Stegner Stories

Well the brownies are in the oven and the house smells heavenly. Kids are upstairs cleaning their rooms, and I'm furiously scanning photos.



I realized yesterday that some of these pictures are from the late 1800's. I guess that made me realize the responsibility of this task. I've had these photos in my possession for the last number of years, but it wasn't until I received an email from someone wanting copies of them, that I felt it was important to do something with them. I'm scanning them to put them on CDs for my siblings for Christmas.



The woman who wanted the photos is a second cousin. I didn't even know she existed, but I offered these pictures on a genealogy website awhile back, and she ran across it. Since, I've been writing to her, I've learned all kinds of interesting facts about my mom's family. Some of them are facts I didn't want to know, but it's been fun getting to know and understand better some of the stories my mom told me.



The woman who's writing me lives in Montana. Her grandfather was my grandfather's brother. Her grandfather used to invite my mom (an only child with rather serious parents) to the family cabin at Liberty Lake with him and his three sons each summer. My mom told me that these were some of the best memories of her childhood. Of the three boys, the oldest was farthest from my mom's age. She didn't know him well. The middle son accidentally chopped off the end of my mom's thumb one summer while she was holding a piece of wood for him to cut. The wood slipped, and you can guess the rest. The youngest son was closest to my mom's age. She told me how sad it was one summer because he wasn't there. He had passed away from scarlet fever. He was seven years old. So sad!



These are just a few of the stories I've been able to corroborate with her. She also shared the story of Mary Stegner who died leaving two young children behind. She said it shouldn't have happened. This story is too sad to share here right now. Mary asked her sister to raise her children, and her sister agreed, but then declined to do so after Mary's death. The children were raised by their grandmother, I believe.