WHY TBT IS IMPORTANT TO US ALL

Separated by miles but close in our hearts.

I love “Throw Back Thursday” and by the response I continually see, so do a lot of other people.  And it is not just because we are old and looking backwards.  

I believe that today due to the ease of moving here and there, but especially moving away from the familiarity of neighborhoods and family, it is easy to feel disconnected, isolated and alone.  I know I have over the years felt all these things.  I left Ingleside, Illinois in 1966 and never looked back—due to family circumstances there really wasn’t a reason to. That does not mean that I have not missed the connected feeling.  Moving away always left me feeling like I lived on the other side of the bridge.

I love and adore the family I married into.  They have taught me much about unconditional love and acceptance and today, I have no problem with feeling connected.  Forty eight years in one area should make you connected to something and it does.  But I find there are still times when I travel with friends who are from this area, who no matter where they go, run into someone they know from their past. 

My husband, Pat, could not travel up or down the 309 Corridor without running into someone he knew, either from school or old neighbors from the places where his family lived.  I would comment to him each time, “You don’t know how lucky you are.”  

Through social media came “Throw Back Thursday” and a reminder to us all, that we all are connected even when miles and time separate us.  As the family historian and genealogist, I love sharing our family history, but I especially enjoy knowing that the young people in our family are enjoying it too.  I have always given away and shared whatever I have.  I believe that this is not “mine” but “ours” and in sharing it with anyone who is interested, it insures that it will never be lost.  Knowing that someone out there has a copy of this or that gives me piece of mind.  

I’ll keep throwing out family pictures of times long gone and I hope you will too.  It reminds us all that we are one family, connected in time and history even when miles separate us.