Hooray for Barbie!

No, I'm not talking about the movie (which I have seen, and once will be enough, thank you very much, dear daughter-in-law).  I'm talking about the actual doll.

March 9 is National Barbie Day because the Barbie doll was introduced at the American International Toy Fair on March 9, 1959, so today is Barbie's 66th birthday, making her older than I am, if not by much.

I don't remember if Barbie was my first doll — I might have had a baby doll before that? — but she was the first doll I remember, and I still have my first Barbie.  I think my second doll was a Stacey, which I recall as a redhead.  (I might have been given Stacey as a gift because my sister's name is Stacy.  Hey, they should have come out with a Laurie doll!)  Number three I believe was Midge.

I have taken my dolls with me from California to Australia, when my family moved there, then back to the United States when we returned in 1973, and across country when I moved back to California in 1979.  Then they moved with me from Los Angeles to Oakland in 1989, and up to Oregon in 2017.  I have never left a single doll behind.

I never got into the collectible Barbies, because I didn't want to leave them in the packaging ("never removed from box").  I wanted to take them out and play with them!  I have only one collectible Barbie, which a friend bought me for Christmas one year.  It's Barbie as Scarlett O'Hara in Gone with the Wind, in the green and white barbecue dress.  And yes, I took her out of the box.

Barbie is what really got me into sewing.  I had a sewing class in the 5th grade while my family lived in Australia, and when we came back to the States I started making clothes for my dolls.  I have dozens of patterns for Barbie clothes, most of them officially licensed by Mattel and produced by the big pattern companies.  The majority are from Simplicity, some are from McCall's, and a few others are from different companies.  I also have a few unofficial patterns, including some for Elizabethan clothing a friend gave to me when we were both performing at an Elizabethan faire.

Unfortunately, most of my dolls are still boxed up and in storage from when I moved to Oregon.  Not long after my arrival I tore my rotator cuff, and I've never regained the momentum I had for unpacking since then (it was probably the momentum that caused the tear in the first place).  But I've been adding to my collection since discovering groups such as Buy Nothing on Facebook.  It is amazing how many people give away Barbies and their accessories.  Now I have things I could never afford when I was younger, such as a Barbie airplane, car, condo, and house.  Soon I will be adding an RV!

One of my recent acquisitions, obtained specifically to pair with my dolls, is a dollhouse in the style of Victorian painted ladies.  I'll need to find (or make?) some patterns for Victorian clothing so that my dolls will look totally at home in their beautiful residence.

j

Wordless Wednesday

 Frankie, April 10, 2012–March 27, 2024

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Christmas Weather

Tonight's topic from Randy Seaver for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun should be interesting!

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.  Here's your chance to sit on Genea-Santa's lap (virtually) and tell him about your Christmas weather experiences:

1.  What Christmas-time weather have you experienced?  Does it snow at Christmas time where you live?  What are the likely temperatures at Christmas time??

2. Tell us about them in your own blog post, in a comment on this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

My Christmas weather experiences cover a range of very different locations.

From when I was born to just before I turned 9, my family lived in east Los Angeles County.  So Christmas weather was similar to Randy's experience in San Diego:  warm and sunny, mild and cloudy, to cool and rainy.  The closest we came to snow was when my father and Uncle Tony drove up to Mt. Baldy in a pickup truck, filled the back with snow, and came back with it.  We played in it for a while, but I suspect it melted relatively quickly.

From Los Angeles my family moved to Sydney, New South Wales, Australia and lived there and in the suburbs for two years.  This is another location with warm and sunny or mild and cloudy weather in the winter, but in the Southern Hemisphere, Christmas comes during the summer!  So we had beautiful summer weather for Christmas for two years.

Back to the Northern Hemisphere, I next lived for six years in and near Niceville, Florida, in about the middle of the Florida Panhandle, with my family.  Although most people think "hot and muggy" when they think of Florida, the Panhandle does actually experience winter.  We regularly had below-freezing temperatures at some point during the winter, but mostly it was cool and rainy for Christmas.  On January 19, 1977, which I realize is after Christmas, we had one day with enough snow that it actually stuck when it hit the ground and did not melt immediately (that's also the day there were snow flurries in Miami).  We got the rest of the day off from school, but by the time everyone got home, the snow was gone.

After Florida I moved back to Los Angeles.  The weather had not changed in the intervening years, although it wasn't quite as smoggy as it had been.  On the other hand, I was in South Central Los Angeles, not east Los Angeles County, so that might have explained the improvement in the air.

I lived in Los Angeles for ten years and then headed north to Berkeley.  I was there for almost four years and then bought a house in Oakland, where I stayed for 24 1/2 years.  Christmas in the Bay Area was often rainy and almost always slightly cool.  I never saw snow where I lived, but I believe that sometimes in the Berkeley and Oakland hills they occasionally had dustings of snow.

And now I'm even further north, in the Portland Metro area of Oregon.  I'm in Gresham, east of Portland and at the west end of the Columbia River Gorge, so it's usually a little colder here than in Portland proper.  It is normal for the area to have at least a day or two of snow during the winter, sometimes around Christmas.  My first year here we had a hard freeze with no snow on Christmas, and I was stuck in my house for three days with the cats and the birds.  But a couple of years ago we had a beautiful blanket of snow in the front and back yards for Christmas, and it was beautiful.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Keeps You From Doing Genealogy?

I find this week's topic for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun somewhat ironic, because the main thing that has been keeping me from doing genealogy in general is pretty much the same thing that has been keeping me from posting on my blog, including for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music here), is:

1.  What keeps rou from doing genealogy?  What real-life activity do you have to do, or like to do, that takes time away from genealogy research?

2.  Write your own blog post, or add your response as a comment to this blog post or in a Facebook Status post or note.

My thoughts on the subject:

The primary thing that has been keeping my from genealogy during the past three to four years or so is my health.  While I absolutely love living in the Portland area, having moved here from Oakland, California in 2017, I have had an unfortunate series of health events that have prevented me from doing everything I want and need to do.  Most of them are resolved now, and I am hoping that I will regain my strength and really be able to start catching up.

That said, the other activity that I love to do that sometimes might take away from genealogy voluntarily is spending time with my grandchildren and other family members.  One of the wonderful benefits of having moved here is that all five of my grandchildren are within easy driving distance.  I admit that I take every opportunity I can to visit them.

I do have a few favorite things to watch on television that take up about ten hours a week:  the nightly news and weather forecast, Chopped!, Name That Tune (notwithstanding the constant mugging from Jane), and The Masked Singer.  I actually watch much less TV now than I did in California.

And, like Randy, my body does need sleep every night, although I usually get about 6 hours.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Four Things!

Well, I certainly haven't posted in a while!  My last post was January 15 for my blogiversary, and before that it was December 1.  I have nothing but my health to blame, but I've decided I need to start writing again anyway, and what better day to start than on my birthday?  I turned 60 today, and coincidentally Randy Seaver provided a theme for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun that works nicely with a birthday — writing about myself.  So let's get back in the blogging habit!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music here), is:

1.  Let's have some genealogy fun tonight and answer some family-history-related questions with four responses (Four Things!).

2.  Share your answers with us in your own blog, in a Facebook or Instagram post, or in the comments on this blog post.  Please leave a link to anything you post elsewhere in a comment.

Okay, here are my answers.

Four Names I Go By
1.  Janice
2.  Jan-Jan (but only for my maternal grandmother)
3.  Bubbie
4.  Amanda Rycroft (Faire character)

Four Places I've Lived (Resided)
1.  Maroubra Junction, New South Wales, Australia
2.  Niceville, Florida
3.  Oakland, California
4.  Gresham, Oregon

Four Ancestral Places I Have Been
1.  Mount Holly, New Jersey
2.  Manhattan, New York
3.  Miami, Florida
4.  Philadelphia, Pennsylvania

Four Interesting Places I Have Been
1.  Athens, Greece
2.  San Sebastian, Spain
3.  Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
4.  Tallinn, Estonia

Four Favorite Ancestors
1.  Ann (Ridgway) Gaunt, 1710–1794
2.  Gershon Itzhak Novitsky, ~1858–1948
3.  Minnie Zelda (Nowicki) Meckler, ~1880–1936
4.  Moses Mulliner, 1741–1821

Four Favorite Genealogy Record Collections
1.  Historical newspapers
2.  Religious records (all, not just BMD!)
3.  Probate files
4.  Military pensions and service records

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

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?

Wordless Wednesday

 

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Your "Place Line"

Randy Seaver is floating a new concept tonight for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun.

Here is your assignment, should you decide to accept it (you ARE reading this, so I assume that you really want to play along; cue the Mission:  Impossible! music!):

(1) We're all familiar with timelines — date, location, event, etc. — for events in our lives.  This week, create a Place Line for your life, or for the life of one of your parents or grandparents — your choice!  In that Place Line, tell us the location (address if possible), inclusive dates (if possible), and events.  Consider categories such as residences, schools, churches, employment, etc.

(2) Tell us about it in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook Status post.  Please leave a link in a comment to this post.

Place lines, huh?  Well, let's see where this goes.

Residences

• Well, I could copy them all again, but since I created a list of my residences for a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun post a mere four years ago, I figure I'll put a link to that post:  Janice's residences through August 31, 2017.

• As I mentioned at the end of that post, the total was 27 residences, and I was about to move to my 28th.  That's where I still am, 1009 NE 196th Avenue in Gresham, Oregon, as of September 1, 2017.  I plan to stay here another 20 years or so.

Schools

• Hey, what do you know?  In February 2017, for Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Randy had us write about all the places we went to school!  So here's a link to that post:  Janice's schools from 1967–2000.  I have not added any formal education to my list since that time.

Churches

Well, this is a really short list.

• While my family lived in Pomona, I occasionally used to go to church with the Lamey family, who lived across the street.  I think it was an Episcopalian church, but don't hold me to that, and I have no idea what the address could have been.  This would have been in late 1970 and early 1971.

• When we moved to Niceville, Florida, I went regularly (at least for a while, probably 1973 to maybe 1974) to the First Baptist Church (now the First Baptist Church on Bayshore), 622 Bayshore Drive, which was across the street from my grandfather's house.  We probably went there because that's where Grandpa went.  I remember the church had a bus that went around town and picked people up; I boarded in the trailer park where we were living.  I had perfect attendance on the bus (don't remember how long that took) and earned a personalized King James Bible.  Not long after that I stopped going, not because my goal had been to earn the Bible, but because I just couldn't take that much organized religion.

And that's it for me and churches.  I have never attended a synagogue on a regular basis; I think I've been to services two or three times in my life (and one of those was in Paris, France).  I never saw my mother in a synagogue, but I went to Midnight Mass with her more than once while we lived in Niceville, at what was probably the only Catholic church there at the time.

Employment

• Another great coincidence!  For Labor Day a few years ago, I created a list of the jobs I have held, and that post is right here.  I have nothing to add to the list since leaving BART as a train operator.

===

I don't have as many actual addresses as Randy does.  As usual, I am impressed with the amount of detail Randy remembers about years past, while I am lagging behind quite a bit in that department.  But I did find it amusing that I had already created three of the lists he suggested for tonight's post.  And now I have collated that information together so one of my relatives can learn where I lived, was educated, and worked.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Tell Us about Your "Last Ride"

This week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun isn't quite the light-hearted essay that most are.  This is Randy Seaver's challenge tonight:

Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission:  Impossible! music here), is to:

(1) Check out "The Last Ride ..." on my other nongenealogy blog.  I thought it was beautiful and started thinking about my "last ride."

(2) Consider where you would go on your "last ride."  Where would you start, where would you finish, what stops would you make to live a memory?  What memories do you have about those places?  

(3) Tell us about your own Memory Lane in your own blog post, in a comment to this blog post, or in a post on Facebook.  Be sure to leave a link to your work as a comment to this post.

This was a hard one for me, because I have lived long periods in four different locations during my life, none of which is where I am living now.  So those areas have far more memories attached to them, but I'm planning to live in this area for the rest of my life, and if I go to hospice, it will likely be here.  In addition, I have been traveling here regularly since 2007, so that's another 10 years of memories to add to the 2 1/2 years of living here.

I think I'll start with my current residence, as Randy did.  That's in Gresham, a suburb to the east of Portland.  Since I arrived in 2017, I've been saying that I lived in my house in Oakland for 24 years, so I intend to do the same here.  By that time I'll be 79; maybe I'll be ready for hospice then.  But the hospice will be in Vancouver, across the river in Washington State, so that's where I'll end.

In Gresham I'll visit the apartment where my middle granddaughter lived with her father and his second wife.  I went there several times to visit.  And before leaving we can pass the school where my granddaughter used to go; I picked her up from that school once, under the watchful eye of teachers.

From Gresham I'll go south and west to Milwaukie, to the home of my friends KR and Jan.  They are members of my group of dinner friends, the first people I met in Portland when I started visiting.  For the seven years before I finally succeeded in moving up here from California, I stayed with them when I came to visit.  While in Milwaukie, I'll have the driver go past the Stone House, the former home of my ex, which he showed me on one of my first trips up here.  He loved that house so much he named his company after it.

Heading west from Milwaukie will take me across the Willamette River to southwest Portland and Brian's house.  He's another member of the dinner group.  I've been to the house many times for dinner and for gaming.  A few miles from there, also in southwest Portland in an area called Hillsdale, is where John and his family lived.  Another place of many dinners and games, and also of backyard barbecues.  One of my favorite photos of myself was taken there.

From Hillsdale we will head further west, out to Aloha (or Beaverton, or Portland; the name seems to depend on who is talking at the moment), where my older stepson lived for quite a while.  I helped him move in there, and I drove out several times to visit and have lunch with him.  Sometimes I dropped off my youngest granddaughter there when she was visiting; sometimes I picked her up from there after a visit.

After Aloha we'll go almost due north to North Plains, off of Highway 30, way up in the hills, where my boyfriend lives.  I haven't been able to visit much recently, but the house has lovely views of the Columbia River.

Next we'll head south and east, back across the Willamette River and into Portland, to the St. John's neighborhood and my friend Jody's condo.  That's another place where the dinner group has gathered, and I also visited many times outside of the dinners.

From Jody's place it's a little more east, just past I-5 and still in Portland, to the odd little duplex where my ex and his housemate currently live.  That's also where my ex was living when I first started coming here, so I know the house well.  There were many parties and barbecues, several of them with tandoori chicken cooked in the tandoor I gave him for his birthday in 2007.  We used to cook a lot together in the small kitchen.

At this point we'll leave Portland and Oregon and head north on I-5 to Washingotn State.  I'll have two stops there, both in Vancouver, before going to the hospice.

The first stop will be where my daughter-in-law and my three youngest grandchildren live now.  Not only are there plenty of memories and many, many visits associated with them, but that's also where my younger stepson lived when I first came up here.  Many visits there to see him over the course of almost ten years.  That home and KR and Jan's home in Milwaukie were the first two places I learned how to get to on my own.

The second stop in Vancouver will be where my younger stepson lives now.  Not only have I visited him there many times, that was also the starting point for all of our driving lessons, when I taught him to drive.  I wasn't sure how well I was going to do as an instructor, but I couldn't have been too bad, because he passed the test for his license on the first try.

One of the reasons for making that the last stop before the hospice is because he has promised me that he'll take care of me when I get old (something I need to be concerned about, with no spouse and no children of my own).  So he'll probably come with the driver and me as we go to the hospice and help me settle in.  And I know he'll visit me while I'm there.

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday

Wordless Wednesday