The Mysteries of Bottled Fruit and Family History

When I was a teen I was interested in learning to bottle fruit and I was intrigued by the mystery of canning. My mother didn’t know how to bottle fruit and so I had never seen it done. I was sure it was a hard, mysterious process known to the lucky few. I was also sure that if somehow I ever had the chance to bottle fruit I would do it wrong and poison someone, and so I had a lot of fear about it. But I had eaten bottled peaches at someone’s home and they were so much better than commercially canned peaches, that I decided I wanted to learn to bottle fruit. My grandparents had an apricot tree and when I was in college I asked my grandmother if I could help her bottle apricots. I was hoping that she would teach me how to bottle and that it would be easier to do than I thought. So, one Saturday in the summer I went to her house and helped pick apricots. She showed me how to bottle fruit and it was a lot easier than I thought, much easier. In fact I couldn’t believe the process was so simple. I wrote everything down that she said to do and the instructions were just a few lines. It was really easy and what I had thought was a mysterious process was now something I knew how to do. I just couldn’t believe that something I feared turned out to be so easy. Having learned to do apricots gave me the courage to try peaches and tomatoes, and then jam. My grandmother taught me a skill I have used through out my life and it has blessed my family.

Family History is also another area that seemed to be a mystery. I would hear people talk about doing their family history and feel guilty because I had no clue how to do it. Many people over the years had tried to teach me and somehow it still remained a mystery. It just didn’t click in my brain how to actually do it. I didn’t understand the process and how to know if the record I was looking at was really the record of my family member. I didn’t understand how to record the record and connect it to my family line. I didn’t even know how to access my family line. I was really afraid of making a mistake. One Sunday in church they announced a new family history class for beginners starting the following Sunday. I decided to give it one more try. That Sunday I ended up sick and decided that I would never learn to do family history. The instructors were so nice and dedicated that they came to my house and taught me. Somehow this time it made sense in my dense, computer phobic brain. They taught me over the course of four Sundays and I took the handouts and followed them step by step at home. I knew that if I didn’t practice what they taught me I would forget what I had learned. Turns out Family history is easy, lots easier than I thought. It was really doable and again what I thought was a mysterious process was something I now knew how to do. Again, something I feared turned out to be so easy. I have branched out and done different family lines and have connected several hundred family names together. These family history instructors taught me a skill that I will use throughout my life and has greatly blessed my family.

Bottling fruit and family history have a lot in common. Both seemed mysterious and beyond my reach. Yet both, when I put my fear aside and learned how to do them, became something I was able to do. Sometimes my fear of doing something stops me from doing it, even if it’s something good. I have learned that usually my fears are silly and that I am capable of learning new things, even seemingly hard things. Next step, sky diving!