My “Sisters”

  

Darla, Me and Cheryl    

      I grew up as an only child and so I never really knew what it was like to live with siblings.    I had the next best thing though . . .  I had cousins.   My cousins are my sisters in many ways.  My mother’s sister Eloise had 3 children – Larre, Cheryl and Darla.    Larre and Cheryl were a good bit older than me, but Darla was only a little over 2 years older than me.

           When I was in the 6th grade, we moved close to my Aunt and Uncle so I got to spend a lot more time with my cousins.    I would spend a lot of time at their house hanging out with Darla and she would spend many summer days at my house.   We lived in an apartment complex that had a swimming pool and she would come over early in the morning and we’d hang out by the pool all day.   

          Our favorite thing to do was to go to the K-Mart across the street and get a Chef Boy-ar-dee boxed pizza mix and come home and make homemade pizza.   I should own the company by now if you got stock for every pizza of theirs you bought!   They sure were good though.

          Our families have always gotten together for Thanksgiving and for Christmas.  These family gatherings have always been some of the best times of my life.   We would often talk to friends about our get-togethers and they would find it hard to believe that we never heard a cross word or anything spoken in anger.  It was and still is a constant source of humor and laughter.   Whether we are telling tales on one another or just talking over old times, there is always laughter involved.  I am so proud to have come from a family like this and hope that it has rubbed off onto the next generation (and I’m pretty sure it has).  

          There’s always a card game, a trivia game or some kind of sports event that everyone gets into.  I must admit that even though I love to play cards, I do love our family trivia games.  We divide the family into 2 teams and then have at it!   There’s always an answer or two that gets everyone going and then it just goes downhill from there with us laughing all the way to the bottom of the hill!

          Darla and her husband live on a small lake in Jonesboro, Georgia and we spend time there having picnics, bar-b-ques and just hanging out.   The kids (and now  the grandkids) can fish, swim, paddleboat or go out on the lake in the canoe.  It has been the source of many a great party and as always, lots of laughter!

          Cheryl and her husband, Roy, live in an old farmhouse near Jackson, Georgia and have lots of room.   There’s tons of places for the kids to play and for the grown-ups to relax and try to rest (which usually doesn’t last long!).   We love having Thanksgiving and Christmas there because there is so much room and so many things to do.   One year we had a true “Redneck” Thanksgiving.   When we pulled up, some of the family was already there and the women of the family were in the lower yard firing a pistol while the men were next to the barn throwing knives.  It was a hoot – there’ll be another blog on that event, because it was just too crazy not to have it’s own page!

          The older we get, the more I have come to appreciate and love the “Sisters” that God gave to me.   I got the next best thing to real ones, but I couldn’t love them more if they were my real sisters.   They have made my life a wonderful place and I’m the lucky one – I’m richer, more blessed, and happier for having these wonderful ladies in my life!

          I Love You, my Sisters!

         

Loved Ones Long Gone

          I grew up not knowing who my Grandparents were because they were all dead before I was born.  This saddened me greatly and I had this unnatural (bordering on obsessive) desire to know them.   Through the years I have come to learn a lot about them, some things that even my mother and father did not know.   I became obsessed with genealogy (the study of one’s family history) when I was in my very early 20’s and now have tens of thousands of relatives (and yes, I have that many) in a database with their dates of birth, marriage and deaths, places and photos of their graves, and photos and stories of their lives.

          My intent has always been to publish a story about what I find, but it is an overwhelming task.  I can not tell you just how many hours of my life I have spent doing family history research, but it is far too many to count.   One day I hope to make my book a reality, but until then, I’ll keep on digging for the stories that make the loved ones I never knew real to me.

          I love old cemeteries, old stories and most of all, old pictures.   Pictures capture a moment in time that would all but be lost, especially for those who never knew the people in them.  Below are a few of my family members that I love to look at and share.

          On the left is my Grandmother and Grandfather, Elijah Albright “Lige” Veal and Carrie Elizabeth Edna Frances Sarratt Veal.  In the middle is my father, Joe Dorsey “J.D.” Petty when he looked like a little girl, haha!  And then my mother, Martha Frances Veal when she was 3 years old.

 

          On the left is (from left to right), my great-grandfather,  Green Berry Sarratt, my grandfather, Elijah Albright Veal, Sr., Bobby Davis, my uncle, E. A. “Bub” Veal, Jr. and my great-grandmother Alice Miller Turner Sarratt.  Bobby Davis was the grandson of Alice’s sister Ella Sarratt Mitchell and Bub Veal is the brother of Martha and Eloise Veal.      The next picture is of my great aunt, Lucy Hope Sarratt (sister of Carrie) and a friend sometime around 1914 or so when she was about 20.    And the picture on the right is of my mother and her sister, Martha Frances Veal and Alice Eloise Veal.

          My mother and her mother shortly before Grandmother died in 1938.   My mother in about 1935 at about age 25 and then my dad when he was in the service, somewhere around 1943.

 

          My mother’s grandmother, Alice Miller Turner Sarratt and then her daughter, Ella Sarratt Mitchell.   One of the only pictures we have of my mother and both of her siblings, E. A. “Bub” Veal, Jr., my mother, Martha Frances Veal Petty and their sister, Alice Eloise Veal Mitchell.

          I know that they are now all together and happy again, but it still doesn’t make it any easier on those of us left behind.  I miss each and every one of them more than I can express and long for the days when we will all be together again.  In the meantime, I will try to make them proud of those of us who carry on the legacy they left behind.

          Remember to honor those you love and make them proud, whether they are still here or “Long Gone”.