A Winnie the Pooh stuffed toy sat on my bed everyday as I grew up into young adulthood. Many kids had this toy, it was all just a vibrant yellow bear with a blazing red shirt. To me it was nothing more than a successful tantrum thrown on the way out of Kohls. I would beat it up and throw it around with all the others. It was merely another one of my stuffed animals. All up until my life was completely flipped upside down. My father was in and out of the hospital during my childhood, I always knew he was “sick”. No one ever told me he had a disease. The day my father died was the day my world became black and white. All of a sudden during the next several years of grievance, all the dots would connect and I would beg for another bedtime story. The Winnie the Pooh I used to throw around was my father's. After he passed, my mom took it away from me until I was old enough to value it. This stuffed animal was crucial during my father's adolescence but now with his absence this is all I am left with. My dad's side of the family, went on a journey leaving their home state of Massachusetts traveling to Colorado, and ending in Las Vegas where we reside and have further developed a family. Without definite answers, I know I am a descendant of many Western European immigrants from my last name. I'm sure that my family's history dates back way further than what I am aware of, but with gaps in the timeline, I can only speak of their journey through America.

– Collin Chamberlain

Relationship:  Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more Great-grandchild of im/migrant or more