I must come from a long line of moving people…

The majority of my ancestors on my dad’s side have been in one area of Ohio for almost 200 years so I just have to think that the urge to move has to come from my mom’s side.  Given her story, it only makes sense.

Mom’s great great grandfather moved to Kentucky almost 200 years ago, much like Daddy’s moved to Ohio.  I can find a majority of my ancestors on my mom’s side in two cemeteries not to far from where I live now.  But that doesn’t tell the whole story.

Although my great grandpa spent his life in Kentucky, for some reason his children moved to Illinois.  My grandpa met and married my grandma there and they proceeded to have four children.  My mom, the baby of the family, was just two months old when my grandma died.  Left with an 8 year old girl, boys 7 and 5, and an infant, I’m sure Grandpa had his hands full and he had to make some tough decisions.

Within a year of Grandma’s death, Grandpa headed back to Kentucky.  On the way, he allowed my mom to be adopted by a wonderful childless couple in Indiana but kept in touch with them as Mom grew up so I was lucky enough to have two grandpas on my mom’s side.

The moving around continued through Mom’s childhood.  They moved from Indiana to Ohio to Florida and back to Ohio.  They finally settled down when Mom was in elementary school and stayed in that area until Mom was married with children of her own in a town close by.  At that point, they moved in with Mom.  From that point on, Mom spent a good, long time in one spot but her “moving” experiences translated to moving furniture.  She seems to have passed that habit down to a few of us.  J

You may wonder what this all has to do with anything today.  Well, every time I visit Mom she tells me that she has “everything ready to go”.  She tells me that “he” told her that she’ll be moving.  It has made for some interesting situations.

When we moved her into the home, we tried to set her room up with furniture and pictures that would be familiar to her.  We tried hanging pictures on the wall but she pulled them down, hangers and all.  Pictures or anything else that we put on her dresser were soon packed away in the dresser drawers.

Most recently she has begun stacking her furniture so that it is “ready to go”.  Tina, her aide, has been quite surprised at times to walk in and find pieces of furniture stacked three high.  The stacking is troublesome because of the possibility that might fall and hit Mom.  Hmmmm…

So today was a bit of a moving day although Mom was not aware.  Once I had her settled at the table for lunch, I went back to her room and gathered up the pieces most likely to cause a problem.  I took home a straight-backed chair and a storage footstool.  We’ll see if I have to take anything else home next time.  J