In Memoriam: Mary Elizabeth (Porter) Hughes (1953 - 2016)

Nearly thirty years ago now (1991), my mother, Mary Hughes, sat down at the dining room table and typed on her typewriter what would become the first edition of this Porter and Kenney family history. I would like to say I have vague memories of seeing her do this, but as a four-year-old boy at the time, I am not sure how many of the images in my head are true memories, and how many were created in my mind’s eye from the retelling of the story. Regardless, while typewriters were on their way out as I was on my way in, I can recognize the massive undertaking such a task was—and this only the last step in the larger process of compiling information about all the branches of the family tree.

One year for Mother’s Day, when I was perhaps ten or eleven, I told my mom that I would type up this family tree for her into the computer. I enjoyed looking through the pages and marvelling at all the details, but whenever the subject of the family tree came up, she would lament about how it needed to be updated. So my Mother’s Day gift to her was a promise to digitize the information to make it easier to update. While I loved being on the computer back then (as now!), I am sure she knew the level of patience needed for such a task was surely beyond the capabilities of a ten-year-old boy to manage. But she smiled, she thanked me for the wonderful present, and I set to work, dutifully typing in the pages into Microsoft Word.

Perhaps needless to say, it never got finished. And yet, years later, I still remember this promise I made to her, made only more regretful by her passing in 2016 as a result of a brain tumour. My mother was a family woman: a loving wife and mother; a daughter, sister, aunt, cousin, and more to our extended family, who she loved to see and spend holidays with; but also a woman who, through her love and care for those around her, brought many more into the warm embrace of a friendship that felt like family. Her work on this family history was a natural extension of her understanding of the need for family connection—these connections full of unconditional love, of wisdom from those who have walked the path before, of memories together and a shared history. These connections need not be the ties of blood or marriage, but by the shared passing of time together. My mother understood this, and she imparted this wisdom to her children in speech and in action, spreading this love to those around her.

It has taken me longer than it should have to follow through on my promise to translate this family history from printed text to the computer. In one sense, that is fortunate—my ten-year-old self had little notion of databases or web servers to be able to put it into a format that could be shared across the medium of the Internet. But it is my regret that I never finished this during her lifetime, to allow her to see her hard work take on new form, and be placed in the hands of the next generation to carry it forward. I believe that is something that would have made her proud, and grateful. Instead, I finish this in her memory.

Today, as of this writing, it has been four years since her passing. She is remembered by many. But some piece of her also lives on in this family history. And for that I am also proud, and grateful, for having had the blessing of being under her care for the many years that we had together. It is my hope that as you read through these pages, you recognize her attention and care, and that you—whether you are a descendent of this family tree or not—feel the welcome and warmth of my mother’s family.

Jeffrey Hughes (written May 12, 2020)