Sadness in the Family

My husband's younger sister died last week.  She was a lovely woman, only 57 years old, a wife and mother of three young men.  She had struggled for 18 years against cancer, and her funeral yesterday was a beautiful tribute to a loving, humble, talented and courageous woman.

Sometimes when I am discovering new ancestors as part of my genealogy work, I write down birth and death dates and quickly move on to the next discovery.  But other times I stop and reflect for a minute or two on what each life meant and how each family felt as they buried their loved one.  I note how old or young a person was when they died, and if possible, try to discover what ended their life.

For many of my relatives who lived in Ohio, I have been able to find obituaries or newspaper articles that tell me what caused the death.  I have a newspaper article, for instance, telling about the death of my maternal grandfather, A.J. Mueller, who was struck by a train and killed in 1930.  Strangely, my paternal great great grandfather, Ned Brennan, was also struck by a train and killed.  I have the newspaper story regarding his death in 1889.

I have other newspaper articles on cousins who died in automobile accidents, in childbirth, and from heart disease or cancer.  It is easy to treat each of these as a statistic when you are doing genealogy work, but I try to remember that each of these men and women had a family who loved them, and friends who mourned with the family.  I try to see what a tragedy each death was, especially the deaths of those who died young, or in childbirth when many small children were left  motherless.  I also try to see how much each person contributed to their own family and to the larger human family.

Yesterday was a time to mourn, but also a time to celebrate a life.  My sister-in-law, Karen Sherer, contributed so much to her family, not just to her sons, but to her sisters and brothers, her nieces and nephews.  She was the heart of the family, and there will be a gaping hole in the family without her.  That is what death does to a family.  And that is why I am trying so hard, through my genealogy work, to pay tribute to all who have died, and in some small way, keep them and their legacies alive in our minds and hearts.