The ancestor book and the scaffolding of a family

Re-posted by Mary Cay Kollmansperger, 11/9/2013

When we were in Utah for Spring Break last year I found a treasure. Like, a serious treasure.

It was our “Ancestor Book.” 

It is a vintage-y looking large book that my Dad bought when we were all young and that he gradually filled with stories of our ancestors.

...I had been meaning to find that big book of ours for a while…I wanted to check out some of the ancestor stories we had helped write and illustrate as a model for doing something similar in our own family.

But wow, I found so much more than ancestor stories.

All that time I thought that book was just filled with stories of those who went before us.  Little did I know it was also filled with stories of US.  What made our family run.  In that beautiful ancestor book I hit the goldmine: the whole “framework” for our family.

The scaffolding.

...As I looked through that book memories washed over me like velvet.

How incredibly grateful I am for my parents who masterminded their family to the very best of their abilities.

How grateful I am for their true example of deliberate parenting.

And for the evidence of that in my Dad’s careful hand…all the scribbles and pasted in notes along with perfect, thoughtful handwriting…things he wanted to do, to work his heart out, to build a family God would be proud of. 

(see the full post, along with many more pics - fabulous!)