITY in my family on both sides. My Great Grandfather  Asa Dudey, lived to the age of 99. My twin Grandma Evelyn (Jordan) Gamble (Mom's mother) is almost  95. Each time one passes I wish I knew them better and spent more time with them. Such is the case with Aunt Alice...and so many of the others.  There were some who were gone too soon. Papa, John Gamble, my mother's father passed away when I was only six.. My Grandma has been without her beloved spouse for 40 years. My Grandmother Pearle  (Flowers) Dudley, (father's mother) passed away my 2nd year of college.  Her mother, Johnnie Melba (warfield) Flower Worrell passed away a year before.  Johnnie Melba was  Aunt Alice's oldest Sister. My Great-Grandmother Johnnie Melba was the oldest of 13 children.  She had 1 child, Pearl Dryden (Flowers) Dudley. My daughter is her twin great-grand child, they look so much alike sometimes it freaks me out when I look at my daughter. (Have you ever tired to ground  your Grandmama's face on a 9 year old misbehavin  child?  yeah... it ain't so easy)

Norman Donald Dudley Sr & Pearl Dryden Dudley

Grandpa & Grandmother on their wedding day

Alieshia Dudley, Great-Grand daughter to Pearl D Dudley. 

Yeah, see what I mean? Twins run in our family even if they're generation apart.

 Actually Alieshia is a triplet... My Grandmother Pearl looks just like one of  my Great-Grandmother's sisters, Aunt Florence.   Aunt Florence and Grandmother were only a couple of years apart in age, i believe.  It used to trip me out to see them together.   My grandmother was a great educator in the Battle Creek School systems for many years. Most of my Jr High and High school friends had her as a kindergarten teacher. My daughter will be Graduating from College May 4th, exactly a month from today getting her Bachelors in Early childhood education.  she wants to teach kindergarten and will be taking after her great-grand mother Pearl. None of us are at all surprised!!

 My family is well known where I grew up. I call it cheers, because sometimes if definitely feels like everybody knows our name.  It made it difficult to act a fool and get away with anything.

I didn't know my great-aunt Alice well at all, and yet tears well up and spill over just at the loss of knowledge I failed to seek out in her and her siblings. She, I believe was the last to return. She has completed the family in more ways that ever imagined.

My daughter is a jr Genealogist and had a big hand in doing family history. She has reunited and connected quite a few family members. I think as African Americans it is detrimental to the future of our children to reconnect those family members that are lost.  Our African men and women were kidnapped from their native land and brought to another only to be sold off. Our father's were , beaten into submission and treated as ox mules and other work animals.. Our mother's were raped and bred as domestics, wet nurses and baby mills all  for the love of greed and power. Our families were ripped apart, some being snatched up on the middle of the night and sold off as property to pay debts or given as gifts to others.  Imagine your family waking up together, in tact but going to bed at night with missing members never to be seen or heard of again.   I believe our worth and esteem are wrapped up in the generations that have gone on before us. They have suffered, bled and died and paved the way so that we can walk the paths they never had the opportunity to enjoy or indulge in. 

They look behind them through the veil at us and cheer us on moving forward to accomplish those great things to add to the legacy they presented before us. It is for us to look forward in strength and  and perseverance to continue on in their legacy.  Each of us should strive to full the family chain with the links that bind us together through eternities..

My daughter found some families names and gave them to my sister a few (5)  years ago to have them added to the family temple work we do through our church. My sister misplaced the names. and have not been able to find them for years.   Aunt Alice passed away 8 days ago on March 25th. The Morning of March 26th my sister wakes me up by busting into my room announcing she's found the missing names.  I sleepily said to her ... "Oh, that was all Aunt Alice, she found them and let you to them.."  Most of the missing names were those of her direct siblings as well as my grand parents..  It was almost as if she was sayin...."not without me you don't!"  I'm happy to report we will be joining all of her sibling and her to their parents, along with any spouses the siblings may have.  

 I can almost hear them congratulating each other on the fine job  what their family is doing now. Oh how I envy those reunions on the other side of the veil

THE WARFIELD FAMILY (most of them) All on the other side hangin with our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ!

To MyAncestors by Carol Lynn Pearson:

"I wonder-

Did I peek through the veil impatiently,
While you slowly forged the bonds that brought me to mortality?
And do you now stand where I stood
Yesterday,
Your cheeks against Heaven’s curtains
and pray-
Pray fervently for me to forge the bonds,
that bring us to eternity?"

*Link the chain...people. LINK IT!!! And bring the family together again!!