Favorite Photo

Wow, 2 weeks in a row, I think this may be a new record for me!

My favorite photo story ends up being about a lot of photos, how I got them and how much they mean to me...

...my mother is 85 now and there is not much she loves to do more than travel to see relatives...in her SUV...by herself...from California to Colorado (Daddy's family)...and on to Missouri (her family including one of her sisters)...and back home again.  During her most recent trip she was given, and brought back, an amazing gift for me...

My Dad's mom was a packrat - she saved everything from balls of twine to rubber bands from the

newspaper, foil bits and every Christmas card that made her smile.  When she passed away it was a chore going through stuff that was left.  When the furniture and the big items were gone there were boxes of papers etc. that got put in the loft above the shop area at Uncle Gene's farm - and there it sat, with everyone sort of knowing there was stuff there but just not wanting to go through it all.  It became a daunting task I think, and no one knew exactly what it was...it was 'stuff'.  This past year my cousins' son cleaned up that upper room to be his office for his machine shop and he needed to get rid of the 'stuff'.  He waited until my mom was there and then she and my aunt sat down and finally went through it.  Can you say 'TREASURE TROVE'?!  They had a good time going through it all and the only sad part was that Daddy and his brother would have had so much fun as well.  The two ladies divided up the trove into each brothers 'stuff' and then divided the rest of the pictures etc. so that each family got a few things.

Masuchi, Daddy and Jr. Bowman Looking out at the desert

Our family pile went into one of the old 50's suitcases from the attic and came home with mom.  When I visited in November she and I sat down and went through the treasures together and one of the things we found was a stack of pictures that my dad had sent to his mom and dad during his time in the Air Force during the Korean War!

Masuchi and Daddy in front of Rock Happy

 These were pictures of him and his buddies in Saudi Arabia that even my mom had never seen.  We wondered if Daddy even remembered they were there.  I had searched for years to find the base they were stationed at, to no avail and here was the menu for their Thanksgiving meal and banquet with the base (the name has changed) and the flight numbers that would allow me to track him in the records.
 

















 There were photos of my grandparents before they
were married that none of us had ever seen, and their Wedding books from the Church the minister was from...in German.  My grandmother was the sibling who took care of things, she had kept a notebook with the rough drafts of the obituaries and wedding and anniversary announcements that she put in the local paper.  Truly a genealogists dream!

So that is my favorite Photo...photos, well, then there is this one of my grandchildren...

Fresh Start!

Another year and another effort on my part to keep up with the 52 week challenge by Amy Johnson Crow!  We shall see how I do this year....

I always loved the family stories and was blessed with grandparents and great grandparents who were both alive, (always an advantage) and who loved to have an audience for their stories. I heard the stories growing up and took them at face value, there was no reason to question them, in my mind. When I was older there was an aunt in Virginia who had 'done' the family tree and I received a copy. What fun that was! We were related to Mary Queen of Scots and Andrew Hamilton and Andrew Jackson....and this just can't be true, I got my first taste of what can happen when sloppy work and copying from others happens. My father was a history teacher and I knew that Andrew Jackson didn't have any natural children although he adopted and raised several. I started researching the stories and the alleged relatives and...I was hooked! For the rest of my life I have loved the hunt, the research, the dusty files, the genealogical societies correspondence...I love it all!

Apparently there were some less than honest genealogists, or so-called genealogists in the early 20^th century who did bogus trees, where everyone ended up related to famous people or in famous battles and my relative had gotten hold of several of those and mooshed them all together into the most fantastic, sigh, and inaccurate tree you could imagine! The whole thing needed to be done over, a fresh start as it were.

I began to gather historical records from family members who had collected them, asked questions of my grandmother (who lived to be 102) and began at the beginning. Tracing back has been so much fun and the history of the family has been as much fun as the names and dates.

I did find the connection to Mary Queen of Scots and from her, of course, most of the houses of Europe. It is not however a legitimate relationship although it was an acknowledged one, I'm not in any danger of inheriting a castle. There is a distant relationship between my Hamiltons and Alexander Hamilton but very distant. There is no relationship between my Jackson and the former president. It is OK though, I have found veterans from the Revolutionary War and every war from then to the present day. I've found pioneers and inventors, relatively recent immigrants and one that was kicked out of the Plymouth Colony, a couple from Jamestown and in the background information from the Wessex branch of the family I found my cousin Thor and his father Odin. (That one may be a little sketchy too though!  Definitely needs more research, pretty sure the comic books don't count!)

So I guess I owe a thank you to my gullible aunt who gave us all a mimeographed copy (are you old enough to know what that is?) that set me off on this wonderful journey! My Fresh Start!