THE REAL McFARLAND--AUNT GERTRUDE [F, 4-22-22]

 CHRIST IN WINTER: Reflections on Faith & Life for the Years of Winter

They are burying AG today. Aunt Gertrude, that is. The widow of Randall, the young bachelor uncle who took care of me when I was a little boy. The last Grandma Mac of her generation. Almost 100 years old. Unfailingly kind and interested and interesting through all those years.

AG was the successor Grandma Mac to the original Grandma Mac, the remarkable Henrietta Ann [Retta] Smith McFarland who was mother to John, my father, and Glen, Helen, David, Bob, Genevieve, Randall, and Mike.

There were other Grandma Macs in AG’s generation. Mable, Glen’s wife. Mildred, John’s wife, my mother. Rosemary, Bob’s wife. Edna, Mike’s wife.

There are other Grandma Macs now, the next generation down, including Helen. And Evonne.

They lived out what it meant to be a McFarland, gave us our family identity. But what they all have in common is that they weren’t Macs, weren’t McFarlands. They were Smiths and Ponds and Robbins and Navaros and Karrs and Potts. They were immigrants to the clan. And they gave us, give us, our identity.

The original MacFarlanes, along the southern and western shores of Loch Lomond in Scotland, were wild men. They were fierce and warlike. Their main occupation was stealing cattle, especially from the Calhouns, which they did by the light of the full moon, which is why to this day the full moon is known as “McFarland’s Lantern.”

Apparently, though, along the way, they stole some of the Calhoun women as well as their cattle, and the great change began. Without the women from the other families, the McFarland men would still just be stealing Calhoun’s cows. Now, although it has taken a long time, and many generations of immigrant women, many new generations of Grandma Macs, we McFarland men are close to becoming acceptable citizens.

I give thanks for all those immigrant Grandma Macs, but this day, especially I give thanks for the one I call Aunt Gertrude. As I’ve told you before, Helen has a bracelet that reads WWAGD? What Would Aunt Gertrude Do? Sometimes it’s hard to know what Jesus would do, but we could always see what Aunt Gertrude did, and that was close enough.

John Robert McFarland

McFarland Cattle Company, “The Best of Calhoun’s Herd.”