Cousin Nancy is the family glue. She started our newsletter nearly 20 years ago and is determined it will not fall by the wayside like so many other news editions. Produced two to three times a year, Taylor Tidings has evolved from typewritten sheets of paper to professional-looking issues.
     Cousin Nancy even hired an editor. Together, they think of questions for family members to answer. What gives you joy? Can you recommend a good book? They ask about each person’s news and concerns.
     Cousin Nancy lives in Wisconsin but grew up in St. Paul. For a time, she and her family lived on the first floor of a Grand Avenue duplex and my family lived upstairs. Sadly, Nancy’s mother, Marge, passed on before her daughter began the newsletter. Marge would have had some good stories to tell. Everyone always said she was a real character. Very popular with the boys and a good dancer.
     Like Cousin Nancy. Even though she is only a year older than I am, she was always years ahead of me. Sometimes, when we visited our grandparents, Nancy was there, too. She often spent time with Nana and Papa. On one such visit, my grandmother told me I could find Nancy upstairs in the guest bedroom. Nancy was dancing, her record player turned up real loud. When I asked who was singing, she looked at me with shock. Even after she said his name, I didn’t have a clue who it was.
     Another time, on a visit to Nancy’s house, as we got out of the car my mother said, "Nancy got eyeglasses." Mom instructed my sister and me to say how nice they look. My aunt opened the front door and said Nancy was in the kitchen, waiting for us. The minute we turned the corner from the dining room, Nancy made a face by crossing her eyes and sticking her tongue out at us, pulling her mouth wide open with her thumbs. When Mom heard us "laughing like hyenas," as she told Dad later, she ran into the kitchen and hollered, "You two! Out to the car this minute."
     On the ride home, no matter how hard we tried to explain Nancy’s funny trick, the first thing Mom said as we walked inside our house was, "Now, tell your father how you laughed at your poor cousin."
     By trade, Cousin Nancy is a French teacher, a Ph.D. But her real prédilection is our newsletter. No longer the family trickster, she gets very serious when someone doesn’t return their questionnaire within the allotted time. Often, she will pick up the telephone. The minute you hear her whispery voice say, "Hi. This is Cousin Nancy," you know you’re in big trouble because you didn’t turn in your assignment. I’ve given her some pretty good excuses but she just asks, in that patient but weary voice teachers have for wayward students, if I would like her to go through the questions one-by-one with me over the phone.
     The last time we spoke, I thought it was time to ask Cousin Nancy a question of my own. Why had she started the newsletter? "To unite the family" she said. "Everyone had scattered across the country and we weren’t getting together on a regular basis anymore."
     When I emailed my brother I was writing a column about the family newsletter, I asked if he had anything to add. He replied that there are some special people like Cousin Nancy who go the extra distance to foster family connections for all of us.
     I couldn’t have said it better.