I Get You, Grandma Lofgreen. I Finally Get You.

Webster defines genealogy as “an account of the descent of a person, family, or group from an ancestor or from older forms.” Older forms, indeed.

June Lofgreen is the mother of a few of my closest friends and the grandmother of some of my other closest friends. I became a semi-adopted grand-dude of Grandma Lofgreen in the late 80s (that’s the 1980s for those of you born in this century). While some grandmothers bake and serve cookies for their grandchildren and grand-dudes, Grandma Lofgreen was more prone to bake and serve a lecture. To me, at least. She always knew I needed correcting and somehow had at the ready just the right words of advice and straightening. She sent me a check in the mail to get a haircut one time in the early 90s when she thought my hair was getting too long. Seriously. She sent me a check to pay for a haircut; not because I couldn’t afford one, but to prove the point that it was time I got my hair cut and get my act cleaned up in the process.

Among her many gifts and talents and acts of selfless service, one of Grandma June’s greatest passions was genealogy. She snuck the topic in whenever she gave me a good talking-to. Always. A blue, three-ring binder with a few generations of my ancestors all neatly connected one to another and accompanied by dates and photocopied documents showed up one Christmas. I would have preferred a ski pass, movie tickets, or even a scarf. I, absent of gratitude or any understanding of the gift’s time and effort, tossed Grandma Lofgreen’s blue three-ring genealogy binder in a box and didn’t think about it again.

Until I did.

My dad passed away in 2007, and something unexpected happened…I began yearning to know more about him and those who came before him. Out came the blue three-ring binder, and there it was: the beginnings of the last 20 years of what has become one of my greatest passions. I’ve since connected all the Hoeye dots from John Hoeye, the first to arrive in the U.S. from Ireland in 1809, down to me and mine. I have five generations and hundreds of Hoeye’s linked together in a digital family tree. I even went to Ireland in 2017 to find more. Passion? Obsession? One or both, at times. I get you a lot better now, Grandma Lofgreen. I get you.

Combining three passions, I’ve planned a solo three-week family history motorcycle adventure this summer. Just me and the bike rolling across a few thousand miles of backroads in search of connection to Hoeye’s from the past, family and friends from the present, and perhaps to myself.

From Chicagoland, I’m spending the first week in Iowa, where nearly 30 "1800 Hoeye’s" are buried in five different cemeteries across Dallas County near the small town of Adel. I’m planning to visit each, take photos, and make sure I have all the correct dates and documented headstone engravings. I even have an appointment to spend one whole day at the State Historical Society of Iowa in Des Moines to search for missing birth, marriage, and death documents for any of the above.

I’m devoting week two in Colorado to visiting family and friends, a different kind of genealogy: a living history making new memories. I’ll get to see two of my daughters, a brother and his family, my wife’s parents, and many close friends.

Finally, I’ll ride up to the Black Hills of South Dakota for week three, where I’ll visit my dad, who’s buried in the Black Hills National Cemetery. While there, I’ll spend a day or two visiting Belle Fourche, South Dakota, where my dad went to school, and take pictures of the ranch his dad owned when he was growing up.

It should be the ride, adventure, and discovery of a lifetime.

June Lofgreen passed from this life into the next on a November Sunday in 2015, leaving behind six children, 38 grandchildren, 58 great-grandchildren, and at least one grand-dude. I’m certain that all 100+ of us are better for having been on the receiving end of Grandma Lofgreen’s sage wisdom and strikingly insightful sermons. I still have her haircut check tucked neatly away in my scriptures. It’s important that I keep myself in check (pun, not intended, but welcomed). I call these three weeks a solo ride, but I know I won’t really be alone. I’ll be catching up with relations from bygone days and laughing new laughs with current-day family and soul brothers and sisters. Oh, and I’m sure Grandma Lofgreen will be there too. I’m desperately looking forward to and welcoming her next lecture. I’m certain to need it.

I didn’t understand it then and didn’t take the opportunity to tell her at the time, so I will here: I’m so danged grateful for that blue three-ring binder.

See you down the road, June.

According to her children, who sent me these photos, June was often found on the phone asking friends and family genealogy-leading questions while spending hours and hours labeling pictures, and working at her desk documenting her findings.