BLUE MONDAY

Blue Monday Jasper ware - "Wedgwood Tea for One"

How much do we value heritage?
I feel connected to Mexico, perhaps because I lived there for my first thirteen years of informative years.
 I am familiar with Mexico's  culture, and I feel connected to the people who live in and who live near now where I live.
Although I live in California, I like to eat non spicy Mexican food and speak Spanish with a perfect accent, however, lacking in vocabulary. Ultimately, my adopted Mexican heritage is part of my identity.
  My heritage is always with me no matter where I go even though my country of origin may not be my ancestors origin.  I grew up painfully aware that I just did not look like those around me.  As a tow head,  blue eyed toddler I was not one of them.
I am often drawn towards my roots, an indescribable force that has influenced my identity and influenced my spiritual heritage.

Josiah W. cemetery marker

Indelible markings, my connection, to the past becomes more meaningful as my existence marches along at a fast pace and disappears in a blink of an eye.  I pass along my genetics, my values and then am gone.
My heritage cannot be taken from me although it can be forgotten by not passing it on.
My many blogs encapsulate the knowledge of my heritage and hopefully passing it on.
In blogging about the past, I have become more aware of the richness of what has been passed down to me from my descendants as well as living it through my parents.

Grandparents Wedgwood enjoying Becky, May 16, 1950, Corpus Christi, Tx.(Padre Island)

What is so fascinating about genealogy is what is buried under the present.
Take for instance, the five notorious women in Biblical history who entered the bloodline of Jesus: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth, Bathsheba, Mary.  They all shared something in common,  disgrace and tainted reputations.  Even in genealogies, God weaves his grace and loves to redeem foreigners and sinners. 
What I find so captivating about my genealogy is its colorfulness, source of inspiration,validation of family stories, and  glimpses of experiences, and feelings.  Out of my past, I have also seen how God's grace has been woven in some disgraceful and tainted reputations.

Grandparents, Ethel & Edwin Wedgwood with my mother, Betty (L) and sister Doris

It is a journey of many life past times woven into the present time to gain an understanding of how I got to be in our now time.A LINK TO THE PAST click here
Finding out you are related to someone famous can add to spell binding stories.
My mother whose surname was Wedgwood claimed to be in direct line to Josiah Wedgwood, the renowned English pottery-maker of his day (1762).  In completing my research, I found it to be true.  (Josiah Wedgwood click here.)

Great Grandma, Emily Elizabeth Chick Wedgwood

 Charles Darwin, the naturalist who formulated the theory of evolution married a Wedgwood of this family.
 It was 1800 when Thomas Wedgwood was the first to capture an image with a light sensitive camera."
YES, HE IS A DISTANT RELATIVE.

My mother, Betty(L) with her sister Doris

(My Mother's Story click here.)
My mother was not raised in a Christian home.  Her parents were alcoholics until God miraculous saved them.  My great grandmother was a saloon keeper in Oso,Washington with a tainted past,who had three daughters, each by a different man, yet God in his mercy saved my grandmother later in life.(TRIBUTE TO THE

Emily Elizabeth Wedgwood & Edwin Chatfield Wedgwood
Edwin Francis Wedgwood Jr., my grandpa (left) Charles George Wedgwood (right) and Bertha May Wedgwood(back middle) The boys were twins.
Photo taken in East Chicago, Indiana 1907

WEDGWOODS,click here for video)
On the other side of the spectrum:
Sometimes God uses an individuals heritage in the unfolding of His plans.  His Word says that He knew us before the foundation of the world.

Cemetery marker for Rev. Solomon S. Ediger

Grandparents Ediger, Warkentin, and Dick-Fehr were all staunch Mennonites who migrated from south Russia as children with their parents.

THE S.S. TEUTONIA
In 1874, Heinrich and Sara Ediger joined the Mennonite immigration to the USA, and with their children sailed on the S.S.Teutonia, arriving in Castle Garden New York on Sept. 2, 1874.
This is the ship that our ancestors came on.

  The church among the Mennonite communities was a closely knit family of believers ruled by elders who were the spiritual leaders.
My grandfather Solomon S. Ediger was an elder as well as a farmer and founder of the Evangelical Mennonite Brethren church of Dallas, Oregon.

Solomon Sr. worked very hard farming his homestead.
Solomon owned a threshing machine outfit on the side which earned them a little extra money. As soon as the harvest was finished and the machinery properly stowed away for the winter, he and the boys begun working on the railroad. This was hard work but the younger Solomon didn't realize he was building up his muscles for future situations.

  My grand uncle on my mother’s side, Isaac Dyck was the founder of the Polk Station General Conference Mennonite church.

Grandfather Solomon Ediger was a man of excellence in all he undertook.  In the early 1920’s he felt led to leave the Mennonite church, which at that time had some problems with its leadership.  Grandpa then helped found the Dallas,Oregon C & M A church.(MY CHAT about SIN & Great Grandpa Solomon click here)

  Dad remembered one of his sermons on Noah and the flood.  This was the first impression he received that the world was lost and without Christ and was the springboard to his missionary career.

Dad out on the farm

So in God's providence, the unlikely union of two, a farmer family, of devoted Mennonite heritage and a more refined British lady, non religious family, began a life together to establish a rich heritage to bring me to the present.  It has been a long rich journey, a harvest, clay pots (china) woven threads of my family past, clay pots molded in the potter's hand.
“Behold, as the clay is in the potter’s hand, so are ye in mine hand..." (Jeremiah 18:1–6, KJV).God Is our potter click here to watch video