The Preston Family Reunion

WE ARE HAVING A FAMILY REUNION from July 27 -30, 2011 on the Gaspe Peninsula where my great-grandparents, James and Elizabeth Dufresne Preston, were born!

Michael Preston, my second cousin from Montreal, and I have been coordinating the program and will have presentations of our ancestral history at Musee de la Gaspesie in Gaspe,Quebec:    http://www.museedelagaspesie.ca/

Come see our event page on FaceBook:

http://www.facebook.com/event.php?eid=166450430070374#!/pages/Preston-Family-Reunion/148330575223286

Grandma (Edna Preston Brine) 

at our 1983 wedding

[left, my brother Gary;  right, my husband James]

>@<

Especially because 
I was close to my grandmother, 
Edna Preston Brine, 
I am looking forward 
to returning to our ancestral land and 
meeting new "Preston cousins". 

Grandma Brine and me - 1974

~@ My story of Grandma @~

                                                                  
Grandma would be happy with 2011 as the year of our Preston Family Reunion. Eleven was her lucky number. Not only did she have eleven children, but Grandpa was born on August 11, 1893 and they were married on February 11, 1918. Every time the number 11 would come up, Grandma would say, “There’s that lucky number eleven again.”

Billy with "Fifi", me, and Sisty and Larry St.Laurent

Speaking of luck, I had it growing up next to their farm on Elm Street in Hanson. My father, their third son, built our home up the hill and we moved in in 1949, thereby allowing me access by osmosis to the many happenings on the farm as well as a memorized knowledge of every nook and cranny of the place. Their youngest son Billy was three years older than me, so he was my playmate, albeit, the Indian brave while ‘Sisty’ and I were the squaws

I can still go through the farmhouse and barn and in my mind’s eye, see every room and level as vividly as my present environment. The barn had the high upper level that stretched far into the Northern wing, as well as the small, high loft above the front. Stationary vertical ladders took us up to the first level. There were also trap doors for the cow manure, the cows in the stalls, the milk storage outside the back door, the silos that were torn down during my childhood. When I cleaned out a birdfeeder with fermented corn, the smell transported me immediately back to the smell of the silos.

We played baseball in the field between the driveway leading down toward the pigpen, and the old camp where Lorraine’s house was eventually built (next to the pine grove where Grandma had always wanted a house). One time when I was running in that field, I stepped into a pit where stakes for the bulls used to be and a stick flew up into my shin. Before I could take a second breath to cry, Grandpa swept me up in his arms and had me in a car on the way to Dr. Angley’s for stitches that were worse than the accident.

Grandpa, with our house in the background

Grandpa, with our house in the background

Around the yard were crabapple trees; to the left of the circular driveway and in the area under Grandma and Grandpa’s bedroom window, as well as out back where Grandpa sat in a sleeveless t-shirt, rolling cigarettes and talking with Buzzy. There were also the cornfields and the haystacks from Grandpa’s mowing, the sweet smell emanating from them in the summer heat.

But the heart of the farm was the farmhouse. Grandma’s cast iron stove with barley soup simmering and its warmth in winter. The breakfast alcove that their sons made while Grandma and Grandpa were away in Florida that one time. I remember my father’s and uncles’ secrecy as well as Grandma’s surprise, but it was my aunt Rita who recently told me that this was done to lift their spirits after Donald died, his plane shot down in the Korean War, his body never recovered.

When I think of the hole that was left in Grandma’s heart after Donald died, I remember how she told me what a happy memory it was of nursing him, her first baby. Donald was born the day after Grandma turned 22, and she had Billy, “her last child by doctor’s orders” after she turned 45. In those intervening years, Grandma was the constant heart of the home, day after day repeating the routine of raising children, cooking, baking, feeding the chickens, and attending Mass on Sundays.

Our Lady of the Lake Church Monponsett, MA

I used to go to Mass with Grandma at Our Lady of the Lake church where we sat on our side of the aisle, the left side, facing Mother Mary. I think this is where my devotion to Mary began, but I also think I knew Mary’s heart because I knew Grandma’s. She once told me about a surgery she had when she was 16. She said she died and didn’t want to come back. When I think of her subsequent trials and heartbreaks, I can understand why she resisted when the doctor said, “Wake up, Miss Preston, wake up...” She didn’t want to come back from her near-death experience, so beautiful was it. And it is by witnessing this story from a person I trusted with all my heart that I know there is a Heaven.

Bert and Edna Brine, aka,
 ~@Grandma and Grandpa@~

I also know that Grandma is there, finally reunited with Donald as well as knowing the mystery of Edna, her oldest daughter. And I know of the dreams she had for 15 years after Bert died when he would tell her, “Go back, Edna.”, that she is once again at his side. ¸¸.•¨¯`•¸¸ .•´*