Katherine's Story

My family of origin story comes from both my parents who told me the stories of how they grew up and their parents and grandparents. For my parents, their families were very important. Both of them came from English backgrounds and they were farmers. They raised cattle, they kept the sense of animals and planting even when we no longer lived on a farm, but it is important. That is part of my family theme and values is to be really connected to the land and animals. When we were growing up our values always had to do with good health, lots of exercise, and taking care of your pets before you took care of yourself. Who needed your support and help before you were doing your own thing? Values really had to do with honoring family and being totally transparent and honest about what was going on with you, being a good communicator that was kind of a core family value, and doing your best. I have 4 siblings, all about 2 years apart. It was very organized, our lives were very very organized, I guess you have to when you have a big family like that – my parents were both teachers so they expected us to have a certain routine to get up and make our beds, practice and do homework, we all had to keep track of what we were responsible for. We all played instruments, we all had to practice, my mom would start the egg timer for about an hour before we went to school, we had to practice our instruments. As we grew up and we left home, and we went to college and got jobs and got married and had our own children the relationship with all of them at the time have change over time. In that period, it was really important for our kids to know each other so that now as they are adults and they have families, they have cousins that they feel quite connected to which is kind of wonderful, we do a lot of sharing of our lives together. We all go to the same island in Maine in the summer, so 3 of my siblings built and also my family too we built our own little houses there, kind of near the log cabin so that more of us could be there at the same time. It’s a wonderful place for family gatherings and lunch picnics on the rocks, swimming in the quarries and biking around the island, lots of fun things we do together. I take my violin and my younger brother plays the cello, brings his cello, my sister is a singer, but she also plays the keyboard too. It's really fun to play together, we often say wouldn’t our mother be delighted because she's the one who made us practice, its paid off for her because we are still doing it. The basic values that I learned from them I think are still there, are still the core values, but we do keep connected, that’s important. We now passing on the cabin in Maine, the log cabin to our own children so that means the cousins will have to figure out how to work together to keep the boats in good shape and keep the cabins clean and enjoy that place with their children, with our grandchildren. It's kind of a multigenerational process in Maine and that’s where I keep connected to my sibling's. It has been fun as we met and talked to explore family a little but because that to me is the most important set of relationships certainly that I have and I think that most people have, my kids probably pass on the same values to their children too Things that they learned as they were growing up, they keep connected through each other, keeping connected and learning through each other is just really really important no matter what the ups and downs of one's life might be.