How Honey Bee Came to Be:

A Tale of Three Grandmothers

Granny (left), Mema (middle), Grandma (right)

As a child, I grew up going to cemeteries with my paternal grandmother, "Granny". Her entire family was from the area I was raised in, so there were several generations of family in our local small town cemetery. On Saturday mornings, we would wake up early and go place new flowers on the graves and make sure the grass around the stones was neatly trimmed. To pass the time, she would tell me stories about our long gone family members. Some I remembered, most I didn't, but these stories made me feel like I knew them all. I still live on the land that has been in her family for generations and feel a deep connection to it, as well as to those who lived and worked on it.

My maternal grandmother, "Grandma", was doing genealogy research for decades before I was born. For years, she and my grandfather volunteered at the local family history center in town and I couldn't wait for the day when I was old enough to join them. That day finally came when I was 12-years-old. Grandma and I would spend Sunday afternoons tracking down obscure, deep in the woods, overgrown cemeteries. We frequently trespassed by accident but were somehow always able to talk our way out of any trouble. People tend to let that sort of thing go when they find out that we're all kin.

My paternal great-grandmother, "Mema", kept my brother and I during the day while our parents worked, but it wasn't until years later when she moved in with my paternal grandparents next-door that we became genealogy buddies. I would lay across her bed for hours taking notes while she reminisced about her parents and grandparents. Not all of the information she told me about previous generations turned out to be true, but it was always entertaining (she was a hoot!). This was where I encountered the common "Native American Heritage" myth stemming from the fact that one of our lines had once lived in a town called Tuscarora, North Carolina (she equated this with being part Tuscarora). She once also told me that we had Jewish heritage. Neither of these things turned out to be correct, but at least it kept things interesting.

These women did everything they could to encourage my burgeoning passion for genealogy and I wish they were all here to see Honey Bee Herritage, because it would not exist without them!