Encyclopedia of Me: Volume G

Loosely based on Amy Krause Rosenthal's book, Encyclopedia of an Ordinary Life. 

Encyclopedia of Me: Volume G

Games:  We have Family Game Night, but there is a list of approved games. I prefer games that don't lead to nasty competition. Games that are supposed to be more competitive, we turn into cooperative games. For example, in Sorry we used to say you could share spaces and we didn't use the Sorry cards (as they got older we did). There is a place for competition, but not involving me. Mark fills that role for the boys.       
        The boys have eliminated Bananagrams from the list because it "makes their brains hurt."
           We take turns, each Sunday, picking a game and a dessert.
            Games have changed and evolved. We no longer play Scrabble Jr. Disney edition. We haven't played their creation of Block Cone -- played with cardboard blocks and mini soccer crowns, and Transformers as tokens.
            We play games inherited from my husbands youth that don't exist any more.
            And we have added card games they can understand strategy for now, like Euchre.
            Some favorites are Ticket to Ride, 5 Crowns, and Yahtzee.
            We have every sheet from Yahtzee saved, from when we started playing. It's like a piece of our history, because we started writing down details-- like the time everyone got a Yahtzee or when Will got a Yahtzee on the first roll. We write the date and keep track. Yes this is competitive, but it doesn't involve someone sabotaging you, so it's OK competition.
             Starting this summer, both boys will be gone, and I will miss our game nights with every fiber of my being.

Genealogy: I started working on genealogy in 2002, when putting together a scrapbook for my parents 50th wedding anniversary. I was doing a time line, and wanted to start with their parents. It led to wanting to go back further. Writing their story led me to want to know more of their story. I became addicted to finding out more, and how my family fit in this world.
        I continue to search. I have names and dates and locations. My search is for who they were.
       My mother-in-law says her grandmother had a journal that told stories of motherhood. My Mother- in- law would hear stories of what her dad was like as a child. The absolute tragedy of this, is that after mother-in-law died, her husband was so distraught, he got rid of those journals.
        Can you imagine?

Glasses: I had to get glasses when I was 14. I HATED them. I didn't wear them. I wanted contacts and couldn't have them, so I didn't wear the ugly glasses we could afford.
        Did you know if you don't wear something to correct your vision, your vision gets worse?
         When I was able to buy contacts for myself, I did just that. I loved contacts. I could see. They didn't fog up in the cold or get splattered by rain. I could wear sunglasses just like everyone else.
          Now I'm older and I can't wear contacts because my eyes get dried out. The eye doctor has even recommended...
           ...bifocals!!!!
          I tried them. I didn't like them. I wear glasses that I can just see out the bottom of and hold reading material closer.
           I used to think, "No way," when it came to Lasik.
          Now I think, "Maybe."

Encyclopedia of Me A edition

This may be a cop out, but I'd like to think of it as killing two birds with one stone.

I've been planning on making an Encyclopedia of Me of my own for a couple of years now, but haven't gotten around to it. If I use it as blog posts, I'll at least have the journaling done in a short amount of time.

For A:

Ancestry-  I became interested in my family history in 2012 when I started preparing for my parents 50th anniversary. I realized at that point my time with them wasn't going to be forever and I needed to get the stories I could. My mom had a typical middle class life and had good memories to share. My dad grew up poor and had few stories to share that didn't include working hard. Those stories led to a subscription to Ancestry.com and my search for stories.

Dad died ten years later-- 7 months before what would have been their 60th anniversary. Mom died two years after that. They didn't know the stories I had discovered. I continue to search for more. I hope to be able to share the stories I've discovered with my siblings soon.

Anxiety:  I "suffer" from anxiety or depression. I had postpartum depression after my kids were born. I recognized it after watching Marie Osmond talking about hers on Oprah. Everything she said was me. I asked my doctor and he asked, "Is that not normal for you?"

He is an amazing doctor and I wished he could have moved with us when we moved away, but that question threw me. In a 3 year span of time I had had 2 children, found our first born might be legally blind, moved to a new house, I'd left my job that I loved, and become a stay at home mom. I didn't know what normal for me was. So, I let it go.

I became afraid of going out, being in public, being alone...

We moved here and things didn't get better. I asked our new doctor and she put me on a medication. It has helped...immensely.

I still get anxious about crowds. I still work on not getting bogged down. I still think...hard...about everything. So Anxiety is definitely under A for me.

Autumn:  Autumn is my favorite season. I chose Autumn for my camp name. My husband says it is the perfect description of me. Stormy, changing, colorful. My birthday is in Autumn. I met my husband in Autumn. Autumn is sunshine and sweatshirts. If they made a candle that smelled like burning leaves, I'd have a collection.

Why is this not a family story?

We just finished reading Out of the Dust in 6th grade. For me it was a reread, but reading it out loud and discussing it left such an impression, because of the real world connection I have.

In the story, Billie Jo's mother catches on fire and dies as a result of the burns. Billie Jo, in trying to rescue her mother, badly burns her hands. The guilt she feels and the pain and recovery that take place are important for the rest of the novel.

In my genealogy research, I discovered that my great-great grandmother locked herself in the barn and set it on fire. She died a day later as a result of the burns. The newspaper article I read said that a daughter pulled her out and suffered burns on her hands as well.

The frustrating thing is that the newspaper mentioned the daughter who pulled her out was 15. They had a son who was 15-- not a daughter. There isn't a daughter close to 15. Further, there are no mentions of scars in death records or draft records on any of the children, nor stories of the whole event.

Re-reading Out of the Dust made me think of the agony my great-great grandmother must have been in and what the person who pulled her out must have felt. Why is this not a family story?

Why. Is. This. NOT. A family Story?

Perspective

In photography it is important to shift perspective. If you shoot a picture from above you diminish the power of the subject. If you shoot a photo from below you give the subject power. Shooting from an angle gives a subject energy.

Distance in time changes your perspective. I spent the last two days in my home town looking at it from the perspective of a visitor. My youngest and I went to the library. The library was my favorite location in town. It is a Carnegie library, and they just finished a year long renovation, so of course the inside is different. But the steps leading up to it seemed different as well. They looked the same but I remember the climb being taller. Somehow they've shrunk over the years.

We drove around trying to find locations of old relatives gleamed from census records and photos. I was trying to find connections to photos where people are posing outside houses but I don't know for sure where they are. I wanted to connect locations to people and to their place in time. In the process of looking for the houses, we drove the path I used to walk to get to my elementary school.

Back then, I had to cross 3 highways to get there. One had a stop light. One wasn't that busy. And one had a crossing guard. And the streets around the school were manned by 6th grade crossing guards with orange vests. (Those interested took turns).  I swear I didn't use to be able to see all the way to that 3rd highway from the stoplight at the first. And I swear it was a much longer walk than just 6 blocks. The parking lot at the Catholic church along the way had at snow hills at least a mile long in the winter all on it's own, so there is no way I only had a measly 6 block walk.

And driving around I noticed the homes in town are much shabbier and smaller than I remember. My yard growing up was a huge oasis of dandelions and the bees who liked to rest on them while I ran barefoot from the back door to the alley. Why did the new owners move the alley closer to the back door?

Perspective also changes dependent on how close you are to events. I was trying to locate houses and taking pictures -- freaking out youngest because I had off handedly mentioned I hoped I wouldn't get picked up for terrorist activity because I was taking pictures of random buildings. One home was only a block from my house and across the street and down three houses from one belonging to my mom's maiden aunts. I knew about the maiden aunts house, but the other one belonged to my mom's great aunt and her husband. Did mom know about that? It was a house I always liked and it still has charm.

We went to a cemetery to find the graves of distant relatives I've grown attached to. I've looked for them before, but without luck. Today we found them. This family, in early November of 1879 had 10 members including 8 children. At the end of December 1879, 5 of those children had died of diptheria. I can not imagine the pain of losing a child, 5 Is beyond comprehension. Apparently Diptheria is a virus of sorts where your lungs fill with fluid and you essentially drown. There was no antibiotic at that time to cure the disease and the tracheotomy that could have enabled breathing to occur until the symptoms passed, had not yet been tried. Finding them today and seeing that all their names were on the big tombstone was satisfying. Seeing they each had a little headstone with their initials carved on top gave me peace. Two stones had fallen over. Little Anna's had been lying down so long it was starting to sink into the earth. I picked them both up and tried to smooth the dirt around them. I brushed the moss off of the big tombstone where it was starting to eat away the etchings. I imagined a moment how it must have felt to bury your children one by one. Impossible.

We went to the museum, because my mother-in-law knows someone who said they might be able to answer my questions about some of the photos I had. I barely had the words, "I was wondering..." as I started to pull out a photo, before the woman taking my money quickly informed me she had no idea about anything,  because she had only lived there for a couple of years. She then added the other person in the windowed office hadn't lived there long either. AND she further injected that the nearly 90 year old resident historian was in, but that she researched for money. She then walked me back to the research room and asked what files I was interested in. She brought the files out and deposited them on the table. She showed the photos I had of an old school, to the historian who said (from her office) the newer version of the  school had been built on the location of the one in my photos. They asked if they could make a copy. They never asked the name of who was in the photos.

And that is when I started to think of the subject of this post. How can you work in a museum that is all about town history and not know anything about the town? There were 4 (probably volunteer) workers sitting and talking as we left. If you know nothing about the very thing you are representing, wouldn't you use your time to find out? No one checked on us in the research room. No one asked if we needed anything else. And we'd had to pay to get in. Very different from the Museum in Warsaw. They only ask for donations and are very friendly and helpful.

So, my thinking is that perspective is a complex issue.

When photographing, I think about what I want to convey with the image I am composing. Looking at the cliches that "time heals all wounds" and "distance makes the heart grow fonder" I take them to simply mean that opinions and memories are shaped by the significance certain events held in your life. Maybe La Porte was always a teeny, tiny, shabby, little place and I just didn't know it because at the time it was THE big wide world? Maybe it isn't the town that has changed. Maybe I am the one who changed; physically and emotionally

And maybe those people at the museum don't care about the history of La Porte because it was never their world. Maybe the people who care for the cemetery didn't notice Anna's stone had fallen over because she doesn't belong to them. There isn't anyone around she belongs to, or who know she belongs to them.

In the broader scheme of things perspective is everything. We can't truly fight for what we believe until we know what we believe and why. People who fight for one current event or another based on how they think-- the people they think  will be affected--  will actually be affected... Unless you can speak from personal experience --either yourself or someone you actually know-- then you don't know. We shouldn't jump on bandwagons just because we like the conductor or the song being played.

We need to look at issues from all angles. If we look up at issues, they will seem more powerful and problematic than if we stand over them. Looking at issues square stagnates them and freezes us to inaction. Where as looking at issues from all angles can give them movement and energy.

Perspective {changes} everything.

If only

Youngest and I were "kickin' it old school" today. He got to experience the joys of microfilm.

I have to say I am grateful old newspapers have been saved. It is fascinating to see how they have evolved over time. And if they hadn't been preserved, I never would have known my great great grandmother supposedly set the family barn on fire. Or that, according to the article printed, insanity runs in the family. 🙂

But technology has spoiled me. Since holding the actual paper isn't possible, I would like to read it on my computer screen that I can manipulate size and contrast easily. I want to scroll with a little mouse wheel and not a button that advances too fast or too slow or in movements that are too jerky.

I would love if someone would digitize those old 35mm film reels. How hard can it be? I mean...hello...technology.

I know some people have digitized their papers. Why can't the papers I need be digitized?

I want to know who the 15 year old daughter was that drug great great grandma away from the flames, because I do not have a great aunt who would have been that age.
I want to know if and when they rebuilt the barn.
I want to peruse the happenings in their little hamlet of Tracy.

And I can't do that at a computer screen, that is showing 35mm images, of 130 year old newspapers, that are located only in a filing cabinet, 2 hours from my couch.

And while I'm at it, let's not forget Ctrl F where I can simply type in the name I'm looking for and have every occurance highlighted so I can easily skip to them?

Old school is tedius!
Boy am I spoiled! 😀

This is the search that never ends...

I have been scanning photos this rainy Sunday. Photos of my ancestors. It is so interesting to start to recognize faces and places -- it almost starts to feel like I know them somehow. Over the two weeks I plan to do some library research. I hope to find deeds or some other proof that will link my Great-Great Grandfather to who I believe his brothers were. 

I want to know if there was a plea put out by the church to take in my great grandmother and her older siblings after their father died. 

I want to know if there was an announcement of my great grandparents wedding to go with the photos someone sent me. 

I want to find out if my great aunt married the pastor or if he was just a student who then married my great aunt. And if the announcement they were moving to Kansas was in the paper. 

And I am hoping my son can find the story of the star that fell in my grandmother's yard in 1920. We have a tiny ring box with pieces from the star and a piece of tape with the date 1920 on it. It was a show and tell item every year. I'd like to know if it was big news or not. If possible.

Detective work awaits and I have 14 day to find out all I can. Until summer of course when I'll have 8 weeks. And then Christmas ....  :-) 

A Drive Through Amish Country

Indiana is not all in the same time zone. Here in the North-Eastern part we are on East Coast time. In the Northwestern part, where I am from, they are on Central time. Because of this, as I travelled on Saturday, the light on the farm fields was amazing.

I left at 8 so the sun was up but at that perfect angle that makes the photographer in me drool. As it is generally frowned upon to do digital SLR photography while driving, I had to be content with just enjoying the moments.

I had the new Ed Sheeran on the WiFi jack.  I love his music so much. This album is so personal and autobiographical my thoughts kept wandering to personal thoughts of my own.

 I was going to see a relative of my mom's who had old photos that she wanted help identifying.  I thought of my mom and dad, and the fact that the  anniversaries of their deaths are coming up. Dad's will be five years tomorrow. Mom's will be 3 years next week. I found parallels in the songs. Stories Ed Sheeran told that I wished I could do as succinctly played on the radio as the stories I wished I could tell played in my head.

I had to pass through Amish country to get to my destination. Passing buggies and people riding bikes with the sun bathing the fields in golden light made me think of my ancestors who settled in my hometown. German ancestors who rode in buggies and farmed fields by hand and hung laundry out to dry on lines are who I am from. I wondered if anyone else driving was in awe of the beauty all around. Do the Amish notice anymore since it is what they live every day?

As I drove, I thought about the fact that I was driving a vehicle and waiting for the part of the drive where I could go 65/70 miles an hour. A van that could comfortably hold 7 and that had heat.  I was listening to music I transferred from my google account to my phone that I then cast it to the WiFi jack, because the CD player is not working. All the while passing people who have no idea who Ed Sheeran is and have chosen a life that seems so much harder than the one the rest of have chosen.

The dichotomy really struck me.

Coming home, the sun was once again behind me and was starting to set all golden again. The relative had a portrait on the wall of my grandfather's family where he is between 12 and 15. I took photos of it. She had albums of my mom's side of the family that she gave me. There are photos of my grandfather as a young man before my grandmother or my mom. There are photos of family gatherings where everyone is in a big group. I had no idea there were photos of people at the beach or posing by the DANGER Railroad crossing sign in the 19teens and 20s.  I thought everything then was still formal and posed by professionals.  Every picture I see makes me want more. Is there someone somewhere who has a photo of my great-great grandparents? What about the other sides of the family? Where are those photos?

 I should be satisfied.  I know this. 5 years ago I had no idea the pictures I would now have. I am grateful.

Grateful but I want more connections. I want to see me in those faces. I want to see my children in the childhood faces of my ancestors. I want to know their stories. Are any of them the same as my story?

Grandpa is between his mom and dad -- the youngest in the family --born in 1897.  What stories could he tell if he were alive today?

I looked it up and the Amish do not believe in posing for photos. Perhaps the connection they have to the past through community is enough to satiate the need for knowledge of what came before.

I want more.

It's amazing what a little music, while driving through Amish country bathed in golden light, can bring to mind.

In Search of a Story Draft 1

My guys went to the big city today and I had the afternoon at home on my own.
I found out yesterday that my father-in-law's estranged brother died a year or so ago. The details are sketchy but it seems as though he estranged himself from the rest of the family. Even his own children were not aware he had died. This thought makes me very sad because my in-laws aren't sure of the exact date. I've done research on hubby's side of the family as well as my own -- just not as much, so I looked for more info but found little.

While my guys were enjoying the movie Logan in the big city, I had the TLC marathon of "Who Do You Think You Are?" playing on the TV and I worked on my genealogy research.

I am 99% positive I will never find any kings or queens or royalty of any kind in my tree. Nor does my husband. We do have farmers --lots of farmers. We have widows and widowers and orphans. We have military and those who maintained the home front.

There are so many bits and pieces when put together that make a story.
In laws have picture books that the town they grew up in put together. Sussex, New jersey, where they're from, asked for historical pictures from those who had lived there. They received so many they have 3 volumes. Within those pages are faces and places that are foreign to me, but as I asked questions my in-laws had stories to share. This led me to wish each town would do this.

State history is a 4th grade standard. What if there was a town standard? I've learned so much about my home town through research of my ancestors. How much more would I have learned if school and forced / encouraged me to interview relatives from home. How much more pride in my home town would I have had if I had known more than the story of Belle Guiness (one of the first female serial killers)?

I know people move -- more today than in the past -- but knowing the history of where you are gives you a stronger foundation.

Did you know Dr. Mayo of the Mayo Clinic went to medical school in La Porte, Indiana? Did you know La Porte had a medical school? Did you know that medical school was on the same property as the elementary school I went to? I didn't. And I bet there aren't many from La Porte who know either. And the shame is that that is only one aspect. La Porte has been a dying town since manufacturing moved out 30 years ago. Would pride help save dying towns?

Unexpected

"Hi. I just inherited a box of photos from my great aunt and I saw that you had an individual on your tree that matches the family and I was wondering if you are connected and interested."

This is the gist of an e-mail I read on the way home from running errands with my husband.

My head exploded with excitement! If we had been driving a team of horses I might have snapped the reigns.

This person is a member of Ancestry and saw on my Ancestry tree that we had the same relative in common. A relative who moved from my hometown to the Kansas prairie and started a family. He mentioned he had photos from Kansas as well as my home town. The possibilities running through my head were endless but the dream I mentioned out loud to my husband was the possibility that it was of my great aunt's wedding and that it might include a photo of the family altogether so I could see what my relatives looked like.

I told him my connection and he agreed to e-mail me photos.

Later that afternoon I received a few from Kansas.  And that night he sent me twelve from my home town. And you know what? There was a photo of a couple with the woman in a wedding dress!

Freak out!

I opened my family tree and got to that branch of the family to try to match faces to how old they would be approximately. Going on the assumption that the couple were my great aunt and her new husband I figured out who would be married and therefore with a spouse, who would have had kids by then and how old they would be, and who else might be there and photographed considering it would have been 1889. Some things were a bit off but others meshed. The crazy thing was the woman in the photo did not look like the one in a photo from Kansas several years later. Some of the kids with parents didn't look old enough. And my great- grandparents who had married two years earlier were no where to be seen.

So I allowed myself to go down the "what if" road.

What if the wedding couple was actually MY great- grandparents? Things fall into place if this is the case. If the wedding couple is my great- grandparents then I have all of my great- grandmothers siblings and their families if they were old enough at the time. And a photo of my great-great grandmother who would have been about 53 in 1887.

Some people that were photographed are unknown to me. More detective work is needed. But the scenario in my head is this:  My great grandmother's family was rather poor. My great-grandfather's family were fairly prosperous.  Maybe his family paid for the photos. Then, when younger sis married and moved to Kansas she took the photos of her family with her, since heading to Kansas with her Lutheran preacher husband meant it was unlikely they'd be back anytime soon.

This is the story in my head. The story I want to be true. But that makes it hard to make an unbiased opinion on the photos taken 30 years apart that I am comparing to decide if they are mine.

Does she look 50ish?

Do these people

Look like 2nd woman from left and 4th man

How amazing is it if these are actually my great grandparents in 1887?


And that leads to the next question.
The next quest.
The next obsession.

If the photos sent to me represent the great grandma side, and
it actually was my great- grandfather's side that paid for the photos, where are the great grandpa side of the family photos?  Because both of my great-great grandparents on that side would have been alive at that time.

And Oh how I'd love to see them!

Detective or Stalker

I got interested in knowing more about my history when making a scrapbook for my parent's 50th anniversary. I found out the names of my grandmother's birth parents and I was hooked. I joined Ancestry.com and began the journey to my roots.

14 years later I continue to find at least 2 questions for any answer.

Both of my parents are gone now. My mom was the last of her generation and I found stories she had no idea existed. I have recently started trying to find people from other branches that are the age of myself or my older siblings to try to connect dots.

This is where the question of detective vs stalker comes in.

In doing the research, in order to build a family tree, you consult census records, birth, marriage, and death certificates. You read obituaries to find out about the people so they become more than just a date. And you read about the married last names of female children.

Thanks to the internet, finding people is easier. All you need to do is input a name into Google. You narrow choices by location. Possible relatives are often listed along with address and phone numbers. Then you can go to fb and input a name. Often locations are mentioned. Then you can check their friends lists and see if you recognize any other names from your research and if so, you can message them.

I've messaged a few people. And a few of them have responded. Two have asked how I found them.

I had just been really impressed with my detective skills. I hadn't thought about how it sounded until I thought about the process. Now it feels a little stalkerish. And frankly, it's kind of scary to think how easy it is to be found.

Now I'm feeling a little hesitant about contacting strangers out of the blue. I try to asuage their potential fears by telling them about myself and how I think we are connected. But still...

I'm not sure how I would respond. Or if I would respond.

Hopefully intent is the final arbiter, because I would hate to be a stalker.