Family, home, Music, Uncategorized

Interconnected

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Yesterday was very busy for us. I had a Dorcas Circle bible study meeting at 7:00 AM ( I still can’t get over what a funny name that is), and then we had a tree service arrive to do some trimming at 8:30. At 10:15 we left for Sioux Falls to get both dogs groomed. While we waited we made a trip to Costco and HyVee grocery. We don’t plan to revisit Sioux Falls for 6 weeks or so.

At my bible study, a woman who I had not met before wanted to know who I was. I explained we had moved here from North Dakota. The other women interjected that I had grown up here. I explained that I was a Boomgaarden. She looked very closely at me and said “Of course you are! You look just like your mother!” More conversation revealed we had the same Grade 3 teacher, but in different years.

Husband wrote a cheque to the tree trimmers when they finished at 10:00. The service is owned by a husband/wife team who both do the trimming. When the wife saw my name on the cheque she asked if I had any relatives in Hawarden, Iowa. (That is a small town south of us in northwest Iowa. My father’s family is from northwest Iowa.) She said that she grew up in Hawarden, and as a little girl would take May baskets to an elderly woman named Dorothy Boomgaarden, who would always yodel for her. My grandfather had 11 brothers and sisters, and anyone around this area with that name is probably a relative. Sure enough, when I looked up Dorothy’s obituary she turned out to be the wife of one of my father’s numerous first cousins. In her obituary it stated that her passion for yodeling couldn’t be forgotten.

I continue to revel in the interconnectedness I feel here. I wish I knew the story behind the yodeling. What a great thing to put in her obituary.

What funny things would you like in your obituary? Ever tried to yodel? What interesting things could your relatives do?

27 thoughts on “Interconnected”

  1. My maternal great aunt reported that my great grandfather “could really yodel.” He was born down near Red Wing but both his parents and all his uncles and aunts were Swiss immigrants. I imagine he wasn’t the only yodeler.

    I used to yodel. Not in a Swiss way but in a Jimmie Rodgers, Hank Williams sort of way. My voice has lost some of its flexibility with age and I have no call to yodel anymore anyway. Now I just Wordle.

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  2. my guitar circle played a hank williams tune and i sang it with a little yodel and they were surprised. well thats the way he wrote it. we try it every now and again and i would guess i hit the yodel about 60% of the time

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      1. Nope. 7 :00 AM. We meet at a coffee shop. The men’s Bible study meets at 7:00 AM every Wednesday. At least the Dorcases only meet once a month.

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        2. My men’s breakfast has been meeting at 6:30 since Covid. Before that, it was at 6. We’re at church, but are neither a Bible study nor a prayer group. Cooking is on a rota, so only one of us needs to be there an hour early. We eat, talk, joke around, and read through some kind of book to give us fodder for discussion. The group has been pushing back at “old guy loneliness” since 1962.

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  4. Dorothy Boomgaarden (nee Meyer) was born in South Dakota. Her parents were born in Illinois and Iowa. Her grandparents were German on both sides. Who knows where her love of yodeling came from? Maybe she was a Patsy Montana fan.

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  5. Rise and Shine, Baboons,

    Yodeling is not in my skill set! After years of allergies and respiratory infections, singing is hardly on the list. However, you can list in my obit that I have been to Hawarden, Iowa. (It is right on the border of Plymouth and Sioux Counties, near my home town of LeMars.)

    Interesting things my relatives could do:

    Grandpa Hess was skilled with a YoYo, which as a young child I found fascinating. Grandpa could also remove his upper dental plate with his tongue and produce the plate for us to gawk at. He was also obsessively devoted to buying and selling agricultural futures, especially pork bellies, and lost a lot of money on that particular activity. He was a bee keeper. Grandpa could grow anything. He should have left investments and money management to Grandma who was a financial wizard. Unfortunately he had a bath only once per week and smelled really bad so I kept my distance.

    Grandpa Stratton and I spent all kinds of time seeking Four Leaf Clovers and had a collection of those. As far as I was concerned he also carried the title of Best Grandpa in the Universe.

    Grandma Hess was masterful at managing resources, whether it was gardening, chickens or household goods. This skill, inherited from her father, left her quite wealthy for the times. She was constantly fending off requests for loans by two of her sons who were not so gifted.

    My dad, before he became ill, had an endless set of jokes with which he amused an audience. He was also an amateur auctioneer who practiced auction banter. He wanted to develop an auction business on the side, but his MS left his speech too garbled to follow through on that. Dad and his cousin started a shorthorn cattle herd when he was 10 years old as a 4H project. That herd he developed for 15 years of his teen years into young adulthood. It was the basis for the farm he and his dad had, but they sold it all to pay for Grandma’s cancer treatment (no health insurance). I found the Bills of sale and the Pedigrees in my mother’s belongings when I cleared her house for sale in 2009.

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  7. I have tried yodeling a few times, but that didn’t go anywhere…

    My Grandpa Sterling (mom’s side) didn’t graduate from high school;, I believe, but he was very well read, and had a great sense of humor. Seven kids, you can imagine the noise level in a small bungalow – mom says he’d be trying to read, and would call out “A little more noise, please!”

    Grandma Sterling could play by ear on their old upright piano; never had a lesson but could whip off something that sounded really good.

    Grandpa Britson owned a lumber yard (Roland IA, 10 miles from Ames) till the Depression. He was a world class walnut cracker, and would get the outer husks off by laying them on the garage floor and driving over them.

    Grandma Britson was a world class lefse maker, and also sewed pretty well on her treadle machine that lived in the upstairs hallway. (Wish I’m laid a claim to that when she died…)

    On my obituary, I think I’d like it to say “She made me laugh.”

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  9. It was also fun to hear from the fellow in Rochester yesterday who grew up in Hills. That is only 7 miles from us and his last name was very familiar.

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    1. That’s my buddy Paul! Yeah, he comments occasionally, usually in reference to something about the Hills Area.
      I’ve told him he could contribute more.
      He’s an early riser retiree… it’s not like he’s got anything else going on. 🙂 He probably won’t see this… ?

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  13. Having just written my mother’s eulogy last month, I hope that mine will say what I said about her. That she was kind and drew people to her.

    My dad did the BEST loon imitation.

    My grandfather (Pappy) went from one project to another after having mastered each one. When I was a kid, he re-built a Carmen Ghia and the insides were polished chrome. I never saw that car being driven and then one day it was gone. Then he constructed the most elaborate model train set-up – it covered two ping pong tables in his basement. We kids were allowed to watch him run the trains but were never allowed to play with them ourselves. He was also the grandfather who insisted on the same 7 meals each week.

    My great-grandmother Myrtle (my dad’s grandmother) was a feisty gal who played poker viciously.

    My great great aunt Iva never married, took over the family homestead (near Hayward WI) and took in Native American foster children.

    That’s what I know!

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  15. This is an old friend of mine. He was the bass player in the band I was in long ago. He did a little yodeling in our group too, but he was really branching out into his Lonesome Ron schtick at the time. He became a very good yodeler. This is at LeMars IA.

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