I have always considered myself lucky that I grew up in a small town. Dresden, in southwestern Ontario, was a town of 2,300. I knew everybody, and until I went away to university at the age of 18, I couldn’t imagine living anywhere else.

Of course, I never went back, except to visit. I became a big city girl, but with small town ways.

In retrospect, however, it wasn’t the small town that meant so much — it was the large family. My mom was the second youngest of 13 children, 11 of whom lived to adulthood. My dad was one of seven, four boys and three girls. And most of the Wilmotts and a lot of the Mandersons spent their lives in Dresden, or at the very least, in southwestern Ontario.

There was a reason I knew everybody in town — most of them were my relatives. My mom’s older sister Susie died recently, at the age of 93, the last of my mom’s siblings. (My mom is 90.) Her death set off a flood of memories.

My Aunt Susie was married to my dad’s brother, Stan, and when I was growing up there was a lot of back-and-forth between the two households.

I always felt there was a special bond because sisters had married brothers. Certainly Aunt Susie and Uncle Stan played a role in my reaching adulthood successfully. And my parents probably extended the same courtesy to their kids.

Susie and Stan lived across the river, about a mile from our house. Whenever I was feeling particularly misunderstood by my parents — who, through some stubbornness on their part, were always keeping me from doing things my friends’ parents allowed them to do — I would head out for a walk across the river.

If I timed it right, I would be in time for a cup of tea and a cookie with Aunt Susie and Uncle Stan.

They were always happy to see me. There was always lots of gentle teasing and I’d come away feeling that maybe I would survive if Mom and Dad wouldn’t let me do whatever it was. Not that we ever discussed my latest crisis; it’s just that it didn’t seem that important afterward.

Once I was old enough, I loved attending family weddings. Everybody danced. I loved dancing with my uncles to the old-fashioned tunes. Johnnie, who married my older cousin Margie, could do a mean polka.

And when a rock ’n’ roll song came on, women of all ages and some of the younger men would form a circle and dance together.

And of course, there were the family wakes. I loved standing around with my aunts and uncles and older cousins listening to the stories and reminiscences of the recently departed. There was always a lot of laughter with the tears because there were so many good memories.

When Aunt Susie was being buried I was in Calgary, visiting my daughter Rachel before heading off to the Investment Industry Association of Canada annual conference in Banff. I thought about my cousins and the get-together after the funeral and all the stories that would be told and all the memories that would be shared. I would have had a story or two to tell. I’m sure my mom did.

Mostly, though, I would have wanted to say how important family is. And what a privilege it was to grow up in the warm shelter of all those aunts and uncles and cousins.

-TESSA WILMOTT, EDITOR-IN-CHIEFe