Four Generation Pedigree

Kathleen Beverly Harrison

Kathleen Beverly Harrison was born on April 8, 1917 in Camden, Missouri to James B. Harrison and Helen Tarwater. She had one child, Charles Edward Kleinbeck. “Cottie”, as those who knew her well called her, was a lively old woman who loved being a socialite. At a young age, she learned to enjoy school and finished with good grades. This put her in a place to help out in the business her future husband would start. She married a man named Edward Samuel Kleinbeck. Together they went into business selling parts for airplanes. Cottie spent most of her mornings working at the shop and her evenings taking care of her duties as a wife and mother.

Her son recalls how she loved to cook for her family. On his tenth birthday, Charles headed home from school with his friends to enjoy a party in his honor. As he arrived home the smell of fried chicken filled the air! He loved fried chicken and was so happy that his mother had made it special for him and his friends. He enjoyed his chicken and then gathered his friends together to show him his pet, Stevie, who happened to be a chicken. It only took a second for Cottie to realize that she had done something very bad. She had not realized that she had accidently cooked Stevie as it was hard to tell him apart from the other chickens in the coop. Although her son was heartbroken, Cottie was even more so for causing her son pain on such a special day.

Edward Samuel Kleinbeck died on September 10, 1964 leaving Cottie alone with a grieving son. After Edward’s death, she married John Fredrick Hartnett. “Big John” and Cottie continued the airplane business and John enjoyed building airplanes. They bought a beautiful home with a large hanger and a landing strip. Cottie retired from the office to become the entertainer of her friends. John and Cottie loved to host extravagant hog roasts. Along with these parties, each Sunday the whole family was expected to come for a huge shrimp feast.

As Cottie was aging, her cooking skills began to get worse. This did not stop her from wanting to feed her family each Sunday and holiday. The family still recalls a tale of woe that happened one Thanksgiving. Cottie’s pies were notoriously longed for within the family and as Thanksgiving dinner came to an end, everyone gathered to get desert. He daughter-in-law picked a piece of pecan pie and took a bite. It was later learned that Cottie had mistook Shrimp Sauce for vanilla in all her pies. Needless to say, there were many sad faces that year.

Cottie passed away of February 11, 2007.

My Life Story...well, some of it.

I, Tashua Nicole Lewis, was born on Monday July 22, 1991 in Mount Holly, Burlington, New Jersey to Kelly Kay Kleinbeck and Gerald “Gene” Eugene Lewis. My father was in Navy and many of my early years were spent traveling. This was long before I can remember, but I know from family videos and stories that my mother and I lived with my grandparents for some time while my dad was away. After my dad got out of the Navy, my family moved to Haskell, Arkansas where his parent’s lived. We lived there only until halfway through my Kindergarten year, but there are few memories I have.

On my first day of Kindergarten, we were assigned to cut a design out of paper. I remember that the girl next to me was cutting her paper the wrong way and I was very mad that she wasn't following directions. I decided to put my hand on her paper so she could not cut anymore. Instead, she just cut through my finger. I was so upset that the school nurse had to call my mother to take me home.

Although this is a simple story, I think it shows a great deal about my personality. I do not like when rules are broken. I have always understood that rules were there for a reason and that they should be followed. My sister, Jessica Lynn Lewis, was born on April 5, 1992. As we were growing up, Jessica and I loved to color. We were quite different though, I always had to color in the lines and to use the exact colors that things were in real life. My sister preferred to color things as she liked. Grass could be colored purple and people faces green. This always bothered me and I frequently argued with my sister about how coloring should be done.

We moved from Arkansas to Richmond, Missouri where I finished out my Kindergarten year. When we first moved to Missouri, we lived with my mother’s parents while my parents renovated an old house they bought. It is here that I have one of my most dear memories of my parents. One evening as we were preparing for bed, my little sister and I crawled into bed with my parents. We cuddled and laughed and my parents seemed very happy. Although this is a simple memory, it is one of the few where I can remember seeing my mom and dad happy together.

It wasn't long after we moved into our new house that I realized my parents were not as happy as I had thought. In general, my mom and dad were good about keeping their fights away from my sister and me, but you can only hide so much unhappiness before it spills out into other aspects of life. I was old enough to understand what divorce was, but too young to remember many of the grueling details, thankfully. I do remember how heartbroken my mom was and how strange it was to see my dad with another woman, even if she was really nice.

After my parents got divorced, my new step mom started taking my sister and me to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints. We only went when we were at my dad’s house which was every other week. Soon I asked my mom to take us as well. Since she was actually a baptized, in-active member of this church she agreed and we started going to church. My dad and step mother did not continue going to church. On July 31^st, 2000 I was baptized. I was nine years old.

Shortly after this, my dad and step mom moved to Arkansas and my mom got remarried. My sister and I lived with my mom, but we would spend six weeks of the summer with my dad. It was fun to spend the summers with my dad because my cousins lived close and I liked to play with them. I didn’t really like that we were away from my mom and it was hard to not see her for so long. One summer my dad had moved to Wisconsin and we visited him there. This is the summer that I have many memories from because my cousins also got to come and visit for the summer. On the way to Wisconsin, my dad made a sudden stop on the side of the rode. He had accidently hit a raccoon. As he pulled off, he noticed he had killed the raccoon, but that it had a baby that was left motherless. He picked it up and we took it home with the intention to take it to the wildlife facility the next day. When we got there my step mom got out a bottle and some milk to feed the baby raccoon. The next day everyone had fallen in love with it and Minnie, as we came to call her, became part of the family. During this summer we spent a lot of time at the beach, which was walking distance from my dad’s house.

When I was twelve I made the decision that I did not want to spend all of the summer with my dad. It was hard because I know it hurt his feeling, but there were two reasons that I decided this. One which was deeply rooted from what happened the summer we lived in Wisconsin. It was a very rainy day and we were playing in the detached garage on the Sega gaming system. We decided to go inside to do something else, but my sister left her doll in the garage. She went back to get it and I went with her since she was little. As she was trying to get it, she slipped and sliced her leg open on a metal chair in the garage. She was in a lot of pain and the cut was very deep. My step mom looked at it, cleaned it, and gave her a Band-Aid. She should have been taken to get stitches and even though it was not a big deal, my young mind remembered this and believed it meant that my sister wouldn't be taken care of there. I have always been so protective of my sister and this led to be very influential. The second thing that led me to choose not to spend the summer with him was that I wanted to spend it where all of my friends lived.

My mom did not stay married to her second husband for long because he had a liking for bars and prostitutes. When I was twelve my mom remarried and we moved to Olathe, Kansas. It was really hard for me to accept that I was not going to see my old friends again and knowing that I would have a hard time meeting new friends. We moved halfway through my seventh grade year and it was hard for me to transition to a city school. The curriculum was much more advanced than the tiny district I was in prior. I had to work very hard to keep up with what the other students were already used to.

It was during my seventh grade homeroom class that I was first bullied. A tall, strong girl called me “Scraggley” every day because she didn't think I brush my hair. It was really hard for me to not get mad and to just laugh it off. Some people truly don’t understand the pain words can have on other people. Though it was hard to adjust, I found that I really enjoyed my new school. I made only one friend that year and she was a pathological liar. After leaving a shirt at her house, I saw her wearing the same one. I asked her if it were mine and she refused to give me the shirt back because she believed that she really had one like it.

That summer I had the blessing to go to Girl’s Camp for church. It was here that I met and got to spend lots of time with a girl in my ward and it is here that our friendship started. I truly cherish the blessing it is to be her friend and I will forever be grateful for the chance we had to get to know each other at camp. Before Girl’s Camp we were natural enemies. We both had the same friend as our “best friend.” It just so happened that both of us had the same girl that we considered our best friend. The second day of Girl’s Camp she hurt herself and had to be sent home. Before going home she asked me to decorate the other girl’s bunk bed for her birthday which would be during Girl’s Camp. Doing this was the stepping stone towards a great friendship. I decided I would do what was asked and helped decorate the main room and I got to know her pretty well throughout the rest of camp. 


Eventually... I got married and had a son! :D

Life Goals

I feel like there is this nagging thing adults love to do where they ask little kids what they want to be when they grow up. People have been asking me that now for 21 years and honestly I am still at a loss. When I was little, I wanted to be an astronaut. Then a cowgirl. Then a teacher. Teaching stuck with me the longest, but as I started college, I quickly began to pull away from that as well. I am now at the point where I have chosen the major that I will finish the quickest. That is psychology. Don't ask me why, but I love it. It is amazing to understand the way people think and why they do things. I will be the first to admit that a lot of the stuff is just opinion, but nevertheless I will eventually have a degree. So here is my first life goal:

1. FINISH COLLEGE.

Its in all caps because after 4 years and with 2 more still to go, it is a daunting task that is taking a lot longer than it needs. The reason deciding what I wanted to be was so hard was because the answer in my heart was never taken seriously. At least, not until I met my husband. To me, the best job in the whole world is a stay-at-home mom. People of the world look down on this, except in the church. My husband was thrilled that I wanted to stay home. He loves being the bread-winner. As I have studied more about the importance of mothers I have discovered this life goal:

2. Always be home at the crossroads.

This is a pretty popular saying in the world of mothering, but basically it just means being at home when your children are coming and going. Here are some more family-related goals:

3. Teach my children how to stand strong in their testimonies.
4. Encourage my children to be the best they can and to always remember how special they are.
5. Tell my children each day that I love them.
6. Support my husband as the priesthood leader in our home.
7. Encourage family bonding time.

There are probably many more family goals, but I also have religious goals:

8. Serve a companion mission with my husband.
9. Go to the temple as often as possible.
10. Develop as many talents as possible.
11. Create a lifestyle that is worth of exaltation.
12. Endure until the end.

Other less important goals include:
13. Travel to a different country.
14. Go on a cruise.
15. Buy a house.

View of Life

A person can go through their whole life without realizing that their views shape them. Each person sees the world differently and then acts upon these views almost unconsciously. What makes a person's view? How is it formed and why is it so powerful? I don't know the answer to these questions...not yet, anyways. I think the only way to figure out where your views came from is to figure out what your views are. Many great thinkers have relished in the idea of free verse to unlock your inner thoughts and views. The theory is that through letting your subconscious just spill onto the paper (or keys in this case) you can get a glimpse of what you truly think and feel. So I figured I would apply this to my views of life. If I just keep typing, hopefully some important things will make themselves know. 

If I were to create a list of things that are most important to me, my religion would fall at the very top. I often hear people say that family is more important than religion, but to me they are all the same. How can you love your family separate from your God? Without the many important things I know about family through religion, I could not begin to love my family as they should be loved. I am forever grateful to know that I can be with my family throughout eternity if I do my best and follow the commandments set forward. It is such an amazing thing to see the blessings that come through obedience. I have always been one to follow the rules. I think my conscience was build extra powerful because no punishment can outweigh the pain I feel when I have done something wrong. This is not to say I don't frequently do wrong things, but rather that I beat myself up for doing them. I think that forgiveness should be given to yourself too. There is nothing more caging than living with a grudge you have towards yourself. The miracle of the Atonement of Jesus Christ provided a way for all of us to repent and be forgiven. I cannot imagine how much love Jesus Christ has for each spirit to suffer as he did, but I will be eternally grateful.

Family means the world to me. I love and adore my husband. He is the hardest working man I know and he is constantly pushing me to be better. He is also equally patient with the fact that I suffer from extreme laziness. He loves me for who I am, but makes me better. I can't imagine anyone who would be a better husband or father than him (but I am probably biased). Our love and support for one another plays such a big role in how I go about life. It has been so amazing being able to start a family together and to experience life's many challenges. Our son is the sweetest boy in the whole world. He is only 6 months old, but he already has such a distinctive personality. He is so tenderhearted. At the smallest sign of contention he will become sad and need to be comforted. He doesn't like yelling and he is always smiling. I have never seen a baby smile so much in my life. I am eternally grateful for that smile because it is such an example to me to be a happier, better mommy.

Being a mom has turned into the most amazing experience of my life. The blessings I see each day as I love and teach my son are such a testament to how important being a mom is. I think parenthood truly is the greatest role each of us have and I can't wait to learn more through my children.