a very long winded account of this weekend.

Family history is an interesting thing. And mine, I think, happens to be pretty darn interesting. For one my great great grandfather has a published autobiography that I didn’t even know existed until over the weekend. I now own a copy courtesy of my dad and started to read it last night. More about that later, but let me start with the beginning.

This weekend after running in the misty yucky chilly weather of Chicago with Alice and Dev and a bunch of other crazy people who joined the same program, I drove over to Muncie, IN to meet my parents and my aunt and uncle. It’s about a four hour drive from Chicago and I stayed awake with the help of an energy drink and a host of cds I’d made previously. The cds were great. They were all the best songs to sing along to. which I do. But only by myself. Unless we are in the karaoke cab. And Africa is playing. Which by the way, Africa was on one of my cds. So, I spent four hours driving along first the freeway and then a two lane highway with the volume high (to drown out my own singing) and singing at the top of my lungs.

I arrived at the Hampton Inn where we were all staying… and no one was there. They’d lost track of time and so I had to wait for them for almost 20 mins. we then had a couple hours to spend together catching up before we had to get all pretty and head out to a cocktail reception and dinner/fundraiser/90 year anniversary of BSU. This was all being held at the ball state university art museum for the descendants of the ball family. The ball family had 5 brothers and my great great grandfather was one of those (the most important one if you ask me). Because my granddad hated or resented my nana’s family, he essentially alienated them from her formerly very close family. As a result, they pretty much all know each other and I already knew anyone. The last time I’d seen some of them was for my second cousin’s wedding almost 16 years ago!

The reception was lovely. It was held in the foyer of the gallery and there was music and of course beverages. There was a group picture and after the dinner we were all given a very nice framed copy of it. I can literally name about 8 people in that picture. During the reception, some people roamed around the gallery. My parents had taken a tour earlier in the day, but my mom showed me around and told me some of the stories. BSU has one of the best art galleries in the country and it’s mostly due to my nana’s cousin, my great uncle david (who is a character all unto his own). Uncle david as he is referred to by my family grew up in Muncie with the rest of the family also lived a lot of his childhood in Ireland where his dad was the ambassador. I think it’s kind of funny b/c you can still hear some of that European accent even though he’s as American as they come. Uncle david is also interesting in the fact that he never married or had children… and the reason for that is b/c he is gay. He is marvelously affluent and extremely generous with his money. He is a great lover of art and has traveled extensively. He has also donated more than 15 million dollars of artwork to the gallery over the years and has started a campaign to raise 10 million more for expansion. If the museum can raise 5 million, he’ll donate the other 5. Hence the reason for the dinner and the reason for my dad and his siblings to ‘buy’ a room and name it in honor of my nana.


the room to be rededicated to my nana. my mom, dad, me, my aunt and uncle


the art gallery from across the lawn

After the reception, it was time for the dinner to start. Everyone went to a beautiful room in the gallery – it looked like an old theater or something. We were sat at table two! We had the President of the university at our table, the Board of Trustees President and his wife, the Director of Art for BSU, and also another Board of Trustees member (and also related to us) and his wife. My aunt and uncle were also seated there. We think we got the best table b/c we made one of the first donations, but also bc my uncle is co chair of the fundraising efforts and I think he has visions of sitting on the Board of Trustees. Anyways, we enjoyed a lovely dinner complete with wine.

the statue known as Benefience on the BSU campus. it was erected in honor of the 5 brothers (i can't remember by whom)

Once dinner was over, it was time to hit the audience up for some money! But, they didn’t do it aggressively. It was definitely a passive maneuver. Our new friend, Tom DeWeese (the BofT Pres), got up and gave some opening remarks. Then the President (we now affectionately call Jo Ann bc you know after a couple hours of dinner…) spoke. After that a film made about the Unversity’s history was shown and it was pounded in to everyone’s head how generous all of our relatives had been – including the 5 brothers who had bought the land and struggling college back in 1918. They revamped it and gave it back to the city. In thanks, the city renamed the college after them… Ball State University. After the video, we had five members of the family all get up and share their comments on whatever they wanted to talk about. It was long, but interesting and at times funny. One of the older members of the family, Frank Bracken, spoke and showed us a watch his grandfather (my great great grandfather) had once used. I’d never seen it before and when he got back to the table, I asked to take a closer look. It was a beautiful old pocket watch with an old photo of his kids on the left side and the clock part on the right. After everyone spoke, the President made her final remarks and an unveiling of a plaque was announced. It’ll be placed next to this statue that was erected in the Brothers’ honor.

After dinner, we all went back to the hotel and changed. Mom and I stayed up talking while my dad either patiently listened or was asleep. I was sharing a room with my parents b/c it was parents’ weekend at the school and also a home football game and their team is undefeated this year. The aerobed was awesome. My dad snored all night and I was freezing. But other than that, sharing a room was fine!

On Sunday, my parents didn’t have to leave until around 2ish for the airport so we had breakfast with my aunt and uncle in which a very heated discussion of politics and the economy ensued. After that, we checked out of the hotel and roamed around Muncie looking at the various homes and places my parents had lived and gone to in their youth. Then we hunted for treasures at a flea market and then headed over to Minnetrista which is a cultural center all about the… you guessed it… Balls. We headed for the gift shop and my dad bought me a copy of that published autobiography I mentioned earlier. After all of that, we headed for the best place to go get lunch. The Muncie mall. There is a cafeteria restaurant in there with not too bad of food (not the food court) and so we went and ate too much food. Then it was time to drop me off at my car and for both of us to head on home. Once again, energy drinks and sing alongs were my friend.

More family history if you guys would like to hear it in future blogs…