Extended Family

My grandparents - Bill and Christie Thomas

My grandparents - Cleffie and Lester Burford

My great-grandparents - Annie and Ulysses Hicks

My great-grandmother Massie Treat (holding me), my dad (Richard) and grandma Thomas (Christie)

My great-grandmother Lora Burford, great-aunt Judy, my mother, great-aunt Juanita, me, great-aunt Helen.

 My father's relatives were all from Michigan and Ohio in preceding generations. My mother's relatives were all from Arkansas. Her grandparents moved to Michigan in the 1940s, as did most of their married children, to look for jobs. So I had a lot of extended family around while I was growing up -- lots of aunts and uncles and cousins and great-aunts and -uncles. I had both sets of grandparents and some of my great-grandparents, too. I now consider that to be a great blessing, to have grown up knowing my "tribe" and having that sense of identity.

etc...