Pilling Family Stories: #1 - Setting the Stage

This year, my sabbatical plan was to plunge into Pilling family history.  I was thinking, in particular, about ways to draw parts of this story into my Business Associations classroom.  What might there be to learn from thinking about all the ways that the family has encountered business structures over the generations? 

We all of us have had the great gift of connecting ourselves to the Shuswap lands because of Doral's decision to hold those lands inside a corporate form (LaRue Investements, Ltd.).  And we have also had the gift (which sometimes also feels at the same time like a curse) of trying to learn how to understand ourselves as a piece inside a family business.

my seven generations....

For the past 20 years, I have been thinking lots about "LaRue", but now I thought it would be fun to start taking steps backwards, to think about the pieces before that.  What about the Rockwool Business?   What about Moose Dome?  And, going back further, what about the Pilling farm that came before that?   And indeed, what about going back further yet, and asking what 'business' looked like in the 7 generations of our family (heading right back to England).

That is a big project, but I thought I could start small, and begin with a focus on granddad's autobiography. I wish I had done this while Arta was still around, so I could ask her now about the questions I should have asked much earlier.   Ah well.  So instead, I have been posing many of my questions to the internet!

Or, more precisely, I have been heading to other archives and libraries to see what resources there are to help me get a bit more context for what Doral had to say in his autobiography. I am noticing that the more I scratch the surface, the more questions that emerge.   

I keep thinking it would be fun to make a whole bunch of small videos, so I could retell some of the stories I am finding, and connections that are to be seen.  But it feels a bit overwhelming.  So I thought maybe I just start with the blog?  I thought what I might try, as I walk down that path, to just start sharing (in more fragmentary ways) some of what I am seeing along the way.  If anyone might find these connections interesting or entertaining, it is family!   And maybe some of you will have ideas about other connections to be found.   

So... I am going to just use the heading "Pilling Family Stories" to organize these stories and fragments as I go along, while I am trying to think both about the 'business' side of the Pilling family history, and also to think about the ways that our story is connected to the larger stories of economy, immigration, colonialism, nation building and family.  hahah.  Some big questions!   but I will see if I can't share some of the interesting tales as I go along.