Moving to the Front Row

Several years ago, Doe’s favorite aunt, Anna Marie passed away. At the funeral home on the night of the visitation, the row closest to the casket was occupied by the surviving siblings of the Owen family. They were the older generation. In the row behind were the sons and daughters husbands and wives of those in the front row. Behind us were the grandchildren. Today the front row is gone and my generation is now sitting in that front row of life’s journey. We are now the older generation, and I have become the patriarch of the current living Arnold generation. The time has come for us to be the older generation.

This last weekend was special. Thirteen of the Arnold lineage, plus husbands and wives, kids, and couple of girlfriends and grand kids gathered at my brother Terry’s home in Cottage Grove, Oregon. There were only two families missing. We had such a good time reminiscing the old days a in Indiana. Lots of good stories and laughs. The only sad note is that this is probably the last time this many members of our family will be together as a unit. Eventually this is what family comes to. The older generation moves to the front row, and is replaced by they next generation.

My two brothers and I are now sitting in the front row. It is a fact of living in today’s world. All of our genealogy lines moved from the East to the West, one step at a time. They all ended up in Indiana, where the next generations stayed for over a hundred years. My generation then spread out all over the country. We were a nomadic generation. In the group that was in Oregon, we were from, South Florida, New York City, San Antonio, Texas, San Diego, California, and finally Cottage Grove, Oregon. If you took a roll call, ten years ago, many would be living somewhere other than what is listed. And so goes the nomad life in our family. Something is lost, when family lives so far apart.

I am about to finally finish our family history book. In rereading things I researched and wrote about over fifteen years ago, I was reminded of our family roots. I uncovered so many stories because every life is a story. God Bless our family and yours.


Have a nice day.

Sam