Ye Olde Family Tree: Yes, we have one!

Why am I posting this picture? Because all those recently-discovered Facebookers among our diverse and prolific clan may wish to have a copy, and
I'm not that good with Facebook yet, and may never be, so this is for all of you who may want to copy this picture of our family's roots.

As I look this, I can vividly remember Grandmother Ray visiting my parents during winters when I was a very small and unruly child who was reluctant to leave his nice warm bed in the mornings. Grandma, a rather stern, proper, and authoritarian type, accustomed to being obeyed, would come to the bottom of the stairs leading up to my little corner of the bedroom, and sternly announce
"If you're not down here in five minutes, I'm coming up there with a dipper full of cold water!" That worked every time, because I considered that prospect a fate worse than death! Grandma's favorite cure for whatever ailed me was a big tablespoonful of Castor Oil-flavored brown sugar, and for years afterward, every time I tasted brown sugar I imagined I could taste the Castor Oil in it. When I was three or four, I was more afraid of Grandma than I was of God Himself in clouds of thunder and lightning! To escape her and her spoonfuls of that 'tonic' of hers, I could have happily run six blocks in my bare feet through broken glass.

Grandma read the Bible whenever she wasn't helping Mom with the daily chores, and it was her constant guide and inspiration. If she thought I would understand, she would quote parts of it to me, to reinforce her own opinion of my behavior, which was never quite up to her standards, but always improvable enough to 'make do with for now'. I constantly aspired to attaining that approval which always seemed to be so tantalizingly near yet beyond my reach. But when Spring would come, and Grandma packed her Bible and other treasures into a bag, and departed for 'The Farm' once more, I heaved a big sigh of relief, because now, I was 'Free At Last!', summer was just around the corner, and life was good.

I never met Grandfather, because he died ten years before I was born, but having had more than a passing acquaintance with Grandmother, I think I could hazard a guess as to why he decided to run away from home to begin homesteading a property out in the wild west.  He probably didn't like that Castor Oil and Brown Sugar Tonic any more than I did!