Friday, May 23, 2008

Memorial Day



















This is a photo of my aunt Ethel who is 89, she's my mom's younger sister. Her son Bill and I are standing by the headstone of our second great grandmother Vilborg Thordardottir (click on the link to read her history) who emigrated from Iceland to Utah in 1874. How fun it has been to write Vilborg's history and find out more about her homeland. We will have a reunion in June during Icelandic Days to honor those immigrants that settled in Spanish Fork, Utah. Where are your ancestors from? Will you visit any of their graves during Memorial Day?

6 comments:

  1. Holy Cow!! How in the heck do you SAY that name??? Iceland. I don't think Ive ever known anyone from Iceland before. You truly do have an interesting history.

    Memorial Day seemed sort of forelorn to me the past couple of years. My entire married life Wayne's family had a HUGE re-union in Pleasant Grove. There were dozens and dozens of aunts and uncles and cousins and my hubby's sisters and brother and all their kids. It was such fun! We met about 5:00 AM at the Pleasant Grove Cemetary to sing and tell stories about Wayne's ancestors and freeze standing on the wet lawns. We had juice and GREAT cinnamon rolls there, and then we'd walk to the park in Lehi for breakfast and games and the annual baseball game between the singles and the marrieds and then the long awaited and highly competetive frisbie golf tournament would begin before widing the day up with a pot luck lunch. Waynes' sisters and I always managed to sneak away for some garage sales at a favorite spot up Provo Canyon. It was such a happy day and it made me feel proud to have brought my children into such an amazing heritage.

    The re-unions stopped a few years back and I really miss them!!

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  2. Such an interesting family history! You have done a great job of compiling the information and putting it in writing for future generations.

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  3. thanks dellgirl and caryn. i've also printed off histories for family members as many aren't computer literate. need to find a way to make them available in pdf format to download from my webpage which contains probably about 20 different family histories with photos, took me about 10 years to get it all up and i'm still writing some more histories. genealogy is a hobby that is never done...but fun to do. i teach classes for my church on how to do research online.

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  4. Iceland! That's interesting. I've never known anyone with ancestors from Iceland. I think most of mine are from France, Nova Scotia, Scotland & Ireland.

    Genealogy is so fascinating! I just wish I had started my research earlier.

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  5. Interesting. My son was just telling me that the next place he would love to visit is Iceland. We haven't done much for Memorial Day here in Illinois except to have a barbecue. It will change when we're in Hawaii where Memorial Day is a time to honor those family members and friends who have passed before us.

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  6. My mom and dad will visit my grandparents' graves. I have my grandmother's obituary laminated on my monitor...so I can read and think of her often. Guess I should see if mom can get me one of Bonpapa.

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