The first person I am am going to interview for my family tree has to be my loving mother; Kathleen Cronk, formally known as Kathleen Regan!
So to start from the beginning she was born March 1st, 1969 in Toronto, Ontario. However, she lived nearby in a town called Sarnia on Lake Huron.It was here that she spent most of her early childhood up until the age of 12. This is the unique part of my mom’s life story, through those 12 years there, she had accumulated 5 siblings. Two of them being biological (Sherry and Shanon), then my grandparents adopted 3 others (Brett, Heather and Amy).
You might be thinking that 6 kids in a family is a lot, but frankly we are only half way there! After the Sarnia scene, my mom and her ever-growing family moved to Calgary, Alberta for her father’s work situation for IBM. As they were only in Calgary for a short 1.5 years, no children were added to the Regan clan at this point.
After the Calgary stop, the family headed over to Vancouver Island and set up residence in Campbell River. They moved here because my grandfather decided to open up the first McDonalds there. Not only that but the Regan clan expanded by 3 children adopting a few more kids (Lindsay, Caron and Regan). To add to the whole timeline, my mom left Campbell River at the age of 16 after living there for close to three years. However, the ages and exact dates are a little blurry after the constant moving around.
Again following her father, the now large family of 9 kids headed to Victoria where we now reside. They moved because apparently my grandfather was not so much into McDonalds anymore but more of Burger King guy, so he opened up the first Burger King in Victoria. As Victoria is the last city we visit on my mother’s moving adventure, it is only fitting that her parents adopt 3 more children (Beth, Jessica, and Mark). So the final child count is at 12 for the Regan family, leaving my mother the oldest of 12.
Kathleen proceeded to finish her High School Education graduating from Mt. Doug High School in 1987 as a swimming superstar. She then proceeded to attend our very own University of Victoria to pursue a degree in Biology and a minor in Greek and Roman Studies. Although she never finished her degree, it was because she fell in love with my loving father (Ron Cronk, see next week’s vlog) and decided it was best that for our family she become a stay-at-home mom. Lucky for me!
As an only child and always having my mom around to support me and be there for me, I might have taken her for granted at times but without her who knows where I would be now. This blog post opened up my eyes to really all she did have to go through as a child growing up, always moving, and always having to make new friends. As she had to go to 11 different schools before finally graduating, she really didn’t have it that easy in her childhood. Especially constantly having new siblings arrive it must have been quite the experience. My favourite story my mom ever told me was when she came back from swimming practice at the age of 17. She arrived home to seeing a baby girl (my now aunt Jessica) sitting in a child carrier. This was the first she had ever heard of them adopting a new child, so it was quite the shock.
I skipped a few intermediate steps in this blog post about my mom, but I tried to incorporate the most unique parts of her life in as I thought it would be the most interesting to read. Finally, because of my mom’s HUGE family, it makes our family gatherings quite the spectacle coming from an only child perspective!
Here is a quick picture of my parents, obviously my mother (Kathleen) is on the right!
Riley
