Stories That Live In Us

Wyoming: Tumbleweed Ties That Bind (with Lindy Nielsen) | Episode 75

• Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist • Season 2 • Episode 75

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Lindy Nielsen:

We got a call from American Idol that she had been doing all of her pre-auditions and that they were going to feature her audition on American Idol. And they asked if we wanted to buy ourselves there and be there when she auditioned. And we were like yes.

Crista Cowan:

Stories that Live In Us is a podcast that inspires you to form deep connections with your family, past, present and future. I'm Crista Cowan, known online as The Barefoot Genealogist. Counting down to the upcoming celebration of America's 250th birthday, you'll meet families from each state whose stories are woven into the very fabric of America Tales of immigration, migration, courage and community that remind us that when we tell our stories, we strengthen the bonds that connect us. So join me for season two as we discover, from Sea to Shining Sea, the stories that live in us.

Crista Cowan:

I have driven through the state of Wyoming countless times. If you take the southern route across I-80, it looks like it's the same for miles and it gets a little monotonous. But if you go up into Jackson Hole and the Tetons, it is some of the most beautiful land in the country. Wyoming is the cowboy state, and when I think about Wyoming I think about the Old West, whether it's there up in the Tetons, in what is still some of the most rugged land in the country, or if it's driving across the I-80 route between Utah and Nebraska, that is cowboy land, and one of the things I think about when I think about cowboys is the traditions of music. When you think about old cowboys, there's just this image that comes to mind of gathering around the campfire after a long day of ranching and singing music. Playing an instrument Like that just somehow really evokes that memory for me. Like that just somehow really evokes that memory for me.

Crista Cowan:

My guest today is Lindy Nielsen and she is, among other things, a bit of a musician and music is part of her family story and our conversation has some really unique aspects and it's a fun story that I think you're really going to enjoy. But I'm going to give you a little bit of the moral up front, which is as we talked, I was really reminded of how much our DNA matters, how much this argument about nurture versus nature comes into play, and when you look at it it reminds me of Wyoming. There's beautiful things and there's monotonous things, but both of them work beautifully to create harmony in that state, just like nature versus nurture work beautifully to create harmony in our lives. Enjoy my conversation with Lindy Nielsen. So, lindy, I'm so excited to have this conversation with you. You grew up in Wyoming yes, I did.

Crista Cowan:

Yes, I did in northern Wyoming, okay tell me a little bit about what that was like growing up.

Lindy Nielsen:

So we lived out in the middle of nowhere. It was only like eight miles from the nearest little town, but even at that the town was like 700 people, so I think it's safe to say it was the middle of nowhere. My parents are divorced, but they still live within a mile of each other, both out in the country, and so, yeah, it was just, it was a. It didn't feel isolated at the time. I have a big family and so we just kind of hung out with each other and used our imaginations and played outside and it was awesome. Actually, I loved it.

Crista Cowan:

You talked about living out in the country. Was it like a ranch or a ranchette or just country living?

Lindy Nielsen:

My stepdad grew up on a large ranch and so when I was with my mom we were there and so surrounded by just acres and acres of cows and things. And then my dad, actually um, was the first in his family to move out into the country and he had a similar, more of a farm um than a ranch, but they was, it was. They both had a surprising amount of things in common and um allowed us a lot of stability going back and forth. It was like it wasn't one large house by any means, but it was so similar that all of my time was spent in a real outdoorsy, animal, rich kind of upbringing.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. That sounds ideal for a childhood right.

Lindy Nielsen:

It was really fun. I mean, in hindsight I can't imagine letting my kids do the things that I did. I just didn't know that that was. I didn't really get the grasp of danger or germs. I couldn't do it with my kids. Now I live a very cush life now but at the time no one was really paying attention so we just kind of just didn't really have rules and we were dirty all the time and but it was really free and it was fun hey, I grew up in a city and it was the same for us.

Crista Cowan:

Like I think it was just a different time, right? We used to make mud pies in the backyard and, yeah you, you get sent out of the house after breakfast and served lunch on the back porch and you don't come back in till dinner time yeah, it's funny when I talked to my friends who had that experience where they would ride their bikes all over town.

Lindy Nielsen:

I didn't do that and that seems so scary to me. But technically I mean playing in the river and climbing trees and you know, being around rusty nails in an old barn is probably scary to someone else, for sure.

Crista Cowan:

You mentioned a large family. How old were you when your parents divorced?

Lindy Nielsen:

I was eight.

Crista Cowan:

I think I was eight, and did you have full siblings with?

Lindy Nielsen:

them. Yeah, so my mom was married to a really awesome man named Tom and she had my older sister and my older brother, and then she married my dad and had me and my sister, katie, and then they both remarried. My stepdad had two kids already and then my dad had another daughter, so between everyone there's seven kids now. Yeah, so I share I mean I have a unique relationship with my one sister just because we're in both houses together but I'm really like as an adult now when I look back, I'm super impressed with my family, because they did a really good job of being a modern family. Before. That was really a thing. Yeah, it wasn't always perfect, for sure, but it was definitely pretty modern for what they were dealing with at the time. There weren't like a lot of examples in their lives of just letting the door be open and everyone kind of being welcome to come and go, which is really beautiful. In hindsight, I'm super grateful for that?

Crista Cowan:

That's amazing. Yeah, and what's the age? Spread your older siblings to your dad's youngest child, so?

Lindy Nielsen:

the oldest is six years older than me and the youngest is 10 years younger than me. Okay, there's quite a spread. Yeah, a little bit of it. We did discover that I have an older sister. I just didn't know that when I was growing up. So technically, that spread is even longer than that.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, those surprise siblings did that come up because of DNA it did, yeah, fun, it was a really cool experience.

Lindy Nielsen:

Actually, we did not expect it. We were looking for a different family member and I did not realize I had a biological sister on my dad's side, and so when it came up it was really exciting for everybody. Yeah, did your dad know? He did not know, okay, so he was 16, and she left town, she went to another state to have the baby and so he didn't know.

Lindy Nielsen:

He kind of had heard rumors but he didn't know and so it was really fun to call him. We have a screenshot of us because my sister is the one who had taken the DNA test and when she saw the results we called my dad and he was asleep and he had his oxygen machine on and he's tearing it off of his face and just tears. And it was so cool and it was also bizarre because we knew for maybe 20 minutes before we called. But as soon as my dad answered I just reverted into being a little kid and I was like we found your baby dad, because you know it's such a bizarre way of saying it.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, oh, wow. And so do you have a relationship with that sibling? Now we do. Yes, that's amazing. I love that. So tell me a little bit about the rest of your family, like, did you grow up with grandparents around and aunts and uncles and cousins, or was it just mostly this really modern nuclear family you had?

Lindy Nielsen:

So actually the extended family wise, it was pretty small. My dad is an only well, my dad had a brother who passed away when my dad was 14. And so we didn't have any cousins on his side at all, and then on my mom's side of the family we only had two cousins, so there wasn't a lot of extended family. But I grew up super close to my grandmother. She had a really cool story. Her parents came from Poland and they immigrated to work in the mines, so not together. My grandma's mom's family moved to Montana to work in the mines and then my grandmother's father came when he was 17 to where we grew up, and he would just send money back to his mother in Poland, and so my grandma was really unique, like she could speak Polish and she was just a really generous, loving human.

Lindy Nielsen:

Her parents, when they finally did meet, both being from Poland, they at a really young age realized that the mines were just really hard on your body, and so my great-grandfather learned English relatively quickly, and so the court system would use him to translate.

Lindy Nielsen:

So they ended up getting married. He was a butcher and they lived along the railroad tracks, and one of the things I love is my dad tells a story about how generous they were and how he was a butcher and she would bake and they would give food to the folks that were riding on the trains past their house, and so I mean they had tons of stories like stories of like like someone being rude to my grandmother and the rest of the people on the train just taking care of that and the rest of the people on the train just taking care of that, I think, through physical means of punching. But it wasn't okay for them to see them be treated poorly because they relied on them for food when they were in that section of the country. So, yeah, so my grandma was really generous. Her parents were super duper generous and that was the most. Influence outside of our family was my paternal grandma.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. Where did she live when you were growing up in relation to you?

Lindy Nielsen:

She lived close. She lived in a little town about 30 minutes away from us, but we would see her all the time. She was super, super joyful and just really fun loving.

Crista Cowan:

Is there something like some memory you associate with her growing up?

Lindy Nielsen:

yeah, so she, she was the. The great depression really influenced her. So she would tell stories about how they would have, you know, um, orange peels with sugar sprinkled on them and that would be their dessert. So she over corrected in that area and, oh, we had so many treats and like just drawers of candy and in her freezer I don't know if frozen yogurt was literally invented during this time of my life or if my grandma just discovered it during this time of my life but her freezer she would have like 30 little styrofoam containers with different kinds of fro-yo in them, because she just thought it was so exciting until fro fro yo in them, because she just thought it was so exciting.

Lindy Nielsen:

Until you come to her house and she just, you know, open the freezer and be like, take your pick. Or she also, like had multiple candy drawers and I remember distinctly her saying these are fat free, these are fat free, these are. But it was like gummy bears and cinnamon bears and like the concept of calories versus fat free. Just, I don't know that my grandma ever made the connection, but she was just like so excited about sweets and like the, the ingestion of, like variety and food, I don't know. Anyway, those stories are funny to me and she also was a real chatterbox.

Lindy Nielsen:

My grandpa called her motor at heavy motor belt um, because she would like leave the room when we were watching tv. And she'd come back like because the phone would ring. And she'd come back like 30 minutes later and we'd be like who was it? And she'd say, oh, it's the wrong number, oh, we'd chat and chat with them because she was just, she was really beloved by people. She was a operator for the phone service for AT&T and so she would just talk to people probably all day. I mean, I didn't really know that aspect of her, but as an adult I can see her being really successful in that, because she was just always talking to strangers and making friends with people and was super generous and that's delightful.

Lindy Nielsen:

She sounds like somebody you just want to know she really was like she had a closet full of gifts just in case. So, like you've been in your house and they'd be like, oh, did you? You know, the neighbor just said it's his birthday and she's like I'm on it and she'd wrap it up and then have a gift for them and, um, yeah, she just was super thoughtful and, um, just really unique. I haven't met anyone like her since and I super thoughtful and just really unique, I haven't met anyone like her since and I just she was just really wonderful. I'm sure everyone says that about their grandparents, but she was so wonderful. Yeah, how old were you when she passed? I was 16.

Lindy Nielsen:

And actually you know something interesting about finding that additional sister, that that we had, that we have. She looks just like my grandma and your hand gestures are like her. It's really beautiful. She's also really generous and I don't know some of the facial expressions she has. She has her height. My grandma wasn't very tall and it was really really wild to be around our new sister because she has so many mannerisms that were so familiar. I think it was really special for my dad too, but definitely all of us kids. It was like, you know, just this little window to this person that you miss.

Crista Cowan:

You bring up this really interesting idea, though of nature versus nurture right, like some things I think we just kind of come with because of our genetics, but I think some things are also shaped by our environment, and so, as you think about like growing up, like you grew up in this unique family situation, you grew up in this unique cultural situation, being in this remote place, like how much do you think you know and can you be objective even about like how much of that was nature versus the just environment you grew up in?

Lindy Nielsen:

well, this is, this is the million trillion dollar question, right, yes, and I mean I'm. There's a very poignant example of nature versus nurture, with our other dna discovery of my niece, which I'm sure I'm jumping down.

Crista Cowan:

But well, let's talk about that dna story. So your, your family, decided to take DNA tests because you were looking for something or someone. Tell me about like kind of what led up to that and put you all in that position, and then who you were looking for and how you went about that.

Lindy Nielsen:

Okay, perfect. So growing up with my siblings, like I said, we were largely each other's best friends. We didn't I don't know, I don't know that we picked that, but that's just how it was. And my older sister, amy, I mean, we're a pretty musical family. We got worse as we were born. So my older sister is like a phenom, she's so great. And then my brother, he is a terrific musician, he has a really successful band and he's a great writer. And then we kind of got worse as we were born. My little sisters don't love it when I say that, because they're like that's rude to us and I'm like I mean, I'm not one of the top ones either, guys. But so my older sister, she had systemic lupus and she ended up passing away right after she turned 40. Oh, wow, yeah.

Lindy Nielsen:

So when we were growing up she was, she's really musical, she had a band, she had some success with her band, and when she passed away we were like we should make a movie of her life, because we knew that she had placed the baby for adoption when she was 25. We were like, let's make a movie that kind of encapsulates her, so that if we ever find her daughter and this was like before DNA tests, or at least before I knew that they existed. We were like, let's capsulize the story for our kids too, for the nieces and nephews, but also in case we ever found her daughter, that'd be amazing. And then we felt like there would be an infrastructure of people who might watch the movie because they liked her music, cause she was really great. She and her husband had a band together, and so, um, we hired a private investigator for the movie and the private investigator said, okay, I found, I found her. And we did the math and we were like she's not even 18. What if we rock her whole world right now because she doesn't know she's adopted?

Lindy Nielsen:

It became the being faced with the reality of thinking that we had access to her. We just instantly it felt really yucky inside. We decided that we would take a DNA test because if we matched with her, it would mean that she knew she was adopted most likely, and that she was looking for us. And it was right before Christmas. And we did the math on the delivery for all of the siblings and we're like, ooh, the first person who can get a DNA kit delivered to them. Well, I had already had mine with Ancestry, but and she hadn't done that one, so we're like maybe we should do the other ones, in case she's taking a different one. So we can, you know, find her. And so the fastest kit could get to my little sister in Montana, so we had it sent to her, and then that's how we found the older sister a couple months later, which really threw us off for a while for looking like I'm looking for this and we found found something totally unexpected.

Lindy Nielsen:

Yeah, and that process was so beautiful, but what we learned from that process is it's really delicate. I mean, I think on some level we knew that, but that was so emotionally delicate for cause you don't want to. We didn't want to, like step on her toes or make her feel like, you know, she owed us anything, or we didn't even want to take her like emotional energy, like being an adult is hard, having a family is hard, and so she did. She was so gracious, and has been so gracious through the whole thing, of just being so loving to us from the second she met us. She's really loving to my dad and my stepmom. She's. She's incredible. That said, though, we learned a lot from her in terms of pacing and letting her take the lead and trying to not be overbearing things like that, and so that's happening at the same time that we're making this movie, and then we're like, you know, should we reach out to this baby that we've? You know that the private investigator says that they're sure that this is her, that the private investigator says that they're sure that this is her, and my little sister and I did some deep dives on who the private investigator picked, and we're like, I don't really feel like it's this person. But my little sister said I think it's this person. I saw them on the internet and she plays the piano and look at her hands. And my sister sent me a video of her hands playing on the piano, which is such a little thing but it was so powerful because we're like that is totally her hands for adoption, this little girl that she would be a musician, and I don't know why I didn't think about that because that was the obvious quality that she could potentially get genetically from my sister. But I didn't even think about it until I was watching this clip of this girl performing at 16 in front of the London Orchestra and she was so good. And I'm like, oh my gosh I don't know if this is wishful thinking, that you know that it's this beautiful, happy, well-rounded looking person. And I don't know if it's just because I think I had this grandiose view of the talent of my sister. But I don't think that I'm delusional. I think my sister was really talented. And then I'm looking at this human who's just like so pure, light and just so beautiful and so great. So we, my little sister's, like it's her. So for two years we followed her on social media and listened to her on spotify, but we would also say to each other why are we falling in love with someone that's not her on instagram?

Lindy Nielsen:

Once I went to write her adoptive mom a letter and I wrote this big long thing. I felt like I finally had learned enough from meeting our older sister through the process to like let her set the pace. I tried to write it in a way that wasn't like you know, I don't know overbearing. It was also a really weird cold email to send in case her daughter wants her biological daughter, to send in case in case her daughter wants her biological daughter.

Lindy Nielsen:

So I went to go write it and I went to present and I just had like the most sinking, horrible feeling ever and I'm like I don't, I don't know why, because it's well written, just kidding, but I was like I don't know why this feels so bad. And so my sister and my brother and I talked and we're like let's just wait. And so we would set like a six month goal to revisit in six months. We're like, don't spend any emotional energy, but in six months we'll revisit it and maybe in the meantime she'll do a dna test and she'll find us. And how old was she by this time?

Crista Cowan:

probably 20 21, and so you'd been following her for three or four years at this point, or probably two years.

Lindy Nielsen:

The clips that I saw she was really oh, you've been following her for three or four years at this point, or Probably two years. The clips that I saw she was really oh, got it. We've been following her for a few years but still it seemed like, I mean, we always knew her name and we always knew what month she was born and where she was born, and it's, she was a character in our lives. She just didn't have that face of this person that we had been following. Does that make sense?

Crista Cowan:

Uh-huh, yeah. Yeah, that's so common in situations where the family feels like this person is a part of their family because they've always known about them and you don't know what the person on the other end knows or doesn't know right.

Lindy Nielsen:

That's complicated, because that is, yes, we had time to like acclimate to those types of concepts. So it was my mom's birthday in 2003, june 13th 2003, and it was like two o'clock in the morning and my phone went off and I saw the like lead in to the message and it said mckenna bryan, halt her. And like. Instantly, I didn't even have to read the rest, I realized that she found us and she. But the message says I think that I'm Amy, I think I'm your sister, amy Ross's daughter. I was like, well, I think you are too.

Lindy Nielsen:

So it was wild because, um, I wrote her right back and didn't really spell check or anything which through all my previous lessons of pacing out the window. But then she wrote right back and we FaceTimed like a couple Immediately, uh-huh, wow, it's impossible to describe, but her hair was messy and she was making some food and I was on speaker or FaceTime and she was not even like, she wasn't nervous and it was like we had known each other forever and she was like just quirky in all the same ways of my sister, um, which I realize there are two, you know, two gene pools for her genetics, but I don't see the other persons because I only can see my, I can only see my sisters. So she FaceTimed with us and then it's just been a really wild ride ever since then that's amazing.

Crista Cowan:

I love that. So, as you're thinking about like that first conversation had, like you're thinking about like that first conversation, did she share information about what she knew or didn't know, or why she'd taken the DNA test and where she was at in her?

Lindy Nielsen:

life. Yes, so actually she hadn't taken a DNA test. It's kind of a cool. Well, it's really cool, there's so many cool things about it.

Lindy Nielsen:

So when my sister was placing her baby for adoption was a closed adoption and the sonograph person forgot to cut my sister's last name off of some picture baby. So her, so mckenna, my niece, her adoptive parents, her parents they knew my sister's full name the time and they both, like looked at each other when they saw it and then they looked her up online and it was before really social media was had much of a presence, but they were able to identify my sister. They also met her in person once and exchanged letters and things like that. So they knew what she looked like and they matched her up with whatever social media site or news article or something. So they had kept tabs on her throughout the years, waiting to tell McKenna about her birth mom if she asked. Mckenna's parents are so incredible and so loving and it's just such a good example of being a good parent. When McKenna was older, I think she asked them to tell her about her birth mom and so they said, okay, well, you know, her name is Amy Lopez and she's a musician and she.

Lindy Nielsen:

She passed away in 2013.

Lindy Nielsen:

But here are all these pictures of her performing like two hours away from where McKenna lived, because that's where my sister lived and she, just she tells the story that she instantly knew where her talent came from or where her, just where her ability to play the piano and her ear and all of those things came from, which is really beautiful.

Lindy Nielsen:

But I think, seeing the fearlessness of my sister, I think it might have added to a feeling of like I can do anything, like it's like knowing how to fly, to be, as I don't know, equipped with Actually, maybe not even to be as talented as that, but instead you just have it be so fulfilling, like mahina breathes in and air in and out, like my sister did, which is just like music. Amy was like the soundtrack of my whole growing up. She was always playing the piano in the background, playing for us, like even if we weren't even paying attention, just like there's this like soundtrack that was always going and it's because she loved it, it's because, you know, I don't even know if it was just part of who she was and I see that so much in her biological daughter, mckenna. It's really, really cool that's amazing.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, so from the time you had that first FaceTime conversation with McKenna, like, did you continue to have conversations? Did like were you now, was she following you back on social started?

Lindy Nielsen:

facetiming, not like a ton, but like well, it was a ton compared to going your whole life without ever talking to her. It was like every other week we would facetime and, um, it just was really natural. I don't even know where to start with all the things that she has in common. Like her mom would interject and say, like is your, was your sister's car always messy? Because this girl's car is always trashed and none of our cars are messy. Or she would say like what was your sister's eating plan like?

Lindy Nielsen:

And honestly, my sister was a person who would eat like Hanukkah hot dogs and like the grossest of the gross.

Lindy Nielsen:

Like it's one thing, I love a good fast food, but she had like like the grossest of the gross. Like it's one thing, I love a good fast food, but she had like like the grossest fast food that there was. Like those eggs in the in the store that have been yeah, and so mckenna also is a little bit of a junk food gal. And her mom was like she puts ranch on chips and we were like, oh yeah, cat checks out, so that stuff is super fun and it keeps going. Like sometimes she'll she'll say stuff that is like just when I need to hear it and it's almost like eerie. I know that that makes me sound crazy and I'd love mckenna for who she is. It's not because of the fact that she reminds me of amy, but I can't help but notice there's some things about her that just seems so magical that reaffirm my faith that I don't know that my sister's like aware of us reuniting and aware of our ongoing relationship.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, yeah, that's so interesting. So you and your siblings had made this movie about Amy's life. At what point did you have an opportunity to share that with McKenna?

Lindy Nielsen:

Well, so it wasn't long after she wrote to us. So when my sister and her husband were in a band together, I mentioned that they were in a band. They had some friends and slash fans who band. They had some friends and slash fans who, um, one of them is a um.

Lindy Nielsen:

He's a famous comedian and so mckenna had found my sister through him because, oh, he kind of brought in their story into his books and some of his stand-up and things because it was impactful for him and so you know he processes that in his own dark comedian type of way.

Lindy Nielsen:

But she was able to see, when she did a google search for my sister's name, that's what comes up, and so she was able to, through his website, get my contact information, um, so it wasn't long after that we showed her the movie that we had helped with and, yeah, it was, it was really, it was exactly what we wanted and that it's something you know capsulated that it's like don't take our word for it. Here's all these interviews from other people. You know, I think it was a unique thing, probably probably to be adopted, and then to see all this footage of of your biological mom talking to the camera was a probably a pretty unique thing and seems like part of a divine plan that started long before my sister passed away. Uh, just yet another little thing that doesn't feel like a coincidence, so I love that.

Crista Cowan:

So, um, did your family have the opportunity to meet mckenna in person? Like, what did that look like? Yes, we did so. We had opportunity to meet McKenna in person.

Lindy Nielsen:

Like what did that look like? Yes, we did. So we had planned to meet for Thanksgiving I don't even know what year, 2024. And so we had planned to get together for Thanksgiving. But then in the early fall we got a call from American Idol that she had been doing all of her pre-auditions and that they they were going to feature her audition on American Idol and they asked if we wanted to fly ourselves there and be there when she auditioned. We were like yes, so it was only a month before we were supposed to get together anyway, but we were kind of in cahoots with her to with her parents, and we kind of figured outahoots with her too, with her parents, and we kind of figured out the logistics. So we got into.

Lindy Nielsen:

It was in Nashville, and we got to Nashville early and we hung out with her parents, which she didn't know, and it was really fun to have her call and say, where are you guys? And they said, well, we're shopping for, we're shopping for you know whatever? And but really they were hanging out with us. Um, so it was fun, we had a little bit of time with them and then the day of the shoot was so surreal because it was so surreal that I wasn't even nervous to be on national TV and in fact, in hindsight we probably all could have dressed better and acted better. We were like so focused on meeting her that we just didn't really think about the fact that that was going to be viewed on national TV. So but it's okay, it, I'm glad I wouldn't change it.

Lindy Nielsen:

But we were huddled up in this little room and then they they were just kind of hurting us around where they didn't think she could see us. And then when she went in for the audition, you could hear her playing the music and they were miking us up and just hearing her play. We were like all stunned. We had made a plan, kind of of what we would say if Ryan Seacrest talked to us at the very last minute. We're like, ok, well, let's not all say the same thing because there was four of us. We're like, you know, if you know, mom, here's your talking point, here's your talking point, here's so that we're not all chaotic, because there's a lot of us. We have a lot of excitement, and clearly from this interaction with you you know that I'm a little bit motor too, and so we had a plan.

Lindy Nielsen:

And then, as soon as we walk into this Like lobby area when she's on the other side of the closed doors and we could hear her playing Every intelligible word Just left my mind. She's so good. Hearing her live is just just so different and so magical. And, yeah, it was incredible. So they told us she's gonna open this door. No, no, they said we're gonna open this door and then you're gonna go to the other side of the stage. But then she, they didn't. They, their wires will cross.

Lindy Nielsen:

So all of a sudden she opens the door and she's right in front of me and I had this thought of like, if I stand super still and she's never seen me in real life, she won't notice. But she did. It was a panicked moment, but it was so beautiful and her reaction is so genuine, like she truly did not know that we were going to be there. It was really beautiful, it was overwhelming and, like I said, like we were so excited to see her, whereas, logically before I was like oh, I love you know, lionel richie, that's going to be so fun. I'm going to wave to lionel richie and at one point I remember making eye contact with lionel richie and he he was so warm and making a really nice face and I I literally consciously remember being like I don't know, just like turning away from him to stare at her, because she was like the celebrity in the room and just so, so captivating. I don't know, she's just, she is super magical.

Crista Cowan:

So what's the rest of the american idol story? How did she do? Because I don't think I watched that season.

Lindy Nielsen:

Oh well, you shouldn't watch that season. She, I want to say she, was the last to leave. She kept making it week by week. So the audition itself they brought us in to tell her that she had made the audition. Then they asked her if she knew any of Amy's songs. So she started playing one of her songs. Yes, and it was really emotional. And then also, just sometimes I, I I'll hear her interviews about amy and there's just perfect, like on american idol. She says she was a wild child, she was a cool girl, and just hearing her describe, hearing her describe her, like that is so nice and sweet and so and accurate, and so pretty much every single week she would tell some Amy story, so national television.

Lindy Nielsen:

Like when my sister passed away, we were so devastated because both she died in the hospital of a blood infection and that had damaged her heart valves and she was such a force to be reckoned with that, even though we knew that she had failing health, it just was not on the table that she would pass away. That's just not something that we were prepared for, even though in hindsight we look like the dumb ones to not have mentally prepared for that, because all signs were pointing to that it just that's not. It was unfathomable. And so she passed away. And then her beloved husband, who is our like in our family for over a decade and he was a brother and family member to all of us. He was super heartbroken and sleep deprived and he made the decision to take his life that day as well. And so the combination of the loss of those two. We were just stunned. For a long time, our we never really did a funeral that we were proud of or had a memorial, and it always felt like we had just let their memory down and so for years just feeling like we should have done more.

Lindy Nielsen:

So cut to her daughter being on American Idol, singing her songs, having her mannerisms, her glowing like spirit. It was such a tribute to our sister and my brother-in-law that we just sat back and we're like of course this is how it goes like it wasn't in our imagination that they were so special, it wasn't in our imagination that it was so talented, and mckenna did that out of her own like heart. I don't know she paid tribute to her parents as well, but they showed videos of my sister singing and talking and candids of her, and it said her name and her birth year and her death year and things like that that you would have done at a funeral and it's on national TV. And I think it was so healing, not only for us but like classmates of hers, like people that you forget about over the years, that you just you know you don't prioritize how they mourn or how they miss someone and they just came out of nowhere to be like I don't know, just to feel so comforted and be a part of this like really beautiful story because they, yeah, and I think just this is a little thing, but being able to vote for mckenna like okay, everybody vote for mckenna I think it gave people who missed my sister and her husband, uh, an outlet to like do something, like do something to help.

Lindy Nielsen:

And not that mckenna needed it because she's I would would have voted for her anyway, but I think giving people an opportunity to be involved, it just like breathes new life into. You know all those people from Wyoming that were, you know, in this rural town who believed in this, you know talented gal, and then you know this tragic thing happened and all of a sudden they're watching national TV and there's someone with her characteristics and mannerisms. That is winning week after week, getting to stay. It was really fun. It was like the most fun sport ever.

Crista Cowan:

What a fun like introduction to her as a person. Like you kind of had this established relationship via, you know, facetime and and that level of communication but to be able to like then really lean into that experience. So you mentioned that McKenna sang one of Amy's songs on American Idol. Does that song have any particular special like why did she pick that song? Was there something about it?

Lindy Nielsen:

So in probably 2002, amy and I and Jeremy, my husband wrote a song called Tumbleweed and she was going to put it on her album.

Lindy Nielsen:

Years later, in 2006, she called and said hey, I am registering my album with BMI, which is not something she had typically done because she wasn't the most like she didn't care about that kind of stuff Not to say she wasn't responsible, but she kind of wasn't like she's just a free spirit and to register an album was just not really something she'd ever done up until this point. But she said I have, I have registered this album, but I'm not gonna. So in 2006, amy was registering her album children of fortune she and her husband Eric and she called and said we've written a couple songs, because she and I had worked on a couple of the songs together. And she said I'm going to register this album but I'm not going to register tumbleweed. And so just to clarify, she's going to register the whole album, even the one that's called lindy mindy, that we definitely wrote together. She says I already registered for that, but I'm not going to register for Tumbleweed. You need to log in and make an account.

Lindy Nielsen:

This is 2006. And you need to log in and make an account in case something ever happens with that song.

Crista Cowan:

That's so random.

Lindy Nielsen:

So then she releases that album and she does a couple of radio shows. Thank goodness there's a radio interview where they say tell us about tumbleweed. And my brother-in-law says well, everyone loves the song on the album that we didn't write. Lindy and her sister wrote it and it's a whole thing luckily with their voices, because it sounds like I'm making it up, because it's so surreal and it makes me cry every time. So I was negligent for a while and didn't register it. And she just kept calling and saying you need, you and Jeremy need to make a um, a BMI account, and you need to register that song in case something happens with it. So we did, and so Amy recorded it and it's known as her song because it was, and she literally helped write it. But she, uh, I don't know why. I don't know why her kin picked that song, because she didn't know that at the time that she started playing it on national tv that she picked that song to play wow, and does that?

Crista Cowan:

so I haven't heard it. I'm to have to go listen to it. Is it connected to Wyoming at all?

Lindy Nielsen:

And with a name like Tumbleweed, I assumed it is definitely about Wyoming and about just. It talks about red dirt caves and it's yeah, it is a song about.

Crista Cowan:

Wyoming. I love that you're sharing the things about your sister that that McKenna reminded you of, but to also get to know her as a person and and that level of confidence and all of the things that make her uniquely her as well yes, definitely.

Lindy Nielsen:

Even just every week they do a little intro and seeing the insight that she was feeling going into each you know competition was really interesting. And then, like I said, the grace that she showed she did not have to keep centering Amy's story, but she did and we were like, okay, you don't have to do that anymore. She's like, no, this isn't coming. You know, this isn't for you guys. This is like, this is how I like, this is from me. That was really beautiful and truly, truly, you could, I could never have imagined any of this happening the way that it did. I'm lucky, we're lucky, to even have found her, like I said, and then realize that she's a musician was also really exciting. But then also, what are the chances of having someone who's just so loving and has so much gratitude and appreciation and so graceful, like I don't? I don't take that for granted at all, cause that didn't have to be the case. Statistically it's probably unlikely that it would be.

Crista Cowan:

Yeah, yeah. So, even though she didn't win American Idol, has she gone on to continue in her music career? I would hope.

Lindy Nielsen:

She has, yeah, she has. And the other thing that's similar like one of the struggles with Amy that people had, like she had my sister, amy had some really great opportunities and then people would the producers or whoever would say you don't want it bad enough. And she'd say no, I think you're right. I just like, I love my little life and I just want to play here or I want to play there. I'm not. I'm not hungry, hungry to be something big or whatever. I think McKenna has that hunger, but I also think she's super, just a well-rounded person who is making the music fit into her lifestyle in the way that she wants it to, which is a super cool thing to watch. She's super powerful. She's a powerful person. She just released a single that is one of Amy's songs that Amy recorded and did, and then I think she's working.

Crista Cowan:

I think she's moments away from releasing a new her album generations, right Like you and Amy, are who you are because of the place you were raised and the people who raised you. And you're a mom and you're raising children now in that same place, and I'm just curious to know, like as you think about your girls and how you're raising them and how you're being a bridge to memories of Amy or memories of your grandma, like what that looks like with you and your girls.

Lindy Nielsen:

That is a really beautiful sentiment and thought, because they are no doubt pretty intertwined. I think that one of the things that a smaller, paced small town provides that I experienced, that Amyy experienced and that the girls experience, is it's fun to be a bigger fish in a little pond, or maybe not even big, but just a the sense of self that can come from being surrounded by people who know you. They see it as contributing to their community, to do something fun and cool, and I think that helps their confidence, if that makes sense. And I think I mean the girls. My girls play music and do music, and it is.

Lindy Nielsen:

That is such a broad interest area that, regardless of what your skill set is, it can bring like fulfillment and happiness to you and then also just like provide some enriching things for your community, and I see them doing that like there's. My girls are super involved in this little town that we live in, in the arts and um, yeah, I don't know, I think you're. You make a good point of just generations of people who I have a unique scenario in that we're all singing the same songs. Right, that Amy sang, that my mom sang to Amy, that you know there is that the community that you create and for you that community started with this family right becomes the foundation for the rest of your life, and I love that.

Crista Cowan:

Wyoming is a place where, I mean, there's not really any big cities. In Wyoming, Like, every place is a small town and some just happen to be much smaller than others. But it allows you to really dig into those relationships and build them in such a way because you can't just, you know, ignore those friends at school and find new friends because this is what you've got her husband.

Lindy Nielsen:

One of the things that was really beautiful in that is realizing that we're I'm just a compilation of all the people I've met and them coming out of the woodworks to be like you know, provide some comfort, was really was really beautiful in a really sad time. And then hearing from the people that missed Amy really meant something to me, like because what else are we except how we've impacted other people when we're alive? I think the big takeaway is and McKenna says it all the time having more people care about you and love you and be part of your family is just such a beautiful thing and I'm so grateful that McKenna and her family are open to that, because there's so many of us siblings and our kids and my mom and my dad and my stepmom I mean like have all this love and now we have like another person to share it with, which is really fun, I love that Well, Lundy.

Crista Cowan:

Thank you again so much. Thank you for sharing McKenna with us and that story, but also just thank you for sharing your heart and sharing Wyoming with us too.

Lindy Nielsen:

Well, thanks for asking. Wyoming deserves it.

Crista Cowan:

I love that you're so connected to that place, but I think I love even more that you're so connected to your family.

Lindy Nielsen:

Well, that's a really beautiful thing to say. Thank you so much for having me.

Crista Cowan:

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Crista Cowan | The Barefoot Genealogist

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