Week 17: DNA

 DNA

I have yet to jump on the DNA bandwagon, but I know I will eventually do so.  In the meantime, I continue to document the branches and twigs in my family tree.  And occasionally my husband's tree.  However, I am a strong believer in Nurture versus Nature.  If people listed as family in the household on a census were not biological, they still had a strong influence on anyone that is genetically related to me.

In an update to its software, RootsMagic has included Associates which allows one to tie in to specific family members people in the FAN club.  An example of this would be in my husband's Legere family tree to include a few generations of the Perkins family.

In the 1950's, my father-in-law, Ken Legere, left his hometown of Port Elgin, New Brunswick, Canada to find work in the Toronto Ontario area.  His father and his brothers eventually joined him for work.  Ken met and married an Ontario girl, Mae Johnston, and they settled in Georgetown, a suburb of Toronto and began their family.  They bought a home in a new subdivision and became friends with their neighbours, including Garth and Joan Perkins.    

During World War II, Garth had been a mechanic, working on Lancaster airplanes.  Ken had a pilot's license and had owned a plane after moving to Ontario but had been to sell it in the late 1950s to finance his dying father's trip back to Port Elgin.  In Georgetown, Ken started building airplanes as a hobby.  Not model planes, but ones that a person could fly.  So the two men bonded over their love of planes.  Garth provided the mechanical knowledge and Ken provided the craftsmanship of building as well as eventually flying the plane.  The local newspaper did a story on Ken and his airplane at the time that he had to knock a hole in the wall of his house to get the plane out of his basement.

By the early 1970s, Garth and Ken were disenchanted with their factory/warehouse jobs in Ontario.  Ken decided to move his family (wife and 3 sons approaching their teenage years) "back home" to New Brunswick.  Garth (originally from Quebec) decided to move his family (wife, 3 daughters, one son and Garth's Aunt Ida) as well.  The Perkins daughters were similar ages to the Legere sons.  Ken found a farm property (about 125 acres) available for sale in Cape Tormentine, New Brunswick (less than 20 miles from his hometown).  The property comprised of about 25 acres along the Northumberland Strait and 100 acres across the road that was mainly woods.  The waterfront section had an old farm house with 5 bedrooms.

The two families jointly purchased the property and decided that the Perkins would move into the farmhouse and they would build a new house for the Legeres.  Although the Legeres first stayed with Ken's mother in Port Elgin, things did not go well as her home was basically a tarpaper shack and was quite crowded.  So for the most part, the Legeres spent most of the time at the Perkins farmhouse while building their new home and only went to Port Elgin at night to sleep.  And of course, the building of the Legere's 3 bedroom bungalow was built as quickly as possible.  There are photographs of them putting the roof on during a snow storm.

When they moved to New Brunswick, neither man had a job lined up.  So they created one: construction.  They had built the Legere house (from a newspaper clipping of a house floorplan), so of course other people would hire them to build houses and other buildings.  It worked as they were able to support their families.  They were retired by the time I met them in 1993.

As the closeness of the two families developed, my husband and his brothers viewed Joan and Garth Perkins as a second set of parents.  And they feeling was mutual.  When Aunt Ida died, the Legere boys felt the loss of an aunt.  Like their father had done, all three of the Legere boys left New Brunswick to find work in Ontario.  But they each visited their parents at least once a year and if the Perkins weren't at the Legere house when they arrived, the farmhouse was the first visit.  My stepchildren and their cousins have grown up with the same feeling.  They had another set of grandparents.

When the two couple purchased the property, they did it jointly rather than splitting in half.  As a result, legally, ownership would be "last person standing".  Over the years, they resisted people's advice to reword the ownership.  They were confident in their mutual understanding that the property was 50% Legere and 50% Perkins.  And no one made an effort to write their wills - they just proceeded on their day to day life.  At one point, the two couples allowed one of Mae's brother to build a cottage on the property for use when he and his disabled wife traveled from Ontario.

Their mutual respect for each other played well over the years and there was never any problems in making decisions relating to either their construction business or jointly owned property.  Until December 2011 when my in-laws were in an automobile collision with two moose.  Mae, the passenger, was killed outright.  Ken initially survived, but died in hospital 12 days later.  My husband and his brothers were able to act cohesively in dealing with their parents' estate, although it took almost two years.

Before Ken died, we had travelled from Ontario, along with one of my brothers-in-law.  The other brother-in-law was already living in New Brunswick again.  While we were all sitting in the Perkins' kitchen, Joan and Garth informed the Legere boys, that they were honouring the verbal agreement of the 50/50 ownership of the property.    My brothers-in-law were not interested in ownership of the land and were more than happy to allow my husband to have ownership of the Legere part of the land.    The 100 acres of wooden land was sold and it helped finance the waterfront land to be subdivided.  Which is how we became owners of almost 12 acres of waterfront property on the Northumberland Strait, in sight of the Confederation Bridge.   My husband was not interested in his parents' house, so the area around the house was sectioned off and sold.  By this point, Mae's brother no longer needed the cottage, so he gave it to us and it was relocated to our section of the land.

At the time, we were still living 2 provinces away, so were only able to make use of the cottage a couple weeks of the year.  It took some fixing up to be usable in its new location as previously, hydro was provided by an extension cord and water by a garden house, both running from Ken and Mae's house.  In 2016 my husband's work transferred us to Fredericton New Brunswick, so we were only about 3 hours away from the cottage.  As a result, we were able to make use of the cottage on a more regular basis and over time, we winterized it so it could be used in the winter.  Every time we were at the cottage, we would visit Joan and Garth and usually had at least one dinner together.  Times when we were not able to use the cottage, we started renting it out for others to enjoy.

Two years ago, Joan passed away after a short battle with cancer.   Garth remained in the house and we still visited him regularly.  Last summer, my husband and I retired and he started building a permanent house on the property.  Garth frequently stops in to check out the progress of the build - I refer to him as Inspector Garth.  At the age of 90, Garth has not been able to do any of the physical work, but has been a wealth of information and advice for my husband.

Garth is finally acknowledging his age (having turned 91 earlier this month) and recently made the decision to sell his property and move in with his son (about an hour away). Although he knows it is the best for Garth, it has hit my husband hard as he will be loosing another father.

I acknowledge that DNA can play an important part in people's genealogy research, but I still value the importance of nurture over nature.  Close family friends can create an environment as important in one's development as blood lines.