Heritage

Last weekend we paid another visit to that small town in Idaho I wrote about a couple of months ago. While Pioneer Day is a Utah holiday, they were settled by Mormon pioneers and join in the celebration every year with parades and rodeos and other events that hold the promise of making sweet summer memories. After a weekend enjoying cousins and delicious food and horses and time spent doing what we like to call shooting the breeze in the living room at night, we pulled out for the drive home. It wasn't until I had time sitting in the front seat that I realized for the first time why I think that little town is so dear to me. My ancestors were among the pioneers who settled that valley, and so when I am there, I am standing where they stood. I can't get much closer to my heritage than that. The ranch house we stay in every time we visit was built by my great-great grandfather in 1909. My great-grandfather's house that he purchased for something like $250 in the 1920s is still standing down the road. We are standing where they lived out their lives and there is something so special and important about that and something inside of me senses that when I'm there. Heritage is a powerful thing. When I hear their stories and look at their pictures, it makes me want to live a life of honor so they would be pleased to claim me as their own.

All of these pictures were taken in the same small town at one time... or another.

my great-great grandfather standing with two of his children in front of their log cabin


my great-grandfather, Noel Parke, 1917

Danilo trying to get Gracie to ride a pony, last weekend

my great-grandma, Clarice Olsen, right


my great-grandpa, Noel Parke, back row second from right
I knew him. He always told us he was a "handsome devil."


my handsome man on a horse last weekend


the Parke family float in the town parade last Saturday morning
led by a team of beautiful horses


Noel and Clarice


a few years into their marriage
yes my great-grandfather had a soul patch

Danilo jumping off the board at Rocky Ledge



Gracie thought my grandpa's twin brother was her Great-Grandpa Parke.
Sunday morning she was completely content to just kick back in the recliner and
share the living room with him. When I tried to take this picture she said, "Bye, Mom."
I got the idea and left them alone.


my grandpa and my great-uncle Dar (the twins) with their mother Clarice


Dar and Dianne made up 90 bottles of homemade root beer in vintage bottles for the holiday weekend


Dar demonstrating how to seal the caps on the bottles


my great-grandfather Noel with his three sons, Val, Darrel, and Darwin


Dar sucking in his gut before the picture was taken... but I had already taken it

Small Town, Idaho

My Grandpa Parke was born and raised with his two brothers in a small Idaho town. His twin brother still lives there with his wife Dianne. Their four living kids have all made their way back there over the years and are raising their families there, too. You can read about their fifth child, Derrick here.

(Dar, Brittney at 18, Grandpa)

While I'm in love with my Utah home, I take any chance I get to go back to my grandpa's hometown. I had an opportunity to do that this weekend with my family because Dar and Dianne's oldest grandsons, twins Trent and Tyler just returned from their missions. Being there never fails to lift my spirit and feed my soul. Dar and Dianne are some of, if not the most stalwart, faithful, inspiring and beautiful people I know. There is the richest, sweetest feeling in and around their home and some of my choicest memories have been made there. I associate powerful feelings of fun and love and belonging with being there and I don't know if they'll ever know how special they and the experiences we've had up there are to my siblings and me.

Brittney (9) feeding a calf

Danilo and I run in a 3-legged race at the rodeo


saying goodbye a few summers back

Sometimes I wonder if some of the way I feel about their small town is romanticized because I only visit from time to time, but I don't believe it. Something inside tells me that Dar and Dianne's way of living and their character goes even deeper than what I have experienced... that while no one and no place is perfect, if I stayed a little longer than a trip, I would find that they are truly just as wonderful and genuine as I think they are.

last weekend at the ranch house
my grandparents were there, too
can you spot the twin returned missionaries?