Vanessa Trampleasure, 1956-2009

It is with great sadness that I write of the death of my cousin, Vanessa Trampleasure, of Essex, UK. I never met Vanessa, although we exchanged emails several times regarding our family tree.

I’d like to take a moment to reflect on the Trampleasure family, and how technology makes our world a smaller place: Growing up, the Trampleasure clan was a small one. Living in our area were my grandmother (“Nanny”), Uncle Dave (he had two children, but an unpleasant divorce meant we only saw his kids when I were very young), my two siblings (Calvin and Grace), and my parents (Bill and Mary Lee). Somewhere around high school I decided that there must be other Trampleasures out there, so I went to the local library and started thumbing through the phone books. Eventually (I can’t remember how long I was at it), I came across another Trampleasure! Writing down the address, I went home and my mom and I wrote them a letter. We soon learned there was another line of Trampleasures living in Canada and England. Vanessa was a part of that branch.

This, occurring in the 1970s, was pre-internet. But the technology of the time, the telephone, helped us find each other.

It took us many years, but finally we were able to find the “missing link” in our family trees to prove that we were related (before that, everyone sort of knew that, with a name like Trampleasure, we had to be related).

At 17, on a bicycle trip to Seattle with some friends, I took a personal detour to the Vancouver area to look up cousins living there (Gary and Betty Anne). Being a silly youth, I didn’t make plans, and just phoned them when I got into town (Tsawwassen, BC). No one was home, and I ended up having dinner (dry cottage cheese and canned something) at a local park while watching a kids’ soccer game. I got to talking to one of the moms there, and it turned out she was a neighbor of Gary and Betty Anne’s. We bid farewell, and I took the ferry back to the States.

In my mid twenties, I took a trip to the UK, but, being twenty-something, family wasn’t too high on my list of priorities, and I’m regret to this day that I didn’t put Vanessa and the other Trampleasures on my itinerary.

Over the course of the next thirty years, several of the Trampleasures did come to visit us. Colin and Doris (Vanessa’s parents) made it out, as well as her brother, John, and his family. Gary and Betty Anne brought some of their kids down from Canada on one of their trips.

Last year, I finally made it up to visit the Trampleasures in the Vancouver area. My cousin Madison (my “fourth cousin, twice removed”) was so pleased to meet another Trampleasure that she had me hold I sign she wrote, “I’m a Trampleasure,” when she took a picture of me. That sign still hangs proudly on my wall. I had hoped to make it up there again this year, but plans didn’t work out that way. Next year it’s a priority. There’s still a few Trampleasures up there I haven’t met (and if I’m really crazy, I may extend my road trip to Alaska to visit family from my mom’s side).

Fast forward about about 20 years from the discovery at the library, and introduce computers. Family trees are now much easier to create, and I started using Family Tree Maker to track the family. Still only minimal internet, but as it grows, searching for the family gets easier. Somewhere along the line I learn that Vanessa is the true genealogist in the family. If you Google Vanessa Trampleasure, you’ll find countless genealogy web pages with her contributions. Vanessa provided me with details to help complete my version of our family tree.

2009 marks the year I start using Facebook to meet more Trampleasures. I now have 17 members of the Trampleasure family I can follow on Facebook. It’s like an ongoing family reunion. Birthdays, anniversaries, and even the sad news of Vanessa’s passing. I get to see all the posts from members of the younger generations — many, many posts 🙂 — and the fewer from the “older” generation members (I probably break the trend that younger folks post more). I have my family tree printed and posted on my wall to help me keep track of who’s who, but I’m still a little unclear on some of the younger generation members :-(. I’ve even made some connections with my long lost first cousins and their kids (Uncle Dave’s family).

So, I send my love to all the Trampleasures who knew and loved Vanessa. I shall miss her. Losing a family member reminds us not to take each other for granted, but to keep up the communications and visits. Anyone coming to Berkeley certainly has a place to stay, and I look forward to my visits to Trampleasures the globe over.

– Lee