Stuck in My Own Family Tree

For 14 months I was an only child, the alpha female. Then my kid sister Mary Ann came into my life.. Old photos show us playing together, sharing a birthday cake in the yard, romping in the snow in the winter, playing with the garden hose in the summer.

"Mom canned the fruit and made pies and jams from the cherries. She called them "pie cherries." I called them sour cherries."

"Why are you crying, all three of you?" she asked. Helen said, "Mom and Dad are having dinner and won't let us come in to eat." Mary Ann and I gasped, and I thought, I will get Helen for doing this."

"With her house in the hands of strangers, her husband without a job, and the family now on its way to Germany, Stephanie made up her mind. "We will not give up. We will find help any way we can."

"Something's coming out of the car, Aunt Louise!" I saw flames coming out from where the radio was. I didn't think of anything except getting out of there.

I met my cousin, Jimmy Keane, only once. When I saw him in uniform, I ran to my mother and said, "Uncle Sam is at the front door."

Aunt Cecilia was a war bride in 1943. They didn't have much money, so they stayed with Tom's brother's family on their honeymoon. They found nine other people in the house.

"Aunt Marie helped win WWII. After Japan attacked Pearl Harbor she worked on an assembly line, manufacturing airplanes."

"Grossmutter's birthplace was an obscure part of the world. Residents in this area considered themselves to be Bohemian. Did she have a touch of gypsy in her?"

"My daughter-in-law gave me a pillow with this message on it: 'My family tree is full of nuts.' That sums up what I have to say in this book. They may be nuts, but they are my nuts!"