“OK, building a medieval town – I got this, but do I need to start spelling Ludlow as Ludlowe again?”
Six-year-old Grayson was in the midst of his Lego sets looking at the medieval town some of his ancestors had helped build, and cracking his big cousins Edwin Ludlow III and Garlene Ludlow up.
“We just wanted you to see we've been building for a long time!” Edwin III said. “We didn't think you were going to want to do it in Legos!”
“Well, what's the point of looking at it if we are not going to build it?” Grayson said.
“You know what – good point,” Garlene said as she sat down and Edwin III broke out laughing again. “Where are we starting, Grayson?”
“OK, so first of all we need to do some blueprints because 800-year-old blueprints are hard to find,” Grayson said as he went to get blue construction paper and white crayons.
“Well, yes, because failing to plan is planning to fail!” Edwin III said as we sat down. “Grandpa – your great-grandfather, Grayson – always used to say that!”
Two hours later, Capt. R.E. Ludlow, son of Edwin Ludlow Sr., last living uncle of Edwin III and Garlene, grandfather of Grayson, walked in and looked to see two generations of Ludlows working out how to do a replica of a whole medieval town from a photograph. Grayson's siblings ten-year-old Andrew and cousin-turned-adopted sibling ten-year-old Glendella had joined also … and the town was half built.
“But I still need to know if we are Ludlowes again,” Grayson said.
“To E or not to E,” Glendella said. “Whether it is nobler in the mind to remember that this is 2020 and Shakespeare is gone, or just hoist the E on the petard and sally forth.”
The home filled with the bass-voiced laughter of Edwin Ludlow Sr.'s only surviving son, and was picked up by all Ludlow descendants!
