Sentimental Sunday: The Rest is Gravy

Photo by Midge Frazel, 2015

And the Rest is Gravy....

Family History in the Kitchen

(See the Milano Slices in this photo? Well, the rest about the gravy. You may substitute a glass of wine in your photo as the results would be the same. It's something to make cooking more enjoyable. Cooking, ugh.)

For several years, I cooked the full turkey dinner following the lead of my maternal ancestors. Now I like to call it "mtDNA" cooking. In my mother's composition book of family recipes, there is nothing about cooking large meals. My maternal grandmother, who lived to be 98, was a good cook and made the meals until she was too old to do so. Starting in 1989, I cooked turkeys. I did this, for Thanksgiving until 2006, when we bought a turkey breast or purchased the full dinner offered by the local grocery store. That turned out to be a good choice because it gave me exposure to what other people thought a Thanksgiving dinner SHOULD include.

Notes on Turkey cooking, photo by Midge Frazel, 2015.

But, since this is about gravy, I should stick to the topic. This is my mother's directions for making chicken gravy. Mom was an artist not a cook and many recipes are just this confusing. I think my grandmother told her what to do over the phone. My mom was the queen of the double boiler NOT the roasting pan.

Dot's Recipe Book, 1950 to 2002

The photo of Roche's Bros. Turkey gravy and the bottle of Kitchen Bouquet just keeps telling family stories forever. The gravy used to be labelled, "Holiday Gravy" I thought that was pretty funny, don't you? Well, they are back to turkey gravy now because there is no meat called Holiday. Seriously, people are just that clueless.

The first year here in Stow in 2010, I went to my local Roche Bros in Acton, MA to buy a new bottle of Kitchen Bouquet when I noticed a young woman, in distress looking at the cans and jars of gravy. Her mother, knowing she did not eat anything with fat, assigned her the gravy to bring, hoping she would realize it was a by product of cooking poultry. She told me that her mother was going to judge her cooking harshly because it was her DUTY to start being the holiday cook and stop slacking off. 

So, I showed her the "Holiday/Turkey" gravy and Kitchen Bouquet seasoning in my cart. She picked up her own bottle and followed me to the refrigerated case of prepared foods. She picked up the container of gravy and put it in her cart. I told her how to add a tiny bit of pepper, the right amount of Kitchen Bouquet to the gravy and mix well. Then, she should cook it in the microwave, put it in her own container and take it to her mom. 

I wonder if her mother asked, "How was your turkey?"

So, remember those genealogists of the future, while eating your Thanksgiving meal because leaving behind a piece of your own history may help others who follow you for as the saying goes, "the rest is gravy".  

Sentimental Sunday: Yrs Affect

Yours Affectionately, Uncle Walter, Photo collection, 1971

Yrs Affect
(Yours affectionately)

As a Find My Past Ambassador, I spent some time reading about the 1939 Register recently released. With most of my family from the British Isles were already in America prior to 1939, I browsed thorough my tree and found, of course, a relative living there during my research period of the early 1970s when I still had living family to write letters to in England about my Scottish family from Dalbeattie, Kirkcudbrightshire, Scotland. 

On 22 June 1971, I received a answer from my letter to Walter and Ruby Broadfoot. Walter was the first born son (1902-1989) of my great grandfather, John Broadfoot (1853-1926) and his second wife Helen Tait (1862-1943). If you read the letter, you will get the feeling that Walter was delighted that a young person has asked him for family information. Although he was too young to remember my grandfather, it was so exciting to hear from him and to fill in the blanks for my monumental mason great grandfather who is the inspiration for my Granite in My Blood blog. My grandfather lived with Helen's family before he came to America.

Find My Past's direct link to the 1939 Register found 3,259 Broadfoot surnames included. I was very surprised! I narrowed the search directly to Walter P. Broadfoot and discovered the right family despite the surname listed as Braodfoot. From Walter's letter, I knew his wife was Ruby Cutler and that her sisters lived with them in 1971. Walter and Ruby had no children. Intrigued by three people in the household, I had to unlock the record. The next family in the unlocked document turn out to be Ruby's mother and father (Cutler) and sister Florence (Named as Florrie in the letter). I still don't know who John D. Wells was but he may have simply been a boarder. There's always more to research...

1939 Register from Find My Past, 2015

I am thankful for seeing Ruby's family in the Register as she sent me a kiss for luck in Walter's letter from so long ago. I hope someday to find out where they are buried.

Take Note

OfficeMax, Garden City, Cranston, RI, August, 2015

Take Note
and rethink your original work...

Sometimes you have to be pushy about your genealogy research and get your point across in a BIG way. Since I have been sick for over a month, no amount of caffeine can make me a high energy genealogist for the upcoming holiday season. But, I have been able to do some research, make some project plans and do a little scanning. I have done a LOT of thinking about what I want to accomplish starting in January. 

I think I am better off planning instead of trying to write blog posts in November and December because I know you have not got time to read them. Am I right?

Sometimes a display like this one can catch your attention and get your brain moving in the right direction. I didn't buy any of these big note pads but they would be great for charting out a project or working out complex family relationships. As I was shopping, I took this quick photo to remind me. Do you do that?

Slowing down and taking a look at research you have not added to in years can give you new insight. Let me give you an example. My mother told me where she went to high school and then she told me that her only 17 months younger brother went to Dean Academy in Franklin, MA. 

I ASSUMED she meant for his post high school education since today this school that still exists as a two year post high school institution. 

I was WRONG. What she was telling me is that he boarded at an academy for his high school years instead of going to a local public school as she did. I only realized this when I found his yearbook in the Ancestry collection of yearbooks and then returned to the Web page for the school and read the history. 

I didn't need coffee to wake me up and tell me how wrong I was when I made an assumption. Don't let this happen to you! I will kick off  2016 with a report of what I found and how it fits in the total picture of my uncle's life.

Reading Mystery Occupations

Reading Old and Mysterious Occupations

As a Find My Past "Ambassador", I like to report that I have has success using the site to work with the Scotland and England census record TRANSCRIPTIONS that they provide.

I have the images from other sources, but reading all the words on the actual images can be tricky. I transcribe them as best that I can and annotate them with possible ideas in my research log. It is working quite well for me so I thought I'd pass this tip on to others as well.

1901 England Census for Crompton family

In England, my uncle's family were coal miners. I didn't find this out until my mother told me that my aunt and uncle went to the movies to see the 1980 movie, Coal Miner's Daughter.  This was a long time after I interviewed my family. I didn't ask about occupations because I thought everyone was involved in the granite industry or the laundry business. My uncle died in 1985. He was a great person and I am trying to tell his story and it will have to be a series of blog post.

 But, for now, I had success using the transcription of this census at Find My Past to figure out what this occupation says.

It says, "Colliery Fireman Under Ground" the word penciled in says "Below"

If you are curious, you can do a Google Search to find out what kind of occupation this is.

Sentimental Sunday: Mom's Yearbook Photo

Clip from the Cranston High School, Yearbook, 1935 from Ancestry.com (p. 78)

When I cleaned out the house my parents lived in for over fifty years, I had to make a lot of decisions on what to keep and what to toss. I threw out their high school yearbooks and I'm not sorry I did, it would be just another thing to have moved and worry about.

Ancestry just increased their yearbook collection and it includes my mother's yearbook. I made this quick clip before coming down with pneumonia. 

I have learned from looking at the "biography" below her name that she did not belong to any clubs in the 9th grade. Before this time, she went to an elementary school called Norwood Ave. a location based (neighborhood based) situation. In those days buses were only for high school. She did tell me that high school started at 9th grade.

Soon I will have my 50th class reunion. Our yearbook is not so different from this one but my daughter's was quite different. (1935, 1965 and 1994)

Feeling sentimental this Sunday....

Toilet Paper Origami

Photo by Midge Frazel, 2015

Wasted Time?

One of my techno-friends (OK, my famous techno-friend Kathy Schrock) commented on the TP rolls in my hotel bathroom while visiting me on vacation. "Have they serviced your room?", she asked. When I said they had, she quipped with, "I thought maybe you were into toilet paper origami." I laughed and said, "I have enough to do without obsessively folding my TP."

I'm sure she was referring to my recent obsessive fun with coloring and not with my genealogy obsession, however, I really feel that doing something other than genealogy is sometimes a good thing.

Coloring makes me slow down and plan. I certainly need to do that with my genealogy. Being a more careful researcher seems to be everyone's goal these days and it is sound advice. But, it is stressful searching for the right record to be sure you are right about an ancestor. There are not enough records for my early Rhode Island ancestors (that are proved) and I am having problems with being sure who the immigrant ancestor is for many lines. 

I don't think toilet paper origami will help with this problem, do you?  

However, you now know that Kathy Schrock peed in my bathroom. (Yes, she washed her hands.)

Sentimental Sunday: Looking Back 5 Years

Photo by Midge Frazel, 26 Aug 2010
modified 2015

Looking Back Five Years

Sometimes it is good to look back and examine your own past. On September 2, 2010, we moved from Bridgewater, Massachusetts to this new condo (freestanding home) from the house we bought on 11 December 1972 after living in three apartments. We lived in Bridgewater because the location fit in the requirement for hubs job area. Hubs first boss drew a circle on a printed map and that was the boundary area within which we had to live. So primitive a method of decision.

I didn't know I had an ancestor that lived in Bridgewater and is buried there. It was simply a move of geography. As native Rhode Islanders, we wanted to live as close as we could to make visiting our parents as painless as possible. In retrospect, it was still too far away.  Both of hubs brothers moved to the West Coast and to the Midwest leaving us with the job of being the local family. As an only child with a good job in Rhode Island, I was not happy to leave my home state. 

It was an easy choice to move away, five years ago, but not easy to decide what to bring and what to discard. We live less than ten minutes from our only child and her family. Our co-workers and friends (mostly) have moved away from where they lived five years ago. After all, they are retiring too. As we approach our senior years, I did not want the hardship of living away from our family again. It was time. I am glad we did it when we did.

Recently, I created a timeline of the process it took to decide, move and sell our old house. Timelines help make sense of places you have lived and why. As people become more mobile, I think future generations are going to regret not writing down places and reasons for moving. They will, however, have photos. 

So, as we celebrate our five year anniversary, here is a look at our condo as it stood when we were deciding which one to buy and a photo as it looks today. What will five more years bring?

Photo by Midge Frazel, 26 April 2010.

Photo by Midge Frazel, 30 August, 2015