Saturday, August 21, 2021

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Your Life Story in Two (or Even Five) Minutes

Talk about ourselves?  No genealogist likes to do that.  We love to talk about our ancestors!  But that's what Randy Seaver wants us to do tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, if you choose to play along (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music):

(1) Everyone has a life story, and mine is still ongoing.  Tell us your life story — start with today and go back to your birth.  Do it in 200 to 500 words, so you could tell it in two to five minutes.


(2) Tell us in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a comment with a link to your blog post on this post.

And backward, no less!  Let's see how I do.

My name is Janice Marie Sellers, and I am 59 years old.  I live in Gresham, Oregon.  I am not married and never have been, but I have two "stepsons" from a former significant relationship.  Through the older of the two I also have five grandchildren (with very complicated interrelationships that would drive a genogram designer crazy), and I stay in touch with both of my former daughters-in-law, who live in Vancouver, Washington (15 miles away, with three of the grandchildren) and Lebanon, Oregon (95 miles away, with two of the grandchildren), respectively.

My daily activities are family history research, taking care of my two cats and three macaws, and (still!) trying to finish unpacking everything from when I moved to Oregon in 2017.  The latter was delayed because I came here with a torn rotator cuff in my right shoulder and then proceeded to tear the cuff in the left shoulder (I guess I wanted a matched set).  After surgery on the left shoulder in summer 2020, I am much more able to move things around again, although I have to be careful not to push it.  I try to get six hours of sleep each night, which I am getting better at accomplishing.

My last regular job was as a train operator at BART in the San Francisco area (that's the job that gave me the torn rotator cuff in the right shoulder).  I was an employee there for five years.  Recent employment before that was transcriptionist, "office manager" (really a door guard) at an upscale daycare in a poor neighborhood, and more than 35 years as an editor for various companies and print publications.  I also was able to travel for business as an editor, primarily in the United States but a few times internationally.

My formal education ended several years ago with courses in computer programming, music, and library science, none of which culiminated in a degree or certificate.  I earned a Bachelor of Arts in Humanities (emphasis in French), which functionally was a B.A. in French with minors in Spanish and Russian, from the University of Southern California in 1983.  I attended Niceville Senior High School in Niceville, Florida for my diploma.  I detailed my pre-high-school education for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post a few years ago; suffice it to say that I attended schools in many locations.

I was born in 1962 in East Los Angeles at the Los Angeles County hospital (prior to its association with USC), the first child of Bertram Lynn Sellers, Jr. and Myra Roslyn Meckler.  Both my parents were born on the East Coast, my father in New Jersey and my mother in Brooklyn, but they met and married in Miami and then drove to California to start their life together.  My family lived in multiple locations in east Los Angeles County until we moved to Australia in 1971, living there for two years before returning to the United States in 1973 and going to Florida.  In California, we saw my mother's parents often, as they lived relatively close by in Las Vegas.

The highlight of my life has been my grandchildren and their parents.  I did not have children of my own but always wanted a family, and I love being a bubbie (Yiddish for grandmother).  I wish I could spend more time with the kids and parents.

Did I go over my five-minute limit?

2 comments:

  1. It's great that you are near the grandkids and that they consider you a bubbie. Sorry to hear about your shoulder.

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    Replies
    1. I have to admit that the primary reason I moved up here was simply that my brain told me I was supposed to be here. But having all five grandchildren close by is an incredible bonus. As for the shoulder, I'm trying to age gracefully. :)

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