Thankful Thursday – Family Matters

Nunn-Maki family 1968

The events of the past week have prompted me to think about the things I am thankful for.  I am thankful that:

* Our first cousin, once removed is alive and on the road (albeit long) to recovery after being a random victim of gun violence.

* The Cincinnati hospital was successful in locating and removing the bullet, even though it was a new procedure for them.

* Garrison Keillor in his April 4, 2013 News from Lake Wobegone segment said shame on you to Congress for their inaction on firearm responsibility and being under the control of the gun manufacturers.

* I have the opportunity to meet my newly found second cousins, the grandchildren of Elizabeth Nunn Siebert. I am so excited to learn more about my grandfather’s siblings. I have been working on this family for seventeen years! Stay tune for more information.

* SteveMorse.org has a relationship calculator to make it easy to figure out how these relationships!  

* My sister-in-law recently found my mother’s lockbox that held Mom’s birth certificate, baptismal certificate from the Methodist Episcopal Church, Easter Sunday, April 12, 1925, my father’s birth certificate, my mother’s Certificate of Literacy dated November 1948, (ironic because in fact, my mother was the smartest person I will ever know), and my parent’s marriage certificate.  These are now in my possession.  My mother kept these important papers in a small metal lock box in the event of evacuation, her box could easily be placed in the trunk of her car and away she goes.

Family does matter and we are blessed to have great family relationships. 

Make Me a Channel of Your Peace

I have a self made rule that my blog would contain only genealogy related information. I veered from that rule twice when I thought it was important to remember the victims of the Newtown school massacre.  This will be the third time.

On Friday evening, the daughter of my husband’s cousin was shot and robbed near Dayton, Ohio.  Another innocent victim of gun violence. She is in the ICU of a Cincinnati hospital with two feet of her intestine removed, plus other internal injuries.  

This young woman is a gentle soul, in her mid-thirties, and she and her husband work in a facility for geriatric residents located in the suburbs of Dayton.

Please don’t wait until gun violence visits your family.  Take action today by joining one of the groups making a difference.  Write your state and federal representatives. Tell them we no longer tolerate a culture of violence.  We HAVE to have some common sense laws to keep firearms out of the hands of those not qualified.

We demand owners of firearms to be responsible. Purchasers should have background checks, go through safety training similar as if getting a drivers license, and then be responsible for their firearm. 

Straw purchases should have heavy fines/imprisonment, parents charged when children under the age of 18 are in possession of a firearm.  Responsibility.

Funding for accessible and affordable mental health services is a must.  And parent awareness of violent video games goes hand in hand.

We missed the boat after 12-14. Congress should have passed a three or six month moratorium on assault weapons and high velocity magazines. Congress did nothing.  Consequently, the firearm industry after the Newtown massacre had their best sales year ever.  Makes you wonder, doesn’t it?

I believed from the start that it will take a grass roots effort to change our American ways.  I now beg everyone reading this blog to give whatever support you can to your local community organization dealing with gun violence. There are many, but here’s a few:

Sandy Hook Promise

Newtown Action Alliance

Mayors Against Illegal Guns

The Joyce Foundation

Mothers Demand Action

I am distraught about the senseless act of gun violence that will change our relatives’ lives forever. We await further news of her recovery and if the assailant was caught. In the meantime I will keep repeating this verse:

Make me a channel of your peace.

Where there is hatred let me bring your love.

Where there is injury, your pardon, Lord

And where there's doubt, true faith in you.