Wordless Wednesday

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: Five Fun or Different Facts

I knew when I read the subject for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun that it sounded familiar.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision.

1.  We all find fun or different information about ourselves, our relatives, and our ancestors in our genealogy and family history pursuits.  What are five fun or different facts in your life or your ancestors' lives?

2.  Tell us about your five fun or different facts in a comment on this post or in a Facebook post.   Please leave a link on this post if you write your own post.

[Thank you to Jacquie Schattner for suggesting this topic last year.]

I'm glad I looked at last year's post on this subject, because the first thing that came to my mind to write about was something I wrote about last year!  But here's a new group of fun and different facts about me and my family members.

• My father played the part of Captain John Landry in a Sanford (Florida) Theatre Guild production of Petticoat Fever in May 1954.  (In the 1936 movie, that part was played by George Hassell.)  I know my father finished high school in Sanford, but I don't know if the guild was connected to his school or was an independent group.  The newspaper review (to the left) calls it a "local amateur group", so I'm leaning toward it being separate from the school.

• My mother liked to name our cats with different names for the Devil and similar creatures.  We had Beelzebub, Demon, Diablo (Spanish for devil), Lucifer, and Shaitan (which she told us was Hebrew for the Devil, but which Wikipedia identifies as an evil spirit in Islam), among others.

• My sister Laurie has gotten big into dragon boat racing and competes internationally.

• My uncle Marty was stationed with the U.S. Air Force in Alaska during the Good Friday earthquake in 1964.  When I asked him what he remembered about the quake, all he could come up with is that they had to help clean stuff up in Anchorage.

• The only F I have ever gotten in my academic career came in physical education when my teacher (may she forever be cursed) failed me because she thought I was faking it when I couldn't do a cartwheel.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun: What Is the Most Unusual Cause of Death You Have Discovered?

I have to veer a little off to the side for tonight's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun topic from Randy Seaver.

Come on, everybody, join in and accept the mission and execute it with precision

1.  What is the most unusual cause of death you have discovered for your ancestors?

2.  Tell us about the most unusual cause of death you found 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.

[Thank you to Linda Stufflebean for suggesting this topic!]

The reason I have to veer off a little is because I haven't found any particularly unusual causes of death in my own family, for my ancestors or collateral relatives.  And while I didn't find an unusual cause of death in my half-sister's family, I did find a situation regarding deaths that is worthy of note.

A few years ago I wrote about the time I printed out a five-generation family tree for my half-sister's mother's side of the family and discovered that not a single man in the family had reached the age of 60.  Every man but one had died of a heart attack by the age of 59.  So, not an unusual cause of death, but an unusual number of the same type.

At the time I made this grisly discovery, that cousin had not yet reached 59.  I never learned whether he had made the same observation about the men in his family, but he retired before turning 60.  He lived to the ripe old age of 79, dying just shy of his 80th birthday.

During my research for others, the most unusual (and unexpected) cause of death I have found was described thusly:

In case you're having trouble reading that, it's:

(a) Shock, Traumatic

Due to (b) Hemorrhage & Concussion of Brain

Due to (c) Multiple injuries of head

And in case you were wondering, the coroner's jury did come back with a verdict of homicide.

I would like to think that is still considered an unusual cause of death.

Three Grandmothers with the Same Birthday

It's easy to say that something is against the odds, but how do you determine the odds?

I've read about statistics that once you get something like 50 people together in one place, it's almost guaranteed that two of them will have the same birthday.  (I've read it, but I still don't understand it.)  But what about when you're dealing with only two or three people?  The odds have to be much lower, right?

Yet low odds are not impossible odds.

For our example here, we have my half-sister, Laurie.

We have the same father, so we share a paternal grandmother.  Anna Gauntt was born January 14, 1893.

Laurie's maternal grandmother, Louise Elsie Gaynor, was born January 14, 1903.

Okay, all you statisticians out there, can we figure out the odds of that happening?

But I'll go one step further.

Our paternal grandfather married twice after living with our grandmother.  His third wife, to whom he was married before I was born, and who can reasonably be called our stepgrandmother (my mother certainly always told me to call her Grandma), was Adelle Cordelia Taylor.  And she was born January 14, 1914.

What are the odds on that particular situation?  I certainly don't know.  Maybe our brother or sister-in-law can figure it out.  They're the mathematicians in the family.  Which I realize is not the same as a statistician, but it's the closest we have.

So today, on January 14, I'll wish a happy birthday in heaven to three of my sister's grandmothers.

This is the type of thing I noticed while going through a year's worth of births, marriages, and deaths in my family.

Family historians are a strange breed.

Wordless Wednesday

 

Wordless Wednesday

 

Photo Bonanza!

The origins of this story go back to 2019, when my father passed away.  I didn't know what there might be in his estate, but I had told my siblings that I was really interested in only two things:  his racing trophies and his photographs.

My father raced cars (and some motorcycles) everywhere he lived:  New Jersey, Florida, California, Australia, Florida again, Texas.  And he won lots of trophies (although my stepfather informed me that most of the time that's all he won; rarely did the races have any cash prizes).  Daddy talked about getting rid of the trophies a few years before he died, but I made him promise not to, because they're such an important part of his (and therefore our family's) history.  I even got to ask the Archive Lady how best to preserve them!

But this story is about the photographs.  My father used to be kind of a semiprofessional photographer.  He took photos everywhere and of everything.  Lots of family photos, lots of photos of cars, and all sorts of other stuff.  As the family genealogist, I knew I needed those photos to help tell our family story and to find more information about family members.

Due to various things that happened after Daddy died, the photographs ended up going to Texas with my stepbrother, and then to my sister in San Antonio.  I kept asking about them, and at some point she told me that her niece had started scanning them, and that eventually I would get a copy of the scans (and the photos themselves).  I asked a few more times after that and I was always told that the project was still going on.  After a while I stopped asking.

Out of the blue, about a week or so ago, I received an envelope from my sister.  In it was a flash drive, 128 gig!  (The biggest I've seen.)  I asked her if this was indeed the scanning project and was told, "Yes."

I finally had a chance to look at the flash drive a couple of days ago.  OMG!  Something like 6,000 scanned files!  The niece grouped them by whatever storage unit they were in:  a black tote, a can liner box (um, what is that?), a little white box, a U-Haul box.  Files and files and files!

So far I have been able to go through the files from the can liner box.  I have looked at all 1,343 photos.  (Remember, that's only the photos from that one box.)

Along with lots of photos Daddy took — of family members, friends, houses, touristy stuff, TOO MANY CARS — there are also photos of him.  Some have notes from his mother, my grandmother, written on the back.  One has a note from my grandfather (I actually recognized his handwriting).  Photos of him when he was a little bitty baby.  Congratulation cards to my grandmother on his birth.

Photos of my half-sister and her mother when they were in California, living with us!  Photos of my father's parents when they were young!  Photos from when my family lived in Australia!  A genealogist's gold mine!

And I know what I need to do.  Those photos need to be labeled as soon as possible while there's still someone around (that's mostly me!) who actually recognizes people in the photos.  Just like I harp on other people to do.

Like I said, I have gone through one folder so far.  I stayed up all night Sunday, obsessed with finishing that folder, labeling photos with the names of the people in them.  Although I am still trying to figure out how to label umpteen photos of the same car (he did this with more than one car, too).

Just a small sampling:

Me and my brother, about 1964

My half-sister Laurie, maybe about December 1968, with my mother's menorah

My half-sister Laurie and my father, about December 1957

My mother, maybe 1964?

My grandfather holding my father, maybe January 1936 (Grandpa's handwriting)

Back row:  my mother and her parents
Front row:  me, my sister, my brother
Australia, circa 1972

Mary Lou and Shetland Ponies

To celebrate the birthday of my half-sister's mother (my father's first wife), here is my half-sister Laurie with a guest post!

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And here I am again, faced with my mother’s birthday, and yet another request from my Seester to write something for her ancestry blog.  Except THIS time . . . .

On this October 16, Mary Lou Bowen-Sellers-James would have been celebrating her 85th birthday.  Having been a single mother for a good part of her working years, she managed to find jobs or situations where she could work while I was at school or bring me along on her workday.

In 1967 we lived in El Monte, California in a house owned by the family she worked for.  In exchange for rent, we got to care for their horses and train Shetland ponies for the owner’s business.  At any given time, there were three to four horses and 30 to 35 ponies, along with a number of dogs and cats.  This in itself was her dream job, but there was a secondary job that seemed to be a part of every child’s life in the Los Angeles area in the '60's.

Along with a host of others, my mom worked as a roving photographer, taking photos of kids on Shetland ponies.  The crew would show up at the owner's property, prepare the ponies, load them up on the trailer, and then drive to a targeted neighborhood.  From there, each photographer would start walking, pony in tow, carrying a tripod, camera, chaps, vest, cowboy hat, whatever other equipment was necessary, along with her lunch, water and snacks for the pony, and a shovel, for a long day of photographing cowboy poses.

I was thrilled to be able to work alongside my mother as she got the children ready for the shoot and hear her talk about the horses to the kids and parents.

Of course, those were the days of developing film, so once the photos were ready, she’d be back to deliver the sleeves of photos to the parents, but while I was in school.

We took SO MANY photos of kids on Shetland ponies!  I grew up thinking every kid in the world had a picture taken on a Shetland pony!  Later in life I remember being shocked at the number of people with no knowledge of photographers and ponies just showing up in neighborhoods, looking for kids to dress up like cowboys!

It was a cool job and we were happy.  Even at the age of 10, I felt like we had found our place to be.  She loved what she was doing and I thought we were settling in.

Unfortunately, Mom suffered a back injury when she was thrown from one of the horses and we had to give up the house and the job.

That was the bad news.

Our salvation came in what most people would find an unconventional source:  My stepmother invited us to live with her, my father, and their three young children until my mother got back on her feet.

I thought I had hit the family jackpot!  I could actually LIVE with my siblings and, I’m pretty sure, we all had Shetland pony photos!

I’m not sure why, but we trained the ponies to stand in this manner as in the photo above, stretched out for the photo.  This guy’s ears were back, which my mother would never shoot.  She’d click and talk until the pony was looking at the camera, alert and ears forward.  She told me that making the pony look like it was enjoying its situation as much as the kid is what sold photos!

Photo posted by Maia C. and used under a creative commons license.

Happy Birthday, Sissie-poo!

Today is the birthday of my older sister (technically half-sister), which I've decided to celebrate on my blog, just because I can.  Oh, the joys of having a blog devoted to family history!

Laurie is my father's daughter from his first marriage.  Because my mother was very family-oriented, my siblings and I probably would have known about her anyway, but we really got to know her and her mother because they used to live with my immediate nuclear family when I was a child.  We were very forward-thinking for the 1960's, I know.  There's even a photo of the four of us from 1968:

After Mary Lou and Laurie moved out of our house, they were in California for a while before moving back to the East Coast.  But I always stayed in touch with Laurie by writing.

When my family moved back to the United States in 1973 after two years of living in Australia, we also went to the eastern part of the U.S., albeit in Florida, and I continued to write to Laurie.  My brother and sister got to know her better than I because at different times they both ended up in her area and were able to visit in person.

Then, in 1991, plans were made for my mother, my brother, and me to visit San Antonio, where my sister lived, for a big family Christmas.  And my sister decided to surprise everyone else by having Laurie show up.

They plotted and planned.  The day I was scheduled to fly in, Stacy went to the airport to pick me up and had Laurie come along.  Laurie was waiting in the area through which passengers exited.

I was walking along, looking for Stacy, when suddenly someone I had just passed said, "What's the matter?  Don't you recognize your own sister?"

I turned and had to take a few seconds before I realized that Laurie was standing there in front of me.  She later commented with great joy about me standing there with my mouth hanging open.

She also mentioned that after this wonderful surprise had been planned, for several days she had been telling her coworkers, "I'm going to see my sister I haven't seen for 23 years!"  Which of course just begged for an explanation she was happy to share.

Because we had all four siblings together again, we commemorated the occasion with another photo, all of us in the same relative positions as in the one from 23 years prior.

Which is one of my favorite family photos that I have.

Happy birthday, Laurie!

Now That's What I Call a Blended Family!

My stepfather

Recently I visited Florida for my high school 40th reunion (which I may write about at some point; still processing my feelings about it).  While I was there, I stayed at my stepfather's house, and it occurred to me just how blended of a family I have.

Both of my parents have passed away, my mother 25 years ago this coming January and my father this past May.  So the only living parents I have now are my stepparents.

When I scheduled the trip for the reunion, I was also intending to visit my father and stepmother.  After my father's death, however, my stepmother has been moved to Texas, where she now lives with her son and daughter-in-law, because she really couldn't live on her own anymore.  So I didn't get to see her, unfortunately.

My stepmother's son, of course, is my stepbrother.  He has two sisters, who are my stepsisters.

My stepfather has two sons from his first marriage, so I have two more stepbrothers.  (I did get to see both of them on my trip.)

I have a full brother and full sister from my parents' marriage.

I also have a half-sister, about whom I have written several times, from my father's first marriage.

I guess I had a stepgrandmother growing up, because my grandfather was on his third wife before I was even born.

I even have a living stepgrandmother, because my stepfather's mother is still alive and kicking (in fact, she turns 94 this December!).

And as if that weren't enough to keep track of, my brother used to ask people this question, just to see their reactions:

"When is my sister's sister not my sister?"

And that happens when your half-sister's mother remarries and has a daughter with her second husband.  So my half-sister's half-sister is not biologically related to me and therefore not my sister.

(They could have used a variation of that line on NCIS:  When is my brother's brother not my brother?  Ziva's half-brother, Ari, had a half-brother, Sergei, from his mother's second marriage.  Sergei was not related by blood to Ziva at all.  And so we have art imitating life.)

I guess that's why I had to become a genealogist — just so someone in the family could keep track of all this.