So This Just Happened ...

I can't make this stuff up. This really happened to me tonight.

I'm at the Chinese place on the corner getting dinner on the way home from the train. As I'm paying for my food and about to pick up my take-away sack full of food and hot mustard packets, the guy behind the counter really looks at me and says: "Where you from?"

Please note, English is NOT his first language. And I was NOT anticipating any personal interactions or potentially loaded conversations.

Not quite understanding, I give him a quizzical look.

He responds: "Where are you from?"

I very hesitantly reply, “America.” But my voice trails up, questioningly, because I have NO idea why he's asking.

He tries to clarify: "Where is your family from?"

I still have NO idea why he's asking, because ... Look, I just want my Chinese food and my sweatpants. I didn't know I was going to get an inquisition with my beef and broccoli.

I give him the easiest, briefest, least complicated answer: "England a long time ago. Why?"

 

He points to my head: "Because, your hair …"

Now, could I tell him that once upon a time in the '70s I did look like a little semi-ethnic child, with the flow of raven locks to the middle of back, or later in the '80s when I have my semi-bowl haircut that I might have been mistaken for someone possibly from Asia and not almost 100% European ... but again, this was just supposed to be about my beef and broccoli. 

Instead, I answer:"Oh. Well. Thanks? We think that’s maybe because of a native American ancestor."

And I quickly left.

I mean, I could try and explain a about the possible native American ancestor, or the possible Spanish relative, or very likely Black Irish or Welsh ancestry - but ... Do you expect a DNA test when you order your no-MSG meal?

So … That happened. At least he didn’t make a comment about the grey, I guess.

Maybe it's time to order the AncestryDNA kits and finally get the answers to the questions. Just so I can finally go back to the Chinese place again.

Dreaming Out Loud - Canada Calling Me Home

Image from here

A few months ago I got a text from my friend Christine that read something to the effect of:

Do you have a passport?

Yes ...

And a few texts later:

Do you want to go on a cruise?

Depends on when and where ....

And still later:

To Canada?

I had to call her back after that one ... because I was shaking. A lot.

NB & Nat'l flag image from here

Back at the beginning of the year, when I started jotting down the preliminary notes for what would be the seeds for these future Dreaming Out Loud installments, I made the following entry: 

NOT a cruise, but a smaller boat trip – maybe to:

Prince Edward Island – for my Anne of Green Gables addiction, and to find the port of entry where my ancestors came in from England

Or

Alaska

I don't think I had ever articulated this dream to Christine. There are more times than I care to count, however, when Christine and I have been on some weird karmic connection when it comes to calls, cards, e-mails, jokes, observations and other odd things. 

Carnival Glory: Photo credit

After talking to her I got the details of this proposed cruise, and while it may not be the EXACT dream, it's pretty darn close. I've learned to start taking advantage of opportunities like this when they come up. Call it a prompting. An opening. What have you.

So I'm getting on a boat. A big boat. A ship even. This Carnival Glory cruise liner, actually. With over 5,000 other people and spending a week doing something I never envisioned at the beginning of this year when I started to dream. Cruising. Me. The introvert. Who would have thought? It will be an adventure to say the least. I hope poor Christine realizes what she's in for. (And, hopefully, The Shushing Librarian is coming with us, so who knows what will happen.)

Nova Scotia flag image from here

 

While it turns out this cruise won't be heading to Prince Edward Island, we will be getting close enough ... this time ... and spending a day exploring Saint John, New Brunswick and Halifax, Nova Scotia. While Saint John is also a port city, Halifax was a major port of call, especially back when my ancestors were migrating to North America and I feel there's this mysterious connection calling to me.

I just can't tell you where and what and when that connection is ... but it's there. In the seas. In the land. In the songs. In the breeze. And, in the genes.

 This trip is just whetting my appetite for the Canadian Maritimes.

Image from here

With a day in port in both cities, there is not time for major island hopping or genealogical explorations, so the plan includes touristy things, like:

 

Pier 21, Halifax: Photo credit

Citadel, Halifax: Photo credit

Public Gardens, Halifax: Photo Credit

Saint John, NB City Market: Credit

Photo credit

As more of our family history has been explored, more and more of the "pull" back to PEI can be explained due to family connections. I thought it was just my love for that "Anne Girl," but turns out my father's ancestors ended up settling in, and being buried, in the same mid-Island area that are close to the roads and lanes of L.M. Montgomery's beloved books. 

Photo credit

Photo credit

About two weeks after I agreed to go on the cruise, I got an e-mail from Cousin Frank, (the aforementioned author of the book about a paternal grandfather), outlining plans for the first Annual International Reunion scheduled for Prince Edward Island from July 25-29, reconnecting some of our family lines which have long been severed ("slightly") since the family left the island in 1850. 40 odd "cousins" were planning to visit family sites on the island, including homesteads, the port from whence the family sailed from PEI to the USA, the graveyard where a great+ grand-father and mother are buries, AND, (this is what got to me):

• "All of the Anne of Green Gables "stuff" ... Mongomery gravesite, schoolhouse, etc."

People who don't believe in mysterious heavenly influences having a tug on our heart strings and collective consciousnesses ... I don't get them. 

*MY* ancestors are definitely up there trying to get us all headed in the right direction --back up north -- but as usual, my timing is all off and I was overcommitted.

I still dream of PEI, but for the next week or so, I'll just be out to sea, coming close to "home" port, but not quite. I have a feeling I'll still be having sweet dreams.

Wish me luck and ... Bon Voyage  

until my return to the Attic and blogging in general.

Photo credit information

O Canada!
Our home and native land!
True patriot love in all thy sons command.

With glowing hearts we see thee rise,
The True North strong and free!

From far and wide,
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

God keep our land glorious and free!
O Canada, we stand on guard for thee.

"Sea" you soon ... or later.

Auntie's Day: Honoring the Original Auntie Nettie

The spirits of my family have been really active lately in trying to bring our focus back to them. Between babies sharing family names, the genetic legacies of generations showing up on little shiny faces, and other dreams and visitations  - let's just say, I don't believe in "coincidences."

Like this one, I had already been planning a trip to Canada, near Nova Scotia, when a distant cousin, the author of a biography about our shared paternal grandfather, sent me an e-mail letting me know about a family reunion up in Prince Edward Island --the first one ever - the week BEFORE I was due to travel. Hopefully the family was able to visit family sites and pay homage at relevant cemeteries. I hope to join them in future years and reconnect the distant branches of the family tree. This family connection totally explains the "pull" to P.EI. and Canada that has always been quite strong for me.

But I don't need a reunion, or need to visit a cemetery to remember my ancestors - especially my great-something paternal aunt, the original "Auntie Nettie." I can't forget her. We share a name after all.

I always think about her when I have to explain my name, but it wasn't until recently that I tried to find her final resting place so I could properly pay my respects. Poor kid; she doesn't seem to have a headstone.

Rivertrip 2010

middle of Utah

middle of a cemetery

middle of a search for "myself"

 Where are you little one? Are you here? Or were you here?

I knew that she had died young. The frontier life wasn't easy, and childhood life expectancy was short due to illnesses, but until my father was told about Cousin Frank's book and I found "myself" in the index, we didn't know how tragic her death was.

THE ORIGINAL

6/19/1874-4/23/1878

~daughter of Elijah Hiett M. 1832-1925 {son of John Ellison M. 1801-1875 and Sarah Elizabeth B.M. 1811-1894} and Helen Alcy T. 1839-1915

Elijah Hiett M******: A Pioneer Legend by Frank L. M****** [aka Cousin Frank]

Page 147

Elijah set about building a family home in East Lao, in the County of Piute [Utah]--the county subsequently becoming Wayne County in 1891. However, three weeks after moving into their new home, they were saddened by the death of their young daughter, THE ORIGINAL who, at the age of three, accidentally drank some concentrated lye which was in common use within the pioneer homes. It would have easily been mistaken for other liquids. Now, at the age of four years old, she became the first death in East Loa in April of 1878. Knowing that she was near death she requested to be buried alongside her grandfather and grandmother in Cottonwood, Utah – which was the place of her birth. Keeping the promise made to her, Elijah and Helen made the 200 mile, 11 day journey, to the Salt Lake Valley to place her alongside her grandparents, John [Ellison] and Sarah ... (emphasis my own.)

Can you even imagine? If I understand this correctly, she didn't die immediately, but lingered long enough to have a birthday and make requests to be reunited with her grandparents in her childood "hometown." What a horrible way to way to go. At three or four, she should have been running around the yard, helping with the prairie chores -- probably gathering eggs, feeding the chickens, gathering wood, and water from the stream. She would have been bossed by her older siblings, and in turn played with her baby brother.

Now that I have these clues, I plan to go back to find her plot. More importantly, she deserves a marker. I plan to write to the sexton to see if it's possible for her to eventually have some company. A little urn doesn't take up a lot of room, right? - Even in a plot with a child's coffin? If I'm getting a stone engraved, why not getting it engraved for two?  Centuries apart, we are both:

Daughter, Sister, Aunt 

1874-1878
daughter of Elijah Hiett and Sarah Elizabeth

1972-         

daughter of LeRoy C. "Max" and Mary 

Happy Auntie's Day Little One.

Thanks for the name

(even if no one can pronounce it correctly.)

Photo of the Day: Old Man in the Grotto

Snow Canyon, Utah, Hidden Pinyon Trail, c. January 1, 2011

presented with this comment:

Just when you think your ancestors aren't keeping an eye on you, their shadows seem to lurk around every corner.

Happy Birthday Great-Aunt Rachel

Throughout the year there have been mentions of, and pictures of, my Grandma Ollie J's sisters, my aunts Ruby, Dorothy, and Shirley, not mention passing references to their siblings, Henry and Hyrum, Betty, and Martha. That's a large family, of which Grandma Ollie J was the eldest. However, Aunt Rachel actually was the first born of my maternal great-grandparents Bertha and Charlie -- Grandma's older sister, though they never knew each other on this plane of existence.

Growing up we knew of Aunt Rachel because of a very large, sepia photograph of a young child that hung in the spare/front/sewing room of The Farm house. When Grandma had to relocate to Utah and then to the Trailer, Aunt Rachel's picture went with her. After Grandma's passing, Mom (and I have to agree) thought it was only fitting that Aunt Rachel stay in the family. The photo is now in the safe keeping of one of her sisters.

Think about the existence of that photo for a moment. Photography was expensive at the turn of the last century. A photo the size of that one, almost 12 inches tall, must have been very expensive. My grandmother's family was not wealthy by any stretch of the imagination. They had to sacrifice to make that possible. Yes, formal family photos were becoming "something that you did," but it's not like it is now, when every one can shoot anything all the time, and even prints are easy to get at the local store. What made them sacrifice the time and money to take a formal photo? Surely they could have waited. But, as you'll see, it's good they didn't.

Here's Charlie, and I have to say that the genetic legacy of the ears has not diluted this many generations later.Here's Great-grandma Bertha, she of the strong stock and later craftiness that will show up later this month. (Also, don't you think that Elle favors her a bit?)Some of the treasures that one of Mom's cousins pulled out on the family visit back in May, was a stack of little notebooks that Great-grandpa Charlie had kept. I had never seen these before and the trained librarian/archivist/conservationist within me was appalled that a) they weren't being kept in weatherproof conditions or even in acid free boxes, and b) that I wasn't wearing the conservator gloves to look at objects that were over 100 years old. [Notes to self: next time pack a mobile scanner, and a better camera to record this stuff! *Sponsor? Hello HP?]

Flipping through these little notebooks were glimpses into moments of family history: birth dates, marriage dates, etc.

The entries were fairly chronological. After entries about Bertha and Charlie, I found a note about Aunt Rachel's birth and blessing (an LDS naming/christening):

Rachel Amy was born Dec 16, 1912. Pikeville, N.C. Wayne Co. R.D.S.

Rachel Amy was Blessed Jan 21, 1913

By Elder Thomas Tanner of Blackfoot Idaho

Elder Thomas M. Rees, Coalvill(e) Utah

According to my calculations, Charlie was 30 and Bertha was 22 when Aunt Rachel was born.

They had her with them for less than a year.

Less than a year.
Their first child.
I can't even fathom.

The next entry in the notebook, reads:

Rachel Amy

Died Oct 3, 11:30 o'clock 1913

and was burried [sic] Sunday Oct 5, 13

Gone to a better land,

but not forgotten

Happy Birthday little one. I hope you are enjoying being the big sister.

Photos of the Day - Model Heroes

December 7, 1941

"A date which will live in infamy"

Visiting Family, North Carolina Road Trip, May 2010

presented with these comments:

This handcrafted model of the U.S.S. California is in the safe care of a cousin.

When most people think of Pearl Harbor, the U.S.S. Arizona memorial comes to mind. However, more than 21 vessels were destroyed or damaged that day, including the California, which was hit by bombs and torpedoes, flooded, and sunk. Almost a hundred Marines and sailors from the California were killed, with the injured matching them in numbers.

The photograph of our family sailor, in his Navy best, is near the bow of the model.

On this anniversary of that day, we salute those lost, those injured, and the families left behind.

For more information about the memorial, and the attacks on Pearl Harbor, please go here. The lists below were obtained from that site.

USS California *
BB-44, Battleship
--------------------------------

U.S. Navy (98 fallen)

Howard L. Adkins, F1c
Moses A. Allen, MAtt1c
Thomas B. Allen, GM2c
Wilbur H. Bailey, Sea1c
Glen Baker, Sea2c
James W. Ball, F2c
Harold W. Bandemer, Sea1c
Michael L. Bazetti, Sea1c
Albert Q. Beal, RM2c
Thomas S. Beckwith, SF3c
Henry W. Blankenship, PhM1c
Edward D. Bowden, F2c
Robert K. Bowers, Ens (VO-2)
Robert L. Brewer, Sea1c
Samuel J. Bush, MAtt1c
James W. Butler, F2c
Elmer L. Carpenter, BM1c
Cullen B. Clark, F1c
Francis E. Cole, Msmth2c
Kenneth J. Cooper, FC3c
Herbert S. Curtis, Jr., Sea2c
Lloyd H. Cutrer, Sea2c
Edward H. Davis, SK1c
John W. Deetz, GM3c
Marshall L. Dompier, SK2c
Norman W. Douglas, Sea1c
Guy Dugger, F1c
Billie J. Dukes, Sea1c
Thomas R. Durning, Jr., Sea2c
Robert W. Ernest, Sea2c
Alfred J. Farley, Sea2c
Marvin L. Ferguson, Jr., AS
Stanley C. Galaszewski, Sea2c
Robert S. Garcia, SK3c
Thomas J. Gary, Sea2c
George H. Gilbert, Ens
Tom Gilbert, Sea1c
Helmer A. Hanson, Sea2c
Gilbert A. Henderson, MAtt2c
John A. Hildebrand, Jr., F1c
Merle C. J. Hillman, PhM2c
Paul E. Holley, Sea1c
Richard F. Jacobs, SF3c
Ira W. Jeffrey, Ens
Melvin G. Johnson, RM3c
Ernest Jones, MAtt3c
Herbert C. Jones, Ens
Harry Kaufman, BM1c
Arlie G. Keener, SK3c
Harry W. Kramer, F1c
John T. Lancaster, PhM3c
Donald C. V. Larsen, RM3c
John E. Lewis SK1c
James E. London, SK1c
Howard E. Manges, FC3c
John W. Martin, F3c
George V. McGraw, F1c
Clyde C. McMeans, Sea1c
Aaron L. McMurtrey, Sea1c
James W. Milner, F1c
James D. Minter, Sea2c
Bernard J. Mirello, Sea1c
William A. Montgomery, GM3c
Marlyn W. Nelson, F2c
Wayne E. Newton, Sea1c
June W. Parker, QM3c
Kenneth M. Payne, Sea1c
George E. Pendarvis, F3c
Lewis W. Pitts, Jr., Sea2c
Alexsander J. Przybysz, Prtr2c
Roy A. Pullen, Sea2c
Edward S. Racisz, Sea1c
Thomas J. Reeves, CRM (PA)
Joseph L. Richey, Ens (VO-2)
Edwin H. Ripley, Sea2c
Earl R. Roberts, Sea1c
Alfred A. Rosenthal, RM3c
Joe B. Ross, RM2c
Frank W. Royse, RM3c
Morris F. Saffell, F1c
Robert R. Scott, MM1c
Erwin L. Searle, GM3c
Russell K. Shelly, Jr., Mus2c
Frank L. Simmons, MAtt2c
Tceollyar Simmons, Sea2c
Lloyd G. Smith, Sea2c
Gordon W. Stafford, Sea2c
Leo Stapler, MAtt1c
Charles E. Sweany, EM1c
Edward F. Szurgot, SK3c
Frank P. Treanor, RM3c
Pete Turk, Sea2c
George V. Ulrich, F1c
George E. Vining, MAtt2c
David Walker, MAtt3c
Milton S. Wilson, F3c
Steven J. Wodarski, Sea1c
John C. Wydila, SF3c

Marine Corps. (4 fallen)

John A. Blount, Jr., PFC
Roy E. Lee, Jr., Pvt
Shelby C. Shook, Pvt
Earl D. Wallen, PFC


*The U.S.S. California was later raised, repaired, and served honorably until her decommissioning in 1947.

She was later scraped in 1959. We salute her as well.

Little Lost Dove

Happy Birthday little Piety

Veterans Day 2009

In this family, this means remembering to thank Dad for his service, and remembering the grandfathers for their service before, during, or after WWII. I also am reminded that my paternal grandmother should also be thanked for her service to this country, for her work as a "Rosie." (See this article in today's NYTimes about "Rosies." )

When that grandmother, Grandma Roa, passed a few years ago, I inherited the bulk of her vintage jewelry. In a small box, mixed in with assorted lapel pins, Boy Scout insignia, and sweetheart jewelry, there are various Naval items, from my grandfather's stint in the service. For various reasons, the meaning behind much of the memorabilia has been been lost, though the appreciation for the sacrifices that they represent--and gratitude that they were saved--remains.
I need to have the "stars and bars" identified, and then I need to mount and shadowbox these pieces for our family history. (If any Navy vets stumble across this blog and can id these for me, I'd be greatly appreciative.)

Happy Veterans Day to all those who have served and are serving our country, including those family members holding up the fort on the homefront.

Update: With thanks to Casey over at mooshinindy.com, I found out about ancestry.com's offer to let people troll through the military databases free of charge. After looking around a bit, I was able to discover that Grandpa J was on the U.S.S. Cowpens in July of 1944, plus his service number, and when and where he enrolled in the service. That's more information than I had an hour ago! Plus, I'm pretty sure I saw about four of my forefather's military records in there as well, but as I'm supposed to be oh, I don't know WORKING, I have to get out of personal research mode.

Awesome. Thanks Casey. Thanks ancestry.com. Thanks also to all the Clydes, Horaces, Elijahs, Roys, and LeRoys!