My family, its big...I'll start when I was born.
I was born on Monday, March 26, 1979, in Berkeley, California, in a large duplex with 5 other women
at 6:20am to Maureen Ann Synk. Just Sheila, a good friend of my mother's, and a midwife
present. I was a healthy baby of 7lbs. and 21 inches long. I was named
Erin Tuolumne Christine Synk. The biological father(sperm donar as I like to call him) was
Joseph Arthur Wirth. So my mother, Sheila and I lived in Berkeley for 3 months then moved
to Oakland. And then about six months later, Mom drove up the coast to Seattle and along Hwy. 2 to Grand Forks, North Dakota.
My mom met John Jovien Karlstad at a dance class in February of 1980. He
was just getting divorced, and he had 3 kids, Jacob Cassidy-5 1/2, Martha Arwen-3 1/2, and Audrey Cherise-1. Maureen and John were married in June of '80 and I was adopted as Erin
Tuolumne Christine Karlstad. In March of 1981 we moved down to Santa Fe,
New Mexico. We lived there until November of '81 and then it look us a month
to get back up to Grand Forks. We then lived with Grandma and Grandpa Karlstad, Hillard Karlstad
(born June 6th, 1914 - died June 12th, 1991) and Barbara (born October 27th,
1913 - died January 12th, 1991). Grandma never got to see Eamon, she died of Cancer.
Grandpa died of a broken heart:) At least I and my romantic heart think so,
he died exactly 6 months later cause he couldn't live without her:)
In January of '82 we moved into a big blue house on the east side, we lived there
for a month, and then moved to Rosie Pinger's house from February to April, at which point
Alison Francesca Karlstad was born, March 6th, 1982. When she was 12 she changed her
name to Magdelynn...Mag or Maggie for short(not legally yet). When she was 1 month old
she had brain surgery on the left side, which has affect her right side. She's normal and all
that, but she has some problems using her right hand and some other things.
In May of '82 we moved to 2215 2nd Ave. North. (phone number was 746-7536, I'm amazed
I still remember that). While we lived at that house, Brendan Patrick Karlstad was
born on March 12th, 1984. He came out an annoying child and still is one.
Sometime during these years we got two cats, Sunflower and Rainbow. My parents
were hippie wannabes. Rainbow ran away and Sunny stayed.
In the summer of '86 we moved to 111 Euclid (Sunny moved with us). I went to 2nd and the first part of 3rd grade there (so did Audrey). Audrey and I are 4 months apart, which made us best friends. Everywhere Audrey went Erin followed, but Whatever Audrey wanted to do,
Erin did. That's the way we were, Audrey came up with the ideas, and I made them
possible. I'll put up a story about us running away when we were 4 years old ...later though.
So in the Fall of '87 at which point I was 8 years old we moved to 539 N.
Park St. in Richland Center, Wisconsin, quite a move huh.(Sunny moved with us).
When we moved into the house, we got 3 farm cats Whisper, Whiner, and Whimper. Whiner
died not too long after that and Whimper had to be put to sleep, Whisper, who was the only
girl survived...though she became very senile. These were interesting
years. Martha when she was a freshman in Highschool moved into with her real
mother in Macomb, Illinois. Eamon James was born a year later while Jacob was in
Germany, on February 23rd, 1991. 3 years later Audrey moved in with Martha and Joan, their real mother, who were now in Omaha, Nebraska.
Which would make it the summer of 1994 when we moved to Viroqua. Me in my
sophomore year of highschool. By that time we had a bunch of cats, that all died or given away
or ran away. Whisper we had to put to sleep cause she went totally senile. And we had
B.J. who was the son of a stray. and Sunny, and Guido who is the
daughter of Whisper...Sunny has left the world, and we aren't sure what happened to B.J., and Guido has now gone to heaven. My parents had dog named Dakota. My brother Jacob got married July 18th, 1998 to Louise Andersen who are now living in Copenhagen, Denmark. My parents moved to the country like they always wanted to do and a few years later Dakota got ran over by a car. They now have a dog named Zara (spelling on that one I'm not too sure about) and a crazy cat named Shiva. When I was there I was afraid the cat was gonna attack me in my sleep, she was purring SO loud too, it was kinda funny.
February 28th (i think) 2002, Jacob and Louise had a baby boy named Christopher. July 18th 2005 Louise had a baby girl and they named her Victoria.
March 4th, 2006 my Dad had quadruple bypass surgery. He's doing GREAT now, except for not being able to eat chocolate, but hey, he's alive and kickin and even back to work. Doing so good that he came out here in July and helped us remodel our house.
It is now up to date. That'd be my family. I have tons of cousins on the Synk
side but I won't go into them.
Here are some pictures of my family:
