Saturday, February 19, 2022
I will forever hold a strong memory of Aunt Hellen. She was a regular visitor at our house, and the first person to reach out to you at a family reunion or wedding. She always wore strikingly bright shirts, had lots of stories to tell, and so true that the family pet tarantula was an added bonus! Whenever I think of what the Garneau family represented to me growing up, aunt Hellen was an integral part of it. She had grit, and I can imagine that she didn’t let anyone push her around. With her passing, as with those of her other siblings in recent years, I can see that the glue that binds this family together is coming loose: like an end of an era. Given the very interesting lives lived by the family, including their childhoods living through the Great Depression in Sandwich, I wish I could piece together all the interesting stories this family has lived through. The good and the difficult. I would love to read that book one day.