Kinship

The person being interviewed was my mother, Colleen Carpenter. Colleen was born and raised in Santa Clarita to Joan Bayley and Hans Otto. Both were imigrants to America, so my mom and her sisters were first generation American-born citizens. Joan Bayley was French-Canadian having come from Ontario right before she met my grandfather, who was a German World War 2 survivor. My father, Dean Meloni, and his brother, Eric, were also first generation American-born citizen, with my grandfather, Ed coming from Venice, Italy, and my grandmother, Jonna, coming from Denmark. Both my mom's parents were very strict and hard working. Hans often built their houses from the ground up, and worked multiple jobs to ensure his family had food, clothes, and a roof over their head. His jobs consisted of general labour, contract worker, Oscar Meyer truck driver, and so forth. Joan was always passionate about cooking and even had her own catering business at one point, however, she developed diabetes and had to quit working. They raised Colleen to be tough and independent, and to always follow her morals. And so, she raised my brother and I to do the same.

The interview took place in person at her house, both of us sitting at her kitchen table drinking lemonade. It wasn't a structured interview though. I had a few questions lined up, but my mother enjoyed talking about her family so much, it was more like her reminiscing about her childhood rather than me asking for information. Thus, it was quite comfortable to sit and talk about our family, and if it had been anyone else, I do not believe it would have been so light-hearted.

As you can see, my mothers side of the family is much larger than my father's. And everyone on my mother's side lives in Northern California while my enitre father's side lives in Southern California. Both sides are extremely close between everyone and no one is really excluded... I'm proud to say my family is extremely tight-knit.

I have been fortunate enough to get to know members from both sides before they passed or moved, and those who are still living, I frequently visit. For my mother, I'd have to say the most influential person was her father, Hans. To this day, he is the hardest working man I have ever met, and even though he is oushing 80, he refuses to give up on any project that he begins. His wisdom and his strength are incomparable and I know that everyone in our family looks up to him and aspires to be just like him. Even relatives on my father's side envy his work ethic and recognize that he is a strong man with a good heart. However, my grandmother, Joan, was the one who always had final say. Her nickname for the family is Big Nana, because her word is law.

Everyone who marries into this family is welcomed with open arms and is immediately accepted. There is no difference between blood and marriage in our family, because we all have the biggest hearts. I'd like to thank our European jeans for that. We come from big colonies, and are used to having large families, so anyone who respects us and gets along with us is part of the family.

However, there is some discrepency between my mother and one of her sisters. The youngest of the three, Karla, is the trouble maker in the group and my mom has never been afraid to call her out.As much as they love each other, they just cannot get along. Besides that, everyone in my family loves each other very much and anyone who joins is very very lucky to have a group like us around. I learned a lot about my family from this nterview and it made me realize just how lucky I am to have so many wonderful people in my life.