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I've spent a good part of today looking into genealogical information. Salyers is my deceased mother's family surname and someone I know mentioned her mother had that same last name. She sent me some information and after looking at it I finally got in touch with my Aunt Linda and discussed the  clues with her.

I like knowing where I came from more than where I'm headed. I am giddy some days and haunted on others because the Appalachian mountains are an intoxicant for me. I haven't been there in seven or eight years but I was born in Huntington, WV and the whispers of this grand, green place are always in my head and my heart.

I don't have a home town, per se, but a home state. As a child I was dragged from one state to another and as many schools as a military child might without being one.

My memory is terrible and it always has been, more sieve holes than a colander I say, so finding old pitures of people and places or hearing the names of those who paved the way for me makes me wistful for a past I cannot have. In a series of moves from one state to another I landed in Northwest Indiana but no place has ever felt the same.

I went to a Salyers reunion in Michigan this summer and it was great to find people who only knew the past when my mother was a girl or a young woman. The love they have for her now is palpable and she has been dead these ten years. I wasn't Sherry so much as Helen's daughter for a day. It was nice to hear folks paint a different picture for me than the one in my head.

Yesterday a picture of my mother as a teen, I think, at her school surfaced on Facebook. I had never seen it before. Today I found another picture of her and one of one of her brothers on a yearbook site. I also found another website that had info on members of my family including my grand dad who died in 2000. The info needs a bit of correcting but, mostly, it was good to see his name because it brought a flood of memories. There was a Salyers book written or compiled by Elizabeth Salyers back in the eighties or nineties and there are 2 in the family. But they are misplaced. We need to figure out where they are. Elizabeth is long dead now I expect... so is a lot of my family.

I want folks to know I was here and I want to know more about the people who came before me. Some I only knew in the Autumn or Winter of their lives. I knew my mother in the Summer and Winter of her life. Autumn came and went so quicly I think we missed it.

I wish I had taken notes at family gatherings and little visits. I have a head filled with happy and terrible stories. My family's history and mythology are important to me. I want to know more.

I made a book, upon request, for Christmas for my daughter Karen. It had stories, advice, a bit of poetry and such in it. I need to send her more. We might all consider writing and sharing our stories with our families. Even if we don't think they are listening... they might be. Leave a book or recordings as well as pictures so they can enjoy their memories of you more.

Sherry