“The great advantage of living in a large family is that early lesson of life’s essential unfairness.” ~English Novelist Nancy Mitford
Visits with the Grandparents
Our mom Mary Ann Grayson Guevara was born in Washington, D.C., spent her whole life there, and even after she married and had eight children she still lived less than two blocks away from her parents. Though she was an only child, our frequent family get-togethers were often a logistical challenge, taking into account that her husband Nick’s family lived nearby as well. Christmas and Thanksgiving were all-day affairs, jumping from our family home, to one set of grandparents, then on to the other set. We little realized how fortunate we were to have four grandparents who each lived well into their 80s and longer. Four generations of family in the same small room, eating, talking over one another, and alternately feeling love and annoyance. As each child grew up and left home, they moved far and wide. We lived in Northern and Southern California, Oregon, Georgia, Wisconsin, Indiana, New York, Tennessee, and even Germany and Holland. And yet, most of us ended up right back where we started. I think it is a testament to the power of family – the domestic church and the cornerstone of the community.
A Legacy of Family Ties
Ann had a passion for researching the family tree, and over the years she had accumulated a great deal of paperwork about her and Nick’s ancestors. We her children took a mild to middling interest in her passion. When she died prematurely, we grieved in different ways. Three or four of us took up her research as a way to honor her efforts and to pass along the family stories she had left us. With the advent of online genealogical sources, it has allowed us to go further than she was able to with her limited time.
A few years ago “failure to launch syndrome” was a popular subject in the culture. The stereotype was the 30 year-old unemployed son playing video games in the family basement. Of course setting limits and expectations is a given, but the overall attitude of our culture seems to be that when a person reaches a certain age, he or she should leave the nest as soon as possible. Reality was very different for our ancestors. Educational and employment opportunities were more limited, of course, and it often took multiple incomes to run a household. Ann’s 1870 relatives in one Savannah GA household worked as a wood merchant, a tin smith, an engine builder, and an assistant housekeeper. Ann’s father grew up in a townhouse that hosted as many 16 and possibly even more extended family members at a time. The 1920 Savannah census for example shows 13 year-old Leon living with his parents, two great-aunts, and his siblings, including a married sister and her small child. It was the same house that Leon’s grandparents had lived in even before the turn of the century. Four (and briefly even five) generations in a few small rooms not just at Thanksgiving and Christmas, but every day of the year.
Joined for Life… and Beyond
While doing some recent research on family burial sites in Savannah, I discovered that Ann’s direct ancestors are buried in 10 different plots across two of the historic cemeteries in the city: Laurel Grove on the west side and Bonaventure on the east (up to 5 generations removed. There may be more yet beyond that). The biggest surprises were, first, the number of relatives without headstones and, second, the number of people buried per plot, each lot averaging about 10 feet wide by 14 feet deep. Ann’s paternal grandparents are buried in a well-marked and spacious double plot at Bonaventure with 8 other close Grayson relatives alongside them, while records at Laurel Grove indicate that her paternal 2nd great-grandmother Catherine Wall Patterson (1822-1865) shares her final resting place with 17 others, with only one small broken stone (not hers) indicating anyone at all is buried there. 
As far as I know, no one is complaining about the cemetery accommodations, and though a large extended family in one household might not be ideal, there are certainly many positive lessons and experiences younger and older people can gain from living in such close quarters. And after all, as George Eliot wrote in Adam Bede, “What greater thing is there for human souls than to feel they are joined for life – to strengthen each other in all labor to rest on each other in all sorrow to minister to each other in all pain, to be with each other in silent unspeakable memories?”
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