Gone Too Soon

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

Week 9: Gone Too Soon

I’m sure every family has someone special that has left this life before we were ready. My family is no exception. I couldn’t even whittle this list down to a trivial number of people from my family. In a short span, my husband and I lost 4 members of our immediate family. My children lost 3 grandparents and 1 uncle between 2014 and 2016. 


The biggest loss for me from the “Gone Too Soon” category is my mother. Now I know when I say that she did live until she was 68 you might think that isn’t necessarily gone too soon, however, that still seems young by today’s standards. I know I wasn’t ready to live the rest of my life without her at the age of 42. 


Just 11 weeks after my mother passed, my husband’s mother, Patsy, unexpectedly passed away at the age of 64.  Within 6 months of Patsy’s passing, my youngest brother in law, Daniel, was struck by an automobile where he suffered a severe traumatic brain injury. At the age of 24, Daniel would not survive his injuries and he passed away 6 months later…truly gone too soon.


My mother, Kathy, lost two siblings in her lifetime. Her brother Francis Xavier lived just 1 day having died tragically under an oxygen tent in the hospital in 1946. In 2000, she lost her 46 year old brother Denis V. Army to ALS. Denis left a wife and two young adult children and would never meet his grandchildren.


While doing research on your family tree, you’re bound to find many ancestors who have similar stories about family members leaving us too soon. Hopefully you’ll be able to celebrate more joy than sorrow when researching your family history. I know I have. Tell their story. Research your family tree!






#52Ancestors #FamilyHistorian #Ancestry #FamilyTree #FamilyHistory #GenealogyResearch #ProGenOfNE #GoneTooSoon 



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