Hi Cousins,
In October 2010, in response to one of Don’s emails about his childhood memories of John, Axel and Grayson blowing up stumps behind their home on Highway 99, Diana was inspired, and wrote the following in an email sent to all the cousins.
“I loved your memories from our house – I don’t remember them at all! Is it because of my age, or was I not home? I was sixteen and driving!! I think I would have seen your log house sometime before its demise! I am beginning to wish I had kept a Diary when I was young or I should say my whole life. I especially need one from a week ago!
I have a proposal to make! On the next rainy day when we are all bored, if we ever have time to be bored, let us all write our most vivid memories with the family and share them. We might come up with a book, or at least a few episodes of Laurel and Hardy! Yvonne and I have been accused of a few Laurel and Hardy antics. What do you say family, young and old??????”
Elske og Fred, Cousin Diana
Anna Soaper concurred with Diana’s suggestion and immediately sent out the following email with some of her childhood Jensen family recollections.
“That would be great!! I love hearing all the memories of the younger versions of my older relatives! Here are a few from a younger member of the family. My dates may seem like yesterday to many of you…but I’m stretching WAY back here…
One that I remember from being very young, most likely pre 1985 (that would have made me four or younger) is going to my great grandfather Axel’s house in Marysville before he moved into the Condo on Armar and eating peanuts in the garage that connected into the house. We had to stay outside, but it was warm and sunny. I thought he had such a BIG car. Am I making this up? Did he have a big car for the time?
Also, I remember going to my grandma Carmen’s house when they still lived in their Marysville duplex (also pre 1985) and playing on the small little billiards table that had a reversible top. This was AMAZING to me that they made tables that could be flipped over for poker tables.
Speaking of poker, some of my best memories of the Christmas and other family holidays were the men’s poker games. They’d all come with their Crown Royal bags full of quarters, dimes and nickels…of course I always wanted my grandpa Leo or my dad to win, but I always was so happy when Evan would pull out a great hand because he was always teased for taking too much time to bet!! haha, I think it was more like a very calculated decision
And, my best memories are of my grandma Carmen. Her and I spent a lot of time together as my mom and dad both worked and she would babysit a lot after school and during the summer. I love remembering our long walks in Jennings park. She would show me all the different kinds of flowers and trees. We’d collect bits of bark, nuts, rocks and other nature type things and make little scenes when we’d get home using fake birds or candles. I also loved walking around the woods surrounding the Lake Goodwin house. I remember mint growing along the shore and also huckleberries, salmon berries and my favorite the thimble berries that grandma showed me how to identify as safe to eat…she always loved eating We’d explore for hours before going home and discovering we’d eaten too many berries to make anything out of them, so we’d just munch on the remainder the rest of the day. She also taught me how to knit and sew. I love knowing that one day when I have time to put these skills to work that I didn’t learn them from a workshop or a seminar, that I can always say that my grandma taught me how to do this.
One thing I appreciate every time I get an email from any of the family is how proud we are of our heritage and how much we keep it alive in the traditions we maintain.
I love that we remember each other. It reminds me of a Lee Ann Womack song. Here is a link for the lyrics. You should really try and listen to it, it’s beautiful.
Also, congratulations to Aunt Cathy and Cousin Dana for completing the Woman’s Nike Marathon in San Francisco. It takes a lot of mental toughness, maybe even more than the physical strength, to accomplish something like that. Way to represent the family!!
Love to you all,
Anna
Well I agree with Diana and Anna. Gathering everyone’s favorite recollections about the last 86 years (the age of our oldest cousin) of being in and around the family descended from Hans Peter and Johanna Jensen of Lemvig Denmark could be a lot of fun. Make sure that those stories can be conveniently and easily stored and shared with anyone who wants to read them is the primary purpose of this blog. A secondary objective is to make this information available to all those other descendants of Hans Peter and Johanna who will never have had the pleasure of knowing Chris, Pete, Andy, Axel Oscar, John, Otto and Bodil.
So Cousins I encourage you embrace Diana’s suggestion and write down your favorite memory and, until we get this lemvigcousins blog fine tuned, either email or snail mail it to my attention and I will post it on the blog for everyone to read.
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