I Have Family in Colorado?

This last week brought me an unexpected discovery.  I have a tendency to think that my family is restricted to the area just outside of Topeka, but I forget how large my family really is.  It turned out that my great aunt on my father's side of the family lives just down the road in Loveland.  I received an email late last week from her, asking us to come visit because my 96 year old great Grandpa Al and his wife Grandma Bonnie were visiting them, and they would like to see us. 

So down we went to Loveland, and I had a nice, long conversation with Gramps about his life.  It was like taking a drink from a deep well.  In a slow and halting style, he told us about the first time he saw an automobile, about what he remembered from World War I, and why he didn't end up in the Army for World War II.  Then, second cousins, cousins once removed, and more great aunts arrived, and before I knew it, I was surrounded by family that I only vaguely knew.  I ended up in a long conversation about epidemiology with a retired CDC doctor who I think is a first cousin once removed (he was my father's cousin).  Sarah knows how these cousin rules work.  I spent most of my life around more immediate family, whereas she has been going to family reunions with 300 attendees all her life.

So yeah, it's distant family, of the Aaron branch (my father's mother) but family just the same.  I felt very welcome in their home, and I got a fill of my need to be around people.  We left 3 hours later than I had expected, bellies full of chili and corn bread.  We'll be invited back, they say, for future family gatherings.  I'm looking forward to it.

I write about my family a lot, and growing up, family was the most important thing to me.  It took this weekend to remind me just how distant I've grown to my family since my father and my grandparents died.  I really need to track down some of my cousins in Kansas and see how they're doing.   I need to do a much better job keeping in touch with my kin.

One more thing: I never knew where the Tolberts came from, before Kansas, but Gramps says they were from Arkansas.  Now I just need to find out where they were before Arkansas.  I'd like to trace my ancestry back to Europe, at least, some day.