Nancy's Notes

In the recent move of my dad into assisted living, the five of us siblings had to determine the next ownership of several family heirlooms that, in some cases, now rest in our 4th-generation hands. These items, most of which my dad wrote about in his autobiography, are from both of our parents’ families, and several date back to the late 1800s. The excellent condition of these items, and the fact that they are still around at all, indicates how well they have been appreciated and cared for, and that placed a layer of responsibility on our shoulders that we, as siblings, chose to carry. Perhaps in a future story, I will share more about all of the heirlooms that my parents had, but for now, I want to tell you about two of the items I received.

First of all, my dear husband and a couple of my brothers figured out how to transport the Wedel Family Dinner Bell to Stockton. If it had just been the bell, it wouldn’t have been a problem. But the heavy, cast iron dinner bell, which is over 100 years old, is fastened to a beam that is more than 10-feet long. The beam is still “The Original Beam” that held the bell on my great-grandparents’ farm, north of Goessel on Highway 15. So the heirloom—the dinner bell—also includes the wooden beam, to be authentic. Therefore, that’s how we brought it to our home, all intact, the beam sticking out at least four-foot behind our trailer, with a red flag attached to it. According to my dad, the story that goes with the bell is that when his mother was young, and she and her sisters had to work in the fields, her mother (my great-grandmother) would ring the dinner bell to let everyone know it was time for lunch. Grandma said the horses knew the sound of that bell, and they would just STOP in their tracks and wouldn’t budge another inch; they knew it was their time to rest, too. My dad said he and his cousins were told never to play with the bell, because if it was rung for a while or at an odd time, neighbors would come to see if there was some sort of trouble.

Another item I received is from my mother’s side of the family. It is a yarn winder, made by my great-grandfather Krehbiel for my Grandma Prisca Bachman when she was a young girl. This tool, well over 100 years old, folds up easily for storage; but when clamped onto a table or chair, it unfolds to an apparatus that is at least two feet in diameter. I had no idea how it works or how it was used. Fortunately, people who own similar tools have recorded videos of a yarn winder in action, and they are posted on the internet, of course. Although my grandmother always called it a yarn winder, as I watch video online, it looks more like an UN-winder, because it unwinds a skein of yarn or crochet thread and creates a ball of yarn on a second aparatus, called a winder. I may not have all of that right, and I don’t recall ever seeing my grandmother use it; but that’s what I see in the videos online. Also online, the tool I have is called a “swift.” Anyway, to me this piece is a yarn winder because that’s that Grandma called it.

I am thrilled to have these and many other family heirlooms in my possession, and I feel the importance—actually, the responsibility—of continuing to care for them. Telling the stories that go with the items is important to our family and who we are. What will happen to them when I’m gone is out of my control, but I will certainly try to instill in my sons and our grandchildren the value of these heirlooms and how they tell the history of our family.

I recently ran across the following bit called “Ancestoral Mathematics,” and I want to include it here, because throughout this processof divvying up our families’ heirlooms, I have thought a lot about my grandparents and great-grandparents, their desire and determination to make a home in the United States where they could worship God as they chose, and how difficult their lives were compared to mine. So here is our “Ancestoral Mathematics.”

In order to be born, you needed:

2 parents

4 grandparents

8 great-grandparents

16 second great-grandparents

32 third great-grandparents

64 fourth great-grandparents

128 fifth great-grandparents

256 sixth great-grandparents

512 seventh great-grandparents

1,024 eighth great-grandparents

2,048 ninth great-grandparents

For you to be born today from 12 previous generations, you needed a total of 4,094 ancestors over the last 400 years. Just think about them for a moment: What were their struggles?

What did they battle? How much sadness along the way? What were their difficulties? How many love stories? What were their hopes for the future? What did they have to undergo for you to exist in this present moment?

I know of people who want nothing to do with the “baggage” of family heirlooms and artifacts. That is not my attitude about items that I now have in my possession, too numerous to write about here. Each item is a precious reminder of of a life lived: people who left their home country and traveled to America in search of religious freedom and a better life; people who cleared land and constructed their own houses and barns with materials they found themselves; ancestors who worked hard, growing plants and raising animals for food.

When you really stop and think about it, we have no right to ever complain about how difficult our lives are.