Sigurd Moen grave, Old Stone Church, Houston, Minnesota
Taken Dec. 29, 2018
I have had some difficulty starting the writing process for this blog - not because I don’t have anything to share, but because I’m not sure where to start. I have so many thoughts swirling around in my head, but I so desperately want to share them because I feel others might resonate with them, and in hopes of finding a kinship with more people. The below is a quote that I feel hits me deep to my core… it is a well-shared quote that I received from C Bryan Forsyth of Houston, Minnesota last summer while doing my artist residency. I thought that by sharing this that it really sets the tone for the reason I do my research and work in relationship to Norwegian-American cultural heritage. I would also like to share that this curiosity goes beyond one heritage and one family - I like to think that this research is translatable to all families and cultures and that this is the stepping stone of work that will launch me into a life-long passion and career in trying to understand how we connect to spaces around us.
"We are the chosen. In each family there is one who seems called to find the ancestors. To put flesh on their bones and make them live again. To tell the family story and to feel that somehow, they know and approve. Doing Genealogy is not a cold gathering of facts but instead, breathing life into all who have gone before. We are the story tellers of the tribe. All tribes have one. We have been called as it were, by our genes. Those who have gone before cry out to us; 'Tell our story.' So, we do. In finding them we somehow find ourselves."
- Della M. Cummings Wright
Now, this quote has been shared in many versions. To find out a bit more about it, there is a link below.
https://past-presence.com/2018/03/24/origin-of-the-genealogy-poem-the-storytellers/
If anyone would like to share if they identity with this feeling , feel free to leave a comment or write to me. I would love to hear your thoughts.
-Miranda