FAMILY TREE
Creating a Family Scrapbook

So what pictures and definitions pop into your mind when you hear the word "family"? When you think about it, there are many different kinds of families. Just take my family for instance:

Here is a picture I drew of my immediate family:

My father: Arthur Bud Cather
My mother: Emma Matilda Cather (her last name was Roedde until she married my dad)
Me: Emma Gwendolyn Cather (but call me Gwen),
My sister or sibling: Kathleen Frances Cather (she likes to be called Kae).

Sibling is another name for brothers and sisters (I can think of other names I call my sister, but I might get in trouble if I tell them to you!), Immediate families are sometimes called nuclear families. Nuclear families consist of a mom, a dad and their children.

My "extended" or "greater" family.

But this immediate family isn't all the family I have. My mother, my sister Kathleen and I are living here at the Roedde House with our grandparents and aunts and uncles, who are some of the people who make up my extended or greater family. We'll be staying here until the First World War is over, because our father is away fighting in Malta. He is a sub-Lieutenant in the Royal Canadian Navy!

I miss my father very much, but I love living here with grandma and grandpa. Extended families are composed of those members of the family or household that are outside of the nuclear family, but who are still related to you. In this picture here, I've drawn my extended (or greater) family on my mother's or maternal side: My Grandpa and Grandma Roedde, and their children (my aunts and uncles). I've put one of Grandpa's dogs into the picture, because to me, the dogs are part of the family too! So with my grandparents, some of their children (my Mom, her brothers and sisters) and my sister and me, that makes three generations of this family living all under the same roof!