#52Ancestors #Week27 - The Great Outdoors

No, Not the Cult Classic Movie of Memes: The Chamberlain family's adventuring!

I did not grow up in a household that hunted or fished. I did, though, grow up hiking in the real wilderness and tent-camping every summer from ages 8 - 18. LOTS of camping. Also, since my first summer, we stayed with my grandparents at two different Wisconsin cabins, playing croquet, swimming and most of all, FISHING! There was Muskie Camp with Chamberlain great-aunts and great-uncles, fabulous and fun folk, all! 

One of my favorite cabin memories was of the first summer my grandparents took my cousin and I, both age 4, to the cabin, and one of the things we looked forward to was roasting the giant pink and yellow marshmallows they'd bought as a treat. I remember the torrential rain that evening, and my grandpa dressing in his rain gear (looking like a sea captain) and going out to grill our marshmallows, near the kitchen window so that we could watch. They loved us so well.

It was very likely that same summer that we were 4 that Grandpa started teaching us about Ootie Bugs. What the What? you may ask! The cabin was just a short distance up the road from a sandstone outcropping, where we went frequently to play in the sand, carve in the sandstone (we were children, we followed what the adults were doing) and climb the little incline with Grandpa. In the sandy spots in the incline, sandflies made their homes and Grandpa taught is that if we shouted into the holes, the "Ooties" would come out!  So if you ever see two women in their 50's, one dark haired annd one fair, shouting into the sand, we are only remembering our Grandpa. And the "Sand-Pit" was decimated - condos are there now. Grandma made up her own little songs in order to teach us the names of all the animals. She loved entertaining little songs that she remembered from childhood, and made these up for us:

                    A deer, a deer, a daddy deer, what is it?

                    A Buck! we'd shout.

                    A deer, a deer, a mommy deer, what is it?

                    A doe! we'd shout.

                    A deer, a deer, a baby deer, what is it?

                    A fawn!

My grandma took us strawberry picking, and when we were older, my Grandpa taught us how fish (you'd better believe we bait our own hooks) and to row a rowboat or canoe. 

I've lost the details, but I have memory of Gramps Chamberlain's (Grandma's dad) story of getting lost on a hunting trip (likely with his sons Clyde and Harry) and falling asleep in an abandoned eagle's nest.  True perhaps but must consider the source. Unfortunately, any fishing lore is lost to (my) memory. He and Gram also helped look out for the widow across the street and her household of children, and my grandma would regale us with stories of how her dad would load both families into his car (over a dozen children between the two families, so perhaps a truck) and had before the trip bought enough watermelon and other melons for all. I know that they made ice cream at home, so perhaps brought that along.

My grandma and her cousin Helen were born only weeks apart and grew up next door to each other. They were the oldest, and when they were growing up their neighborhood was the end of town, Grandma & Helen would each take a potato from home, and some matches. They would go to the field at the end of their street and dig a small hole and cook their potatoes for a snack, and gaze up at the stars. I can just see their dark-haired heads bent together giggling and planning a new adventure.

Also, when Grandma and Helen were about 11 or 12, they spent a summer in Missouri, mostly on the farms of Uncle Minard & Uncle Ben. I'm sure they must have participated in farm chores, and perhaps a year earlier had traveled to another part of Missouri to visit Gramps Chamberlain's parents. Grandma remembers them as hillbillies who scarcely had a home, a shack with a dirt floor. For the life they led with the most minimal of comforts and exposure to the elements, they certainly lived a long life.

Prior to these tidbits of stories that have survived, Uncle Minard, Uncle Ben and almost every single relative of their generation and prior were all farmers, many hewing farms from the wilderness as my family moved from the original Colonies to Kentucky, Illinois and Missouri. In particular, Gramps Chamberlain's grandfather Henry died when Gramps was a teen, his cause of death listed as both skin cancer and face cancer. No doubt from a life lived behind a plow or on a horse. There are also stories of cousins in that family that drowned in the Ohio River and in the Mississippi, to say nothing of the known tornados or prairie fires that sometimes ravaged the area.

I have the utmost respect for those that both taught us about nature, and for those thatb came before them that were in close and daily contact with the land. I recently finished a book about gifts of the land, and I'm certainly grateful for the exposure I've had to the Great Outdoors.