It's a Jungle in Here!

Growing up I used to love the fact that people would ask my Pawpaw where they got that red-headed girl, and he would say that the milk man dropped me off or that he found me by the road. A joke with old people, but not funny to me. I knew Pawpaw loved me, and I never doubted that I belonged in his family. Just something I dealt with.

My dad’s mom and I looked just alike. Whenever I would go anywhere with her, her friends would say that she couldn’t deny me. She and I both have red hair, same turned up nose, same skin color, same bald spot on the side of our heads. There are pictures of her from when she was younger, and she was movie-star beautiful. She still is beautiful, like a Scottish woman with ruddy color in her cheeks and full of laughter and life. She is 84. She is tired now; you can tell, but Mama Jo is still the same woman.


Somewhere along my road of life I decided to become Catholic. This is not a decision you take lightly. You take a course that lasts for a year. You make the decision to convert, or you do like I did….you repeat the course to be sure it is what you want. It was something I felt very certain of.

My Pawpaw has negative thoughts against the Catholic Church for reasons that I understand fully well, but can not disclose. He was less than thrilled at my decision for the cross-over. My grandmother just wanted to make sure that Catholics were still Christians, a fact that I can assure her of wholeheartedly.

 

Somewhere along time I longed to find Irish in my background. Scottish was almost certain, but I was looking for Irish. My parents dig and dig in their genealogy, so they were able to come up with surnames and history. The site www.ancestry.com didn’t hurt much either, nor did trips to hot courthouses and cemeteries in the summer.

 

In the digging I have learned much. I have learned that the Folmar side of my family originated in Germany as Volmars. I had a boyfriend in high school that was in the Navy. He was from my hometown, and I loved him dearly. We talked of being married, but it was never meant to be. For some reason I could never fully separate from him, and being with him was like putting on soft flannel on a cold morning and at the same time, extremely exasperating! Come to find out some years later that through this Volmar line, he and I are cousins! Go figure. Two brothers from this line split ways once they got to America. One changed his name to Fulmer, the other to Folmar. Through course of marriages, the Fulmer’s descendant married a Gunter ancestor, and there you have two cousins. His dad and I compared family records day. It was wonderful to see a closer tie to this family that I have loved for years. Family ties are important to me.

After a while, I really longed to discover Catholicism in my background. While my dad could lead part of his line to Northern Ireland, his ancestors on that branch originated in England, lived in County Armagh for a while, and then moved over to America. They were Quakers that were with William Penn. Cool information, but not what I was looking for.

My mom has a book at her house that traces her line back to some Malones. I traced this line back to Ireland. I was convinced that given my Pawpaw’s faith in the Lord and my Granny’s as well I would find some clue to the Catholic Church. I was not disappointed.

To be continued….