ABSTRACT
A few years ago, Mike’s children’s “English grandmother” died. It was sad, of course. Kath was a wonderful woman who sat at the center of a vast network of family and friends. But it was a moment for celebration too—celebration of 84 years well lived. For Mike, it was also a moment for celebrating the fulfillment of the promise of fieldwork. Because Kath was not a blood relative. She was someone Mike had met 25 years earlier while doing the ethnographic fieldwork for Childerley, his study of nature and social class in exurban England that we’ve already mentioned a few times in this book. Kath was a key participant in the story. Mike quoted her often in Childerley (using a pseudonym). But she was much more than that. She and her husband Doug became close friends, almost family. Mike and his wife brought their children to visit them several times in England, and one summer Kath and Doug’s own children scraped up the funds—the family is working class, so this was quite an undertaking—to buy them first class tickets to fly to the US to spend a couple of weeks vacationing with Mike’s family. (It was the first time either had been on a plane.) Kath even knitted sweaters for both her “American grandchildren,” as she called Mike’s kids. The families continued to exchange letters, cards, and phone calls right up until Kath’s death.
