Celebrating a Century

Our Aunt Celebrates her 100th!

On October 20, 2016, my husband and I had the privilege and pleasure of joining our family to celebrate the 100th birthday of our dear Aunt.  On her birthday friends in the community where she has spent her adult life waited in line to wish her Happy Birthday.  Some times during the 3-hour reception the line extended outside, and although she hated seeing their long wait, she wanted to let each person know how much she appreciated their having come.  One of those waiting was a baby only a few days old, one hundred years separating their births!

The next afternoon family members gathered for a second day of celebration and photographs.  The mother of one son, she now has three grandsons, two great grand sons, and two great granddaughters, the youngest of which is 95 years younger than her great grandmother.  

5-yr-old great granddaughter

She is an accomplished painter in oils, and some of her paintings were displayed.  We selected an art book as one of her gifts, but another gift was truly a gift from my heart.  My mother had begun embroidering a pair of pillow cases, one of which I finished for Mother.  I remembered the remaining unfinished mate to the pair and finished it for our aunt, in effect giving her a gift from both my mother and me (although Mother died six years ago), completed with thread from my collection which includes thread from my husband's mother and grandmother--our aunt's sister-in-law and mother-in-law.

Lyn giving our aunt the pillow case

We also found a 70+ year old photo of her and her husband with a group of family and friends.  We made copies to share with the family, and although she could not recall seeing the photo, she did recall the day it was taken.

Our aunt and her son with photo

Family enjoys the photo

The family gathered in a circle to share fun memories we recalled about her.  Music has always been an important part of her life, including giving piano lessons and playing piano at her church.  My husband recalled the memory of his Aunt as his piano teacher--a short-lived experience.  

However, he particularly wanted her to share her memories concerning all of the changes she had seen in her lifetime.  She remembered how excited everyone was by the news that Charles Lindbergh had flown across the Atlantic, although as a 10-year-old girl she did not quite understand the achievement of Lindbergh having left Roosevelt Field on May 20, 1927 to fly alone across the Atlantic and land at LeBourget Field near Paris 33 1/2 hours later.

She continued by recalling how her father had taken her to see Charles Lindbergh when he came to Atlanta on October 11, 1927.  She remembered standing in the crowd watching him land at Chandler Field in Hapeville (near Atlanta) at 2 p.m. on a drizzly afternoon to be welcomed by a crowd--in which a father and a little girl not quite eleven stood.  Lindbergh was welcomed by Atlanta Mayor Isaac H. Ragsdale and Georgia Governor Lamartine Hardman and was taken to Atlanta where a parade was held with 20,000 people gathered along the route.

Her memory may not have included specific dates, but she definitely remembered the excitement of his flight and the experience of going with her father to see Lindbergh's return to Atlanta, the city where her family lived prior to their move to Kansas.

She also recalled both of her brothers having served in W.W. II.  With the experience and wisdom of age, she reflected on how her parents must have worried until the boys were safely home again.  She admitted that she was a young teacher at the time and loved her brothers very much, but it was not until she was older, with a family of her own, that she could truly understand her parents' feelings.  Later, she married a young man who had also served his country, and she enjoyed telling us how her father had a hand in playing matchmaker!

Byers, Kansas Grade School Band about 1954

It was a very special occasion for her and all of her friends and family, but it was also an excellent reminder that not all of our history is to be found in books.  Just as past blogs have included information about the preservation of old photographs, this blog reminds us how important it is to listen and record the memories of family members. In a fast-changing world, we do not need to be 100 years old to have memories of things our children and grandchildren will never experience.  Share your own experiences and record the memories of other family members before they are forgotten!

More "old photograph" Stories

Ancestors on the Wall

The series of blogs regarding old photographs that I have posted in recent weeks has been extremely popular, and people who follow my blog have left comments (don't forget to read the comments at the bottom of the blogs), have posted comments on face book, have sent e-mails, and have spoken directly with me.  I love the comment that encouraged me not to stop "nagging" about the importance of labeling photographs!  We had out-of-town visitors this weekend that even brought a few old photographs to share, but I could offer no help in identifying them.

I want to share two delightful e-mails that I received, because I am sure you will enjoy them.

C.W. wrote:  "I have thoroughly enjoyed these last few blogs.  We too have a box of photos not labeled...  I am trying to go through ours and label as best I can.  We did receive some pieces of furniture when Mom passed away.  I want to put a picture and the name of who it belonged to on the back so our children will know that it is a family treasure.  ...Fortunately we have a granddaughter with a lot of interest [in family history].  She did a really wonderful school project...  I think she will carry on [the family history] for us.  Take care and keep blogging."

Her idea of a photo attached to family antiques is a great one!  Although my blogs have related to photographs, this is a wonderful suggestion for labeling furniture and other family objects.  My mother-in-law was good to tape little stories on objects or put the story inside vases or boxes.

M.H. wrote:  "Lyn, this was a very interesting and informative blog regarding old photographs...  About 10 years ago, I was given a box of old photographs that were mostly not labeled.  They had belonged to my Great grandmother's 2nd husband, and were all of his family.  We had no idea of who his descendants might be.  My grandmother saved them for years and then my aunt inherited them...  She didn't want to keep them, but it was completely against our nature to discard any old photographs.

          I finally suggested that since the Martins were from Larned that we donate them to the Santa Fe Trail Center if they would want them.  They took them and advised me that they would be labeled as Martin family photos, but that they might also be used in exhibits and presentations about other aspects of the photos, such as fashion, hair styles, furniture and other props, etc.  I thought that was a great idea.  We were very glad to have found a good home for the photos.  The moral of the story, as is one of the morals of your story, is:  never throw away old photos."

His thoughtful decision to donate the old photographs to a museum in the community where the family lived is a wonderful suggestion, increasing the possibility that a descendant might happen upon the family images.  Even if that does not happen, the family photographs will help preserve the history of that community.

Thanks to all of you who have shared your stories.  I have certainly learned how many of you have old photographs you are trying to preserve and identify, and several of you have used family gatherings as opportunities to work together in that effort! The kind and encouraging words you send let me know what blogs you enjoy and keep me motivated to eventually get back to revisions of the manuscript telling Isaac's story and the story of the Populist movement in the late 1800s.

Because I have posted these interim blogs during the week, I will not be posting on Thursday this week as I usually do.  The following week I will get back to my usual weekly Thursday posting, but it has been fun to hear from so many of you and to share your own stories about old photographs on this blog!

("Ancestors on the Wall" posted at the start of this blog is the display of framed photographs of those couples who have made my ancestral home their full-time residence.  We now display those images on the wall of the renovated family home (as well as another display of other descendants who have lived at the farm).  My great grandparents may not have occupied the house as a couple, but my great grandmother was certainly the first generation to live in the house.  The grandparents and parents are shown in wedding photographs, including my husband and myself at the bottom of the display.  We are the fourth generation to call it home, but descendants of these couples have been raised in the house and their descendants have visited and/or lived in the house as well.  If a wedding photograph of my great grandparents exists, I am not aware of it.)

What to Save?

You are down-sizing, moving from your family home of decades into a small apartment.  You can't take everything with you, and you come upon a box of old photographs of high school classmates who are also down-sizing and don't need anymore things to store.

Of, you have lost a parent and you are going through old magazines, postcards, photographs, and other things you cannot even associate with your parent.  What do you do with these things that your parents saved but that mean nothing to you?

Don't discard them!

Older friends in our home town mentioned to my husband that they had some old funeral cards, and among them was the card of my grandfather.  Would I like to see what they had? they asked him.  Of course the answer was yes, and I went through the small stack of cards and scanned them onto my computer.  The card pictured above was from the funeral of the father of a dear friend of mine.  He died in service when she was very young, and the framed picture of her handsome father hung in my friend's bedroom.  I remember seeing it there and asking her who it was.  She too has passed, but she has children who are descendants of Gaylord Thompson.  How sad it would be if this funeral card were to be destroyed when my older friends are no longer able to preserve it.

Those of you who follow my blog may remember seeing the photograph to the left.  When I mentioned the Tousley family in the blog, a family member shared this image with me, a treasured part of my research about Isaac Werner.  I was delighted with the photograph, and she was pleased with the research I had done about her family, and it was this old photograph that brought us together.

When my mother-in-law passed away, there was a box of photographs that she had inherited at the time of her own mother's death, who in turn had inherited them from among her mother's things.  We recognized none of them, and my husband was ready to give up and discard them.  I insisted that they be saved, and painstakingly I began using my genealogy research to unravel the mystery of their identities.  Eventually I identified all but three of the people pictured in this box of photographs.  In a future blog I will offer suggestions for identifying unmarked photographs.

I have the post cards pictured at right because a thoughtful family going through their elderly aunt's things donated them to a museum.  Sadly, it was not a museum primarily utilized by researchers.  The museum used the antique post cards as party favors at a fund raiser--a clever table decoration at the Victorian tea which was a favorite annual event for many years because of the lovely table decorations, clever and tasty refreshments, and special entertainment.  However, gifting the post cards to a museum that serves researchers could have provided a wealth of information about the family and the historic period through the correspondence on the reverse side of the post cards.  When you donate things to a museum, consider the ways in which that museum will be able to preserve and utilize what you donate.

A museum that does save photographs and documents is the perfect place to donate correspondence, old photographs and albums.  My mother-in-law had a full box of obituaries she had clipped from newspapers over the years, and when I offered them to Michael Hathaway at the Stafford County Historical and Genealogical Museum he was delighted.  Pause before you discard things that researchers might appreciate.

I was doing research for Isaac at the Pratt County Historical Museum when Marcia Brown was the director, and I mentioned some of Isaac's neighbors when I was going through old photographs in the museum's collection in hopes of finding a photograph of Isaac.  Marcia has a memory like a Pratt County walking archive, and months later someone brought in a box of old photographs to donate to the museum.  In going through the box she spotted a picture of Dr. Dix, and she remembered my having mentioned him.  I was thrilled!  She e-mailed the image to me, and now I have a picture of one of Isaac Werner's best friends--thanks to the person who brought the box of unidentified photographs to the museum rather than discarding them, and thanks to Marcia Brown's amazing memory and her thoughtfulness in contacting me.  I also have one of Issac's own books because Marcia spotted it at the library deacquisition sale and bought it for me.

I am still hopeful that someone will discover a picture of a group of men standing in a potato patch and remember my story about the photograph of the cooperative potato growing experiment in Stafford County.  Or some one whose ancestors were early Stafford County settlers shown in a photograph in which the background is a house or a well or a big tree or a promenade in a tree grove that they can't recognize from other family pictures, and they may remember my blog about neighbors who came to Isaac's farm to pose for pictures in a more prosperous setting at a time when their own homesteads were rather primitive.

A wealth of irreplaceable information is destroyed each time a box of old letters or old photographs goes into the trash, and when the people whose memories are preserved in those documents are gone, that information cannot be replicated.  Consider before you discard such things whether they should be preserved and where you might deliver them to insure their preservation.  History is more than just  books about famous people and events!