Family tree

(watercolor illustration on paper, 2005)

"Family: A social unit where the father is concerned with parking space, the children with outer space, and the mother with closet space."
Evan Esar

"I don't have to look up my family tree, because I know that I'm the sap."
Fred Allen

"Be who you are and say what you feel because those who mind don't matter and those who matter don't mind."
Dr. Seuss

"A tree is known by its fruit."
Proverb

As someone who knows very little about her own lineage I envy people who have family trees that can be traced back for centuries. I can only imagine how inspiring it is to know who your ancestors were and what they had to endure so that one day you can be born. Being aware of one's family history gives a person an extra incentive to do his best, because he feels that if he screws up he'll let down all those that came before him... My knowledge of my own genealogy only goes back for four generations, so I will never be able to compile a big family tree reflecting my lineage. However, as an artist I'm free to create imaginary family trees, as I did in the illustration on this page.

I called them the Hayner clan. The patriarch of the Hayner family came to the U.S. from Germany in the beginning of the twentieth century. He found his Irish Catholic bride Elizabeth Burt in America. They had two daughters - Emma and Margaret. Emma the older of the two sisters was shy and quiet, so the Hayners were extremely happy when she managed to attract a wonderful suitor whom she married shortly thereafter. Unfortunately, her husband died in his early thirties and Emma never remarried. The younger sister, Margaret, was a wild child. She thoroughly enjoyed the 1920's and as her parents almost started giving up on her she decided to settle down with a man she just met. Nobody expected the marriage to last, but it did. Margaret and her husband became wonderful parents to a baby girl whom they named after Elizabeth. Elizabeth in her turn had two daughters; one, (Mary), inherited her grandmother's wild spirit, while the other, (Ann), took after her more quiet great aunt. Everyone was very excited when Mary gave birth to the first boy in the family. Ten years later Ann had a baby girl. Of course no one was surprised because they were used to the Hayner women only giving births to women...