I'm sorry Ida Amanda

My mom told me that her great-grandmother had type 1 diabetes.  At the time, they called it dropsy.

The next time I talked to my mom, I had the presence of mind to ask which great-grandmother.  It was Ida Amanda Atwood who was married to Frederick Delmer Jaynes.  From her, diabetes DNA made its way to her son Homer Warren Jaynes who in turn passed the DNA to his son Homer Warren Jaynes, Jr.  That's my mom's dad and those genes were passed to me, then Mark.

The reason I feel like I owe Ida Amanda an apology is that before this, I never felt any sort of connection to her.  In my own narrative of family history, she was just the first wife.

I should explain.

Ida Amanda died in 1909 when my great-grandpa, Homer Warren Jaynes, Sr. was only eleven years old.  He, in turn, died in 1959 and my grandpa, Homer Warren Jaynes, Jr. died in 1974, when I was only one year old.

So I have no personal experience with any of them that I can remember and no reference for who Ida Amanda was.

Who I did know was Arvella, my great-grandma.  She was the wife of one of the Homers and mother to the other.  She had a sparkling personality and brown eyes. When I was little, she would ask me, "How are my brown eyes?" and when we would say good-bye, she'd say, "Take care of my brown eyes."  I understood from a very young age that she was where I came from.  She was where I got my brown eyes.

I love this picture, taken in 1953
My grandpa and grandma are standing in the back row on the left
That's my great-grandpa and great-grandma sitting on the couch, amidst their grandchildren.
My mom is seated on the floor, far right.  What a cutie.

When Arvella was three years old, her dad Eric Nelson died.

Eric Mattson Nelson

Nine years later, Eric's widow (and Arvella's mother) Sarah, married the widower Frederick Delmer Jaynes (husband of the late Ida Amanda).

Sarah Jane Dowding

Eventually Arvella ended up marrying her step-brother Homer Warren Jaynes, Sr.

Arvella was the one I knew.  She was my Grandma with the Brown Eyes.  She was the one who told me stories.  She, of course, didn't know Ida Amanda.  Ida Amanda never figured much into the stories  Great-Grandma would tell me as a little girl.  She told me about her mother, about the miraculous ways her young widowed mother was blessed in providing for her three little daughters.  She told me about her father.  She told me about her husband and her son.

I'd like to think she thought about Ida Amanda fondly though, the mother of her husband.  I'd like to think Homer Warren, Sr. had stories of his mother to tell too.

I've just never really considered the link between Ida Amanda and me until now.

This is her, pictured alongside her husband Frederick:

This is the house where they lived in Crescent, Utah:

I think my great-grandfather is the one with the bow tie next to his dad.

Now, since I passed on something from Ida Amanda to Mark Edward, I finally recognize that I came from her too.

She was the mother of eight children before epidurals or sippy cups or disposable diapers.  I'm sure she worked hard.  I'm sure she didn't want to die and leave her young family behind.  Her youngest was three years old when Ida Amanda died.

This Memorial Day, I honor my great great grandmother.