In the beginning

The Edson clan goes back a ways, but more on that later. I think one reason my interested in genealogy is because my dad died in a car accident when I was 5 and my mom's attempts to bury the pain caused many early memories to be be lost. It's like trying to remember geometry years after you last used it. If you don't reinforce memories they will die. As a result, I only have a few memories from that time in my life.

My absolute 1st memory in taking a bath. During my last visit to southwest Minnesota I found that this exact memory was what my dad had. How can I know this if I was 5 when he died? Well see, I lived the first 3 years of my life in the same house he spent his early years. The bath I remembered took place in the kitchen sink. But this sink was different from the one you picture when you read that last sentence. For on the right side of this sink was a hand pump. And the hot water I was sitting in had to go through the additional step of being heated on the wood stove. That hand pump looks surprisingly like this pump still available at Home Depot: