Birthday parties are fun occasions. For the little ones, they blow out the candles on the cake, play games and gobble cake and ice cream.

Adults either ignore the number of candles on the cake or go full tilt with drinks and food.

When someone turns 95 years of age, that’s cause for celebrating in a big way. That’s exactly what my cousins did for their mom, Mary Eade Bett. They invited me to her party, and relatives came from far and wide.

Many came from our hometown, Olean, New York. As we sat around the table at an elegant meal, the cousins spent most of the time reminiscing.

Many of us hadn’t seen each other in decades, but we found we had quite a few shared memories about our relatives in Olean.

The story of how our ancestors came to America was retold. Each one of us added a little bit more knowledge to the story, which is probably not exactly the truth, but suited us just fine.

One particular trip remains memorable, but my cousins didn’t know the whole story.

They knew my grandfather, Henry, had gone back to Lebanon to marry the girl he’d always admired. His uncle, Louie, accompanied him to marry another girl in their hometown.

What my cousins didn’t know is that an American girl who wanted to marry my grandfather found out he was sailing back with a new bride.

Infuriated, she told the authorities my grandfather was married to her, so Henry was arrested on the ship for being a bigamist. There were gasps and laughter and then the stories started to roll. Some family tales were still shrouded in mystery, others brought quite a few laughs.

We spent a good bit of the evening trying to decide how many childhood stories were true and which ones were embellished.

What came through loud and clear was how much we loved our heritage and our relatives, especially our aunts.

Aunt Vickie taught us organizational skills and how to bake banana bread. Aunt Souad always had a gentle smile and plenty of food.

Aunt Bev cherished traditions and taught us how to knit and collect antiques. Aunt Mary paved the way for the women in the family to go to college. My mom showed us it was possible to have a career and a family.

These women made time to be an important part of our lives, and all these years later, we remember their caring with fondness and love.

Getting together with family for special occasions is getting less common these days. Facebook has taken the place of phone calls and Sunday afternoon visits on the front porch. There’s still plenty of family gossip, but the mystery’s gone since we can verify everything with a quick internet search.

I often long for the days when we weren’t sure what was fact and what was fiction. We’ll never know for sure if Aunt Flip was married to a mobster, what our great-great grandmother did to earn money in the war, or what our aunt did when she worked for the CIA back in the 1950s.

In all honesty, it doesn’t really matter.

What I know to be true is how fortunate we are to have some of our relatives still with us, telling more stories and reminding us to cherish our roots.

 

This column was originally published in The Fort Bend Herald.