I was seven years old when my family left Michigan for the west coast, so most of my memories of my grandparent’s house on Drummond Island in Michigan are seeped in the fog of childhood nostalgia. In 2012, during a cross-country railway trip, I finally had a chance to visit again. At the time, Gerald was my only living grandparent (he passed away in 2022) and a treasure of stories and fascinating information on genealogy, the island, and his time spent on the Alaskan railroad in the 1940’s. I’d never spent so much time one-on-one with him before, and I’m so grateful for those memories.