Memorial Day

I love Memorial Day.  Our family tradition is to go to some of the cemeteries in the Salt Lake Valley where our ancestors are buried.  My whole life and my mom's whole life and my grandma's whole life.  That's what we do.

This was on my phone when I woke up:

It's impressive to me that Adam remembers it as well as he does (and remembers how to get to all the cemeteries).

We always start in Murray.  

My grandma turned 94 last week!

That's where my grandpa Jaynes is buried along with my grandma's parents and brothers.  Both sides of my grandma's family are buried there and my great great Dahl grandparents are there too.  My sisters are the keepers of the stories and they keep us all straight as we walk around.

There's a cannon there that the kids used to climb on back when I was a kid.  Now it's this landmark we take pictures by.

(I didn't take many pictures but a lot were taken.  I got a few from my aunt's facebook post this morning.)

I was happy to see two of my cousins, David and Shawn (pictured there on the left with their wives who I hadn't met).

Several people snapped this sibling picture and we're all looking at different cameras.  I was happy to see these kids though.

The next stop was the Sandy cemetery.  My great grandparents on the Jaynes side are buried there, along with my great grandma's parents and grandparents.  

My great great great grandma Henrietta crossed the plains when she was 5 years old.  If we ever didn't eat our food, my great grandma would tell us that Henrietta would cry for a crust of bread so we needed to eat.

My sisters and I discussed that it was too bad we didn't have an ancestor who we could honor by not eating quite so much....

Here's a picture of all our big kids who honor Henrietta by cleaning their plates.  Henrietta and David Dowding are buried there.

After that, we went to Crescent.  My great great Jaynes grandparents are buried there.  Ida Amanda is my great great grandmother who died of diabetes, leaving 8 small children.  Olivia took a picture of Mark next to her grave. 

He pulled his insulin pump out of his pocket for the picture.  I told him someday he and Ida Amanda can meet and neither of them will have diabetes anymore.

We took a break for lunch at Golden Corral, which was my grandma's treat.  I sat at the cool kids table (my siblings and their spouses).

Our last stop was the West Jordan cemetery.  My Dahl and Egbert great grandparents are buried there.  All the Dahl graves have tall headstones with DAHL emblazoned on them.  If you know many Dahls, that is on brand.

We like the name.

It's why my sisters and I and all our girl cousins don't have middle names, so we can use Dahl as a middle name once we married.

If you asked me, I would say that I love Memorial Day because of the tradition and memories associated with my dear grandma and our extended family.

The older I get though, I feel increased appreciation for those ancestors we talk about while we survey the carved headstones.  They the builders of the nation.  I can feel my roots go deep deep deep into the Salt Lake Valley and I think about them, almost all humble farmers.  I wonder what they would think if they saw the suburban sprawl that is now the valley where they used to work the fields.  I wonder what they would think of the temples dotting the landscape.  They worked hard and sacrificed and steadily held the line, passing on a heritage of righteousness and faith.

They make me want to hold up my end.