One of the things I'm thankful for, since Thanksgiving is the time for counting our blessings, is that there is such a thing as photographs, and that my ancestors indulged their desire to record their appearance for posterity. Some of them may have regarded it as little short of sinful (judging from the expressions on a few faces), but they did it anyway. As an only child, the oldest grandchild on both sides, I seem to have become the repository of many of the ancestors' photos and tintypes and portraits in oil, pastels, watercolor or pencil. And thank the Lord for my grandmothers, the story-tellers, who made sure to label who these strange people were!
Don't get me wrong, I certainly understand where the Amish are coming from when they avoid photographs--they want to avoid making graven images. Even their dolls don't have faces. Though I think if they ever had the experience of looking at a passport photo of themselves, they would see that the rest of us certainly have no intention of worshiping the images...
And I even kind of understand where various primitive societies think that photographs steal a piece of your soul. It's just that it is such a minute piece, such a tiny instant in time, such a brief flicker of life, that we can go back to again and again to remember the pleasure of that moment, the joy we experienced and the fun we had, and to regain just an echo of the joy in the memory.
Hmmm. Maybe the soul-stealing theory explains why some of those Hollywood types seem to have no sense of morals at all--they spend all their time on camera and having their pictures taken, and it has stolen their souls away completely! Paparazzi as vampires? It might explain it. Okay, shame on me--enough snarky comments for the moment.
Anyway, one of my friends at church was telling me on Sunday about her mother coming to live with her and her family. Her father had passed on some time ago, and now the old house was empty. So my friend and her husband went in to start clearing things out, and discovered boxes of old photos in the basement. Some were moldy and many needed restoration. Some were labeled on the back with the names and some were not. There were snapshots, portrait card photos, tintypes. I guess it may not look like it at the moment, but what a treasure trove! She plans on having her mom and aunt go through the photos with her to tell her who the unlabeled ones are. And she wants to somehow preserve them. So this is partly for her, and partly for anyone who has discovered the mixed blessing that a damp box of old photos can bring.
If you have old photos you want to preserve, you can have them professionally restored and preserved, copied, filed in acid free envelopes, and stored away from light in fire-proof vaults. And that ain't cheap! Naturally, you only want to do that with the real jewels!
But as an intermediate step, particularly for the ones in good shape that you merely want to limit their exposure to sunlight, you can scan them in to your computer. Then you can get your own acid-free storage envelopes and boxes, and put the originals away in a bank lock-box or somewhere fire-proof.
Some guidelines for not damaging the originals: Use a modern cool-light flatbed scanner--alternatively, a really high resolution digital camera in good indirect light works--no scanners where you poke the photo in one end and it drags the photo over the sensor then spits it out; don't force a bent (or curled or folded) photo flat; don't take framed photos out from behind their glass as they sometimes crumble; don't jar the old cabinet photos because the silvering may not be sticking very tightly to the glass it is printed on and may flake or powder away; don't work around food or liquid--which shouldn't be around your computer or scanner anyway, but in these days of laptops and portable scanners sometimes happens; never use a permanent marker or a ballpoint to write names on the back as it will bleed or poke through the materials--use pencil or a very fine felt tip pen, lightly. Scan at very high resolution (you can store the humongous images on CD) and high color depth, even the monochrome ones. Save the image as scanned, with a very descriptive name, even if it is just "LargeFlakyTintypeFromDadsCellar_UnknownFemale3.jpg".
Make a copy of the image file to work with in PhotoShop or PaintShopPro, and try things like heightening the contrast, lightening or darkening the whole image, changing the sepia tones to gray-scale (you would be amazed at the detail that sometimes comes out of this simple step--blank faces that suddenly have features, for example), increasing the saturation of the color in old snapshots, removal of red tint (sometimes the old polaroids go weirdly red over the years), removal of the virtual mildew spots (use a clone brush to grab the color from a nearby pixel), cropping the picture and enlarging the cropped area to get a clear view of the people, and so forth. There are loads of things to try, and as long as you have saved the original image, you can go back and make multiple copies to try different techniques.
Once you have one that you love, you can print on a high resolution color printer, on a photo printer, or even send the file online to your nearest Walmart one-hour photo center for prints.
If you do the third option, remember that the minimum-wage clerks sometimes have difficulty grasping the notion (or sometimes understanding your English) that a studio photo of your granddad at age two, taken back in 1907, is no longer under copyright. In this event, you will have to talk to a manager, in order to rescue your prints that the clerk is holding hostage with the intent of doing their duty to enforce copyright law.
You will end up saying to the clerk, "What do you mean, I can't have my photo? Look, that baby is my granddad! Look at the old clothes! Look at the shoes! No one makes anything like that today! The thing was taken over a century ago! The studio has been out of business since 1952! And the photography studio was owned by my grandmother's uncle, anyway, which makes it family property! It's my granddad as an infant! And I have white hair myself, you know this can't be a recent photo! How hard can this be to understand?! Oh, get the manager." You can then say the same thing to the manager, without exclamation points, and you won't have any problem. Just make sure you ask for the manager before you start tearing your hair out. There's no sense in messing up your own appearance for a photo's appearance, and you are much more credible to the manager if you don't look like a madwoman.
Of course, do check the applicable copyright laws before trying to make a print of a studio photograph, just so you know where you stand. You can't make a copy of your kid's graduation portrait from last year, or even your wedding portrait from 20 years ago unless you bought the copyright from the photographer, and most of us didn't because it was expensive, or unless you have a written permission from the photographer or studio.
One warning: this process is painstaking and intriguing, may cause eyestrain and backache, and can be habit-forming. Side effects include learning new things about image processing, computers, art, fashion through the years, and the role of genetics in family resemblance.
And as my grandma's dear friend and neighbor used to say (about 40 years ago, about doing petit-point embroidery), "It's teedjus work, very teedjus." For those of you who need a translator, as I did back in my childhood days, it's "tedious." For those of you who are still in the dark, as I was back in my childhood days, look it up in the dictionary. But while it is teedjus, it is nonetheless extremely fulfilling to see the image come clear right in front of your eyes. Which is doubtless why Grandma's friend did petit-point in the first place, as well.
I had the great pleasure, several years ago, to do a photo-restoration favor for my grandmother (not the funny little cuddly Dutchy one, but the stern upright one with the twinkle in her eye). She had a letter from her old high school that the old school building had burnt down along with all the photos of the graduating classes. Well, Grandmother was the last living member of the Class of 1928, and she had her old yearbook, and she wanted to do something for the school in time for the annual alumni banquet. (Incidentally, Grandmother's aunt and uncle really did own the studio where the portraits were taken. There was even an ad for their studio in the back of the yearbook.) So I scanned in the portraits of each of the members of her class (all eight of them), cropped them into ovals and arranged them into two rows on one background, labeled each oval with the student's name, added the name of the school and the class at the bottom, printed it out as a high resolution 8"x10" photo (how big does it really need to be when there are only 8 people?), and framed it. We sent it along with a nice donation letter that mentioned the predictions made concerning the members of the Class of 1928 in the Class Prophecy in the yearbook, along with the actual histories of the class members.
I loved the prophecies. I remember my grandmother was going to be a "bachelor-girl" who would start as a secretary and become a successful business woman who would remain single all her life. Her sister was going to become a nurse, marry a specific fellow in the class, raise a large family and live for many years, welcoming my grandmother into her home for flying visits between business trips. Another girl in the class was going to marry my grandmother's cousin (a member of the previous year's class) after she had been a flight stewardess or something like that. Well, my grandmother obviously didn't stay a "bachelor-girl"; she married my granddad, and I for one am grateful for that--I owe my existence to the fact! She was the one who raised a large family and became a nurse--she had 4 babies of her own, and helped deliver many more as a labor-and-delivery nurse--and lived for many years, to age 96, in fact. Grandmother's sister, I think, took a secretarial course, as she hated being around sick people; she did marry a fellow from the class, but not the one predicted, and she died in childbirth several years later. The other girl in the class did marry Grandmother's cousin (though she never became a stewardess and I'm not even sure she ever flew in an airplane!), but of course, I think the Class Prophet (my Grandmother) already knew that particular romance was in the air. Clearly the Class Prophet had certain ambitions, and either wasn't much of a prophet, or only "saw through a mirror, dimly."
And so this Thanksgiving (and always), I am thankful for memories, for photographs, for modern technology, for "unanswered" prayers, for friends, for hobbies, for genealogy.
Tuesday, November 25, 2008
Monday, November 10, 2008
Troubles Come In Threes
The old folks had a saying, "Troubles come in threes." If you had a death in the community, it would soon be followed by two others, or at least by two other events of equal nature and magnitude.
Well, I just hope that Lyme disease counts as one of my three troubles, because if it doesn't, I'm in for a whopper, after the death of my grandmother and the latest problem.
And what is the latest problem? Just the day after my last post, I had a call from my mother to say that my dad had fallen and they were going over to the hospital to check it out because his hands and feet had gone numb. She followed up that call with one to tell me that the x-rays and cat-scan showed that he had broken the 7th vertebra in his neck (the "C7") and that blood pooling inside the spinal column was compressing his spinal cord at the site of the break. The local hospital airlifted him to Virginia's big trauma center, the UVA hospital, where a really top-notch team of surgeons operated on him to stabilize the broken vertebra (actually, the whole cervical spine) and release the blood from the spinal column.
He's currently got feeling and movement in his arms, some limited movement in his fingers, and no feeling or movement below the waist. The doctors say there is some hope for a good recovery, but how complete a recovery, they don't know yet. We have to wait and see. The spinal cord wasn't severed, but no one can say yet how much of the paralysis is permanent nerve damage and how much is temporary and due to swelling and inflammation, from the accident or the surgery, which will subside over time. And even if it were all temporary, no one can say yet how long the swelling will last--they've said it can be anywhere from two days to many months. At least we know there are some indications that the entire length of the spinal cord is carrying some signal--hints of awareness about his feet, for example. Even with his eyes closed (and he's in no shape to bend his neck to look down at his feet at the moment, so I don't think he's "cheating") he seems able to sense when I am massaging his feet and even which foot I'm working on.
He's been moved from surgery to recovery to ICU to the regular neurological unit, and now to rehab at one of the facilities able to provide the acute level of inpatient rehab and therapy that he requires. We are rejoicing over the little steps of improvement, but it is going to be a long road to travel.
I've spent the last several weeks praying first for his life and then for his recovery, and driving my mother back and forth to the hospital, helping to entertain him, feed him and shave him, learning to help him cough, comforting my mom, helping plan for the future, and answering phones to dispense the latest updates to family and friends. I've had to promise to teach my mother to drive on mountain roads and to merge onto the interstate (driving not being one of her favorite things, my dad has always done almost all the driving). I've been home about 4 days in the past two and a half weeks. Thank the Lord that my husband is understanding and my daughter is old enough and mature enough to be helpful. At a guess, my mother is probably saying something similar about me. I guess it does take a few difficult times like these to remind a family about pulling together.
Incidentally, I never realized what an undertaking it could be to cough when the diaphragm won't cooperate. I guess it isn't paralyzed, just doesn't have the control and force needed for a cough. The respiratory therapists taught my dad to cough using the "quad-cough" method, which looks kind of like a cross between punching him in the stomach (open handed) and doing the Heimlich maneuver. He insisted they teach me how to do it, so they did. It works but it looks bad and makes everyone else in the room anxious to leave so no one blames them for witnessing a brutal attempted murder and not trying to put a stop to it. He says it helps, and I guess it is better than having him feel like he is drowning in phlegm. Anyone remember that old children's book, "Hop on Pop"?
I'm glad he's in a good frame of mind and going at this with a positive outlook and attitude. If it had happened to me, I'm not so sure I would be able to keep the right mindset. Of course, he does have thirty more years of experience and wisdom to draw on.
Now, wouldn't it be nice to be sure that his accident was Trouble #3 instead of Trouble #2...
Well, I just hope that Lyme disease counts as one of my three troubles, because if it doesn't, I'm in for a whopper, after the death of my grandmother and the latest problem.
And what is the latest problem? Just the day after my last post, I had a call from my mother to say that my dad had fallen and they were going over to the hospital to check it out because his hands and feet had gone numb. She followed up that call with one to tell me that the x-rays and cat-scan showed that he had broken the 7th vertebra in his neck (the "C7") and that blood pooling inside the spinal column was compressing his spinal cord at the site of the break. The local hospital airlifted him to Virginia's big trauma center, the UVA hospital, where a really top-notch team of surgeons operated on him to stabilize the broken vertebra (actually, the whole cervical spine) and release the blood from the spinal column.
He's currently got feeling and movement in his arms, some limited movement in his fingers, and no feeling or movement below the waist. The doctors say there is some hope for a good recovery, but how complete a recovery, they don't know yet. We have to wait and see. The spinal cord wasn't severed, but no one can say yet how much of the paralysis is permanent nerve damage and how much is temporary and due to swelling and inflammation, from the accident or the surgery, which will subside over time. And even if it were all temporary, no one can say yet how long the swelling will last--they've said it can be anywhere from two days to many months. At least we know there are some indications that the entire length of the spinal cord is carrying some signal--hints of awareness about his feet, for example. Even with his eyes closed (and he's in no shape to bend his neck to look down at his feet at the moment, so I don't think he's "cheating") he seems able to sense when I am massaging his feet and even which foot I'm working on.
He's been moved from surgery to recovery to ICU to the regular neurological unit, and now to rehab at one of the facilities able to provide the acute level of inpatient rehab and therapy that he requires. We are rejoicing over the little steps of improvement, but it is going to be a long road to travel.
I've spent the last several weeks praying first for his life and then for his recovery, and driving my mother back and forth to the hospital, helping to entertain him, feed him and shave him, learning to help him cough, comforting my mom, helping plan for the future, and answering phones to dispense the latest updates to family and friends. I've had to promise to teach my mother to drive on mountain roads and to merge onto the interstate (driving not being one of her favorite things, my dad has always done almost all the driving). I've been home about 4 days in the past two and a half weeks. Thank the Lord that my husband is understanding and my daughter is old enough and mature enough to be helpful. At a guess, my mother is probably saying something similar about me. I guess it does take a few difficult times like these to remind a family about pulling together.
Incidentally, I never realized what an undertaking it could be to cough when the diaphragm won't cooperate. I guess it isn't paralyzed, just doesn't have the control and force needed for a cough. The respiratory therapists taught my dad to cough using the "quad-cough" method, which looks kind of like a cross between punching him in the stomach (open handed) and doing the Heimlich maneuver. He insisted they teach me how to do it, so they did. It works but it looks bad and makes everyone else in the room anxious to leave so no one blames them for witnessing a brutal attempted murder and not trying to put a stop to it. He says it helps, and I guess it is better than having him feel like he is drowning in phlegm. Anyone remember that old children's book, "Hop on Pop"?
I'm glad he's in a good frame of mind and going at this with a positive outlook and attitude. If it had happened to me, I'm not so sure I would be able to keep the right mindset. Of course, he does have thirty more years of experience and wisdom to draw on.
Now, wouldn't it be nice to be sure that his accident was Trouble #3 instead of Trouble #2...
Wednesday, October 22, 2008
Lyme Aid
Well, I managed to do something absolutely brilliant to my health.
Apparently it happened when I went to a family reunion in the mountains of Ohio in late June. We stopped to go cemetery hopping and try to find all the old folks' stones, and I was wearing short sleeves, capris and sandals. (I mean, come on, the cemeteries weren't THAT overgrown or I'd have been wearing jeans, boots, a hat, and a flannel long sleeved shirt and wielding a machete!) And, while that area was pretty scarce on deer back in the early 1900s, those mountains are full of deer and their delightful little plague-carrying passengers today. So I was bitten by a deer tick, which I didn't find for several days. Those things are minute, until they feed, and then they are merely tiny. Even when I found it, I didn't know what it was.
(Yes, all you western Ohioans, I know it is flat there where you are. Very flat. However, my people are, as my uncle put it once, hill-jacks from southeastern Ohio. Where it borders West Virginia. You know, that funny little state wedged into the corner between Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, that is nothing but mountains? Oddly, the mountains don't just stop at the state line.)
(And yes, all you folks from Colorado and points west, I know the Rockies and so forth are "real mountains" and you think the Blue Ridge and so forth here in the east are "just hills". Though I must point out that the mountains in the eastern U.S. are simply so much older that they have worn down and are therefore more to be admired for their stalwart presence over so long a time.)
Hmmm. Evidently Lyme disease causes irritability, too. I never realized that I was bothered by those things before.
Anyway, as I was saying, I was apparently bitten by a tick, and then started having really strange symptoms. I was exhausted and didn't want to drag myself out of bed, didn't have the energy to do much but flip the On-switch of my computer. ("I really have to get a good night's sleep or stop being lazy, or something. Or maybe my thyroid is sluggish.") My leg muscles started to ache, and then twitch--like your esophagus does with the hiccups. ("Must have overworked at something.") My joints in my hands and knees felt as if I had arthritis, except when they felt like someone was stabbing them with an ice pick. ("Wow, am I getting arthritis like my folks?") I had headaches (and neck aches) that wouldn't go away for days and extra floaters in my eyes. ("Slept wrong. No, ragweed. No, on second thought, migraine.") Food tasted and smelled rotten. ("Oooh, am I getting the flu?") I had dizzy spells. ("Maybe high blood pressure?") And worst, by late August, my brain took a vacation, and I'm not talking just forgetting where I tossed the car keys, my glasses, a pen, or the cordless phone--I'm talking forgetting the name of our hamster, of my dear friend at church, of that fast food restaurant half a mile from here that has those golden, what do you call them, arches. Couldn't think my way out of a wet paper bag. Couldn't finish a sentence, because when I stopped to try to remember the word I was after, I couldn't remember what I had been trying to say. ("Am I getting Alzheimers like my grandma?! God forbid--at least she was 80 when the symptoms started, I'm not even 50!")
So I went to the doctor and asked if I had hypothyroid, muscle strain, arthritis, high blood pressure, migraines, flu, and Alzheimers, suddenly and all at the same time. He asked if I had been bitten by a tick, and then I remembered the little brown thing ("Is this a skin tag?") I had pulled off my skin and thrown away in Ohio in June. He knows the area I was in and knows about the high deer (and tick) population there. So he said it sounded like I had Lyme disease, gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and took some blood to test. The test came back negative for Lyme, but apparently that doesn't mean it wasn't; just means I wasn't producing antibodies detectable by the test. So he told me to keep taking the antibiotic and that the symptoms ought to gradually go away. But not to worry. At least I got help during the early stages of the disease.
So I'm done with the antibiotic now, thank goodness, and my hands and knees don't hurt anymore, and I'm rid of the headaches (except the ones that really were from the ragweed, which should stop any day now when we get a good frost). I've only had one dizzy spell since finishing the antibiotic, and my brain at least sent me a post-card ("Wish you were here! I'll be back from vacation soon!"). I'm still having difficulty touch-typing, for some reason, but I expect that will come back soon too.
Do yourself a favor and make sure you wear long pants, closed shoes, and bug repellant if you are going to do genealogy research in a cemetery. Better yet, have a look at www.interment.net or at www.findagrave.com and see if the gravestone info you want is online, before you go outside. It's a jungle out there.
Apparently it happened when I went to a family reunion in the mountains of Ohio in late June. We stopped to go cemetery hopping and try to find all the old folks' stones, and I was wearing short sleeves, capris and sandals. (I mean, come on, the cemeteries weren't THAT overgrown or I'd have been wearing jeans, boots, a hat, and a flannel long sleeved shirt and wielding a machete!) And, while that area was pretty scarce on deer back in the early 1900s, those mountains are full of deer and their delightful little plague-carrying passengers today. So I was bitten by a deer tick, which I didn't find for several days. Those things are minute, until they feed, and then they are merely tiny. Even when I found it, I didn't know what it was.
(Yes, all you western Ohioans, I know it is flat there where you are. Very flat. However, my people are, as my uncle put it once, hill-jacks from southeastern Ohio. Where it borders West Virginia. You know, that funny little state wedged into the corner between Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Virginia, that is nothing but mountains? Oddly, the mountains don't just stop at the state line.)
(And yes, all you folks from Colorado and points west, I know the Rockies and so forth are "real mountains" and you think the Blue Ridge and so forth here in the east are "just hills". Though I must point out that the mountains in the eastern U.S. are simply so much older that they have worn down and are therefore more to be admired for their stalwart presence over so long a time.)
Hmmm. Evidently Lyme disease causes irritability, too. I never realized that I was bothered by those things before.
Anyway, as I was saying, I was apparently bitten by a tick, and then started having really strange symptoms. I was exhausted and didn't want to drag myself out of bed, didn't have the energy to do much but flip the On-switch of my computer. ("I really have to get a good night's sleep or stop being lazy, or something. Or maybe my thyroid is sluggish.") My leg muscles started to ache, and then twitch--like your esophagus does with the hiccups. ("Must have overworked at something.") My joints in my hands and knees felt as if I had arthritis, except when they felt like someone was stabbing them with an ice pick. ("Wow, am I getting arthritis like my folks?") I had headaches (and neck aches) that wouldn't go away for days and extra floaters in my eyes. ("Slept wrong. No, ragweed. No, on second thought, migraine.") Food tasted and smelled rotten. ("Oooh, am I getting the flu?") I had dizzy spells. ("Maybe high blood pressure?") And worst, by late August, my brain took a vacation, and I'm not talking just forgetting where I tossed the car keys, my glasses, a pen, or the cordless phone--I'm talking forgetting the name of our hamster, of my dear friend at church, of that fast food restaurant half a mile from here that has those golden, what do you call them, arches. Couldn't think my way out of a wet paper bag. Couldn't finish a sentence, because when I stopped to try to remember the word I was after, I couldn't remember what I had been trying to say. ("Am I getting Alzheimers like my grandma?! God forbid--at least she was 80 when the symptoms started, I'm not even 50!")
So I went to the doctor and asked if I had hypothyroid, muscle strain, arthritis, high blood pressure, migraines, flu, and Alzheimers, suddenly and all at the same time. He asked if I had been bitten by a tick, and then I remembered the little brown thing ("Is this a skin tag?") I had pulled off my skin and thrown away in Ohio in June. He knows the area I was in and knows about the high deer (and tick) population there. So he said it sounded like I had Lyme disease, gave me a prescription for an antibiotic and took some blood to test. The test came back negative for Lyme, but apparently that doesn't mean it wasn't; just means I wasn't producing antibodies detectable by the test. So he told me to keep taking the antibiotic and that the symptoms ought to gradually go away. But not to worry. At least I got help during the early stages of the disease.
So I'm done with the antibiotic now, thank goodness, and my hands and knees don't hurt anymore, and I'm rid of the headaches (except the ones that really were from the ragweed, which should stop any day now when we get a good frost). I've only had one dizzy spell since finishing the antibiotic, and my brain at least sent me a post-card ("Wish you were here! I'll be back from vacation soon!"). I'm still having difficulty touch-typing, for some reason, but I expect that will come back soon too.
Do yourself a favor and make sure you wear long pants, closed shoes, and bug repellant if you are going to do genealogy research in a cemetery. Better yet, have a look at www.interment.net or at www.findagrave.com and see if the gravestone info you want is online, before you go outside. It's a jungle out there.
Monday, September 22, 2008
In Memoriam
I'm sad to say that my sweet, funny "Dutchy" little German Grandma passed away this past week on her 97th birthday. She was a wonderful person who had, in the last years of her life, become trapped by a body that failed to work and refused to let go.
The Alzheimers dementia really took Grandma away from us years ago. She began to withdraw into herself while I was in college--I have since been told that is normal, that Alzheimers patients often do so in the early stages to avoid showing they are having memory problems. Then for several years she pretended she was going deaf, so as not to answer difficult questions. Then she became irritable and angry: something was wrong and she no longer quite recalled what or why and whose fault it was, but being around people who expected her to remember things was profoundly disturbing.
Then she sort of gave up fighting it. She was sweet and vague when I got married (she was living alone then but spent long, long visits with my mother and uncle), sweet and vaguer when I handed her my newborn baby 5 years later (she was living with my uncle's family but still taking long visits with my mother). I'm not sure she knew who my baby was supposed to be--her great-granddaughter--as she was more or less regularly calling me by her sister's name by then.
Not long after that, it became impossible to care for her at our family homes, and she went into the nursing home. They were marvelous with her and took excellent care of her. We deliberately chose not move her from her hometown--in fact, the nursing home was only about two blocks from her house--so she would be surrounded by folks who knew her and had a good regard for her, though most of the family had to travel some to visit with her. She is--was--such a sweet person the nursing home staff all began to call her "Granny." Doubtless, she enjoyed the affection, but was somewhat confused when my cousin and I, her real granddaughters, would stop by and call her "Grandma." She called my daughter (who was named after her, at least after her middle name) by my cousin's name, then by mine, then my mother's. She stopped calling me by any name at all. By then she was living firmly in the past and even that was becoming shaky.
She had some excitement once, when my mother told her to look who had come to see her: myself and my husband Jeff. I was startled at how eager she was to see him. I stirred not the tiniest bit of recognition, that visit, but she was thrilled that he was there. She had shrunk to a tiny little figure in a wheelchair by then, and his nearly six and a half feet of height towered over her until he squatted down to see her. Her eyes just blazed and she reached out to touch his face as he talked quietly to her. It was only later that my mother reminded me that Grandma's grandfather, her favorite grandfather, her beloved widowed grandfather who lived with her family for a good while and babysat for Grandma and her little brother, was nicknamed "Jeff." To me, William Jefferson Pickens had always been just a name in my family tree. Suddenly, the man was living and breathing with all his life history, right there--tall, thin, dark haired; and though Jeff had a mustache and my husband does not, my husband suddenly became him, just for a short while, to my grandma's mind. She must have felt like a little girl, whose granddad got down on her eye-level to talk with her and pay attention to her. I've always held a special affection for that particular name on my tree, since then, because he meant so much to Grandma and she loved him so dearly that his very name lifted the heavy dark curtain in her mind for a moment.
I have two special memories of her last several years, after she had really forgotten how to speak. The family tried, the nurses tried, visiting friends tried, everyone tried to get her to keep talking, but Grandma just stopped speaking.
But I recall taking my little girl, about 3 or 4 years old at the time, to see Grandma. I had dressed my daughter in a cute flouncy little dress and made sure her soft hair was combed nicely, then took her in to the nursing home for a visit. Mother walked ahead and I followed, holding my daughter's hand, a little more slowly since children are a welcome sight at the nursing home and many of the residents wanted to say hello and touch my daughter's hair or cheek. I will say, that might have been an ordeal for a shy child or a nightmare for a fearful one, and I would have carried her in my arms if that had been the case, but my fearless little ray of sunshine just skipped along, chirped "hello!" whenever someone stopped her, shook hands politely with the old folks who offered, and tolerated the various gentle pats and touches with great aplomb. When we reached Grandma and my daughter trotted up to see her, Grandma exclaimed, "Oh! Pretty...pretty!" as my little girl gave her a hug. Which is a wonderful, comforting memory to me--the sight of her great-grandchild stirred her to speech.
And I recall going in alone to see her maybe four or five years ago, playing the piano for her a little bit, then talking to her as she ate her lunch. I told her about our drive to get there, about what I had been doing lately, about my daughter's school, about my husband's work (although I sincerely doubt Grandma would have grasped much about the computer geek stuff even if she had been "with it" at the time). Then I patted her hand and looked her in the eye, and said, "I love you, Grandma," and she returned the look, squeezed my hand, just the tiniest bit of pressure, and said, "y-y-yes." Which was quite clearly the moral equivalent of "I love you too and I would tell you how much if I were able!" It was not vague, it was not an automatic response, it was quite clear and directly to me, and it was not easy for her to do. I think it may have been the last thing she ever said. But that memory also brings me comfort.
And so, I'll miss her. But I don't mourn her passing the same way I might have done if she had died suddenly while still in her prime. For the family, we saw the light in her eyes grow dim and go out (with occasional very brief embers glowing) long before her body stopped breathing. We've mourned the passing of the real person, that spark that made her her, for years now. Now we can rejoice with her, as her cage has opened, her spirit has taken flight, and she can return "up Home" for a real family reunion and to meet the Lord. May we someday, too, get an invitation to the Great Reunion and see her again.
The Alzheimers dementia really took Grandma away from us years ago. She began to withdraw into herself while I was in college--I have since been told that is normal, that Alzheimers patients often do so in the early stages to avoid showing they are having memory problems. Then for several years she pretended she was going deaf, so as not to answer difficult questions. Then she became irritable and angry: something was wrong and she no longer quite recalled what or why and whose fault it was, but being around people who expected her to remember things was profoundly disturbing.
Then she sort of gave up fighting it. She was sweet and vague when I got married (she was living alone then but spent long, long visits with my mother and uncle), sweet and vaguer when I handed her my newborn baby 5 years later (she was living with my uncle's family but still taking long visits with my mother). I'm not sure she knew who my baby was supposed to be--her great-granddaughter--as she was more or less regularly calling me by her sister's name by then.
Not long after that, it became impossible to care for her at our family homes, and she went into the nursing home. They were marvelous with her and took excellent care of her. We deliberately chose not move her from her hometown--in fact, the nursing home was only about two blocks from her house--so she would be surrounded by folks who knew her and had a good regard for her, though most of the family had to travel some to visit with her. She is--was--such a sweet person the nursing home staff all began to call her "Granny." Doubtless, she enjoyed the affection, but was somewhat confused when my cousin and I, her real granddaughters, would stop by and call her "Grandma." She called my daughter (who was named after her, at least after her middle name) by my cousin's name, then by mine, then my mother's. She stopped calling me by any name at all. By then she was living firmly in the past and even that was becoming shaky.
She had some excitement once, when my mother told her to look who had come to see her: myself and my husband Jeff. I was startled at how eager she was to see him. I stirred not the tiniest bit of recognition, that visit, but she was thrilled that he was there. She had shrunk to a tiny little figure in a wheelchair by then, and his nearly six and a half feet of height towered over her until he squatted down to see her. Her eyes just blazed and she reached out to touch his face as he talked quietly to her. It was only later that my mother reminded me that Grandma's grandfather, her favorite grandfather, her beloved widowed grandfather who lived with her family for a good while and babysat for Grandma and her little brother, was nicknamed "Jeff." To me, William Jefferson Pickens had always been just a name in my family tree. Suddenly, the man was living and breathing with all his life history, right there--tall, thin, dark haired; and though Jeff had a mustache and my husband does not, my husband suddenly became him, just for a short while, to my grandma's mind. She must have felt like a little girl, whose granddad got down on her eye-level to talk with her and pay attention to her. I've always held a special affection for that particular name on my tree, since then, because he meant so much to Grandma and she loved him so dearly that his very name lifted the heavy dark curtain in her mind for a moment.
I have two special memories of her last several years, after she had really forgotten how to speak. The family tried, the nurses tried, visiting friends tried, everyone tried to get her to keep talking, but Grandma just stopped speaking.
But I recall taking my little girl, about 3 or 4 years old at the time, to see Grandma. I had dressed my daughter in a cute flouncy little dress and made sure her soft hair was combed nicely, then took her in to the nursing home for a visit. Mother walked ahead and I followed, holding my daughter's hand, a little more slowly since children are a welcome sight at the nursing home and many of the residents wanted to say hello and touch my daughter's hair or cheek. I will say, that might have been an ordeal for a shy child or a nightmare for a fearful one, and I would have carried her in my arms if that had been the case, but my fearless little ray of sunshine just skipped along, chirped "hello!" whenever someone stopped her, shook hands politely with the old folks who offered, and tolerated the various gentle pats and touches with great aplomb. When we reached Grandma and my daughter trotted up to see her, Grandma exclaimed, "Oh! Pretty...pretty!" as my little girl gave her a hug. Which is a wonderful, comforting memory to me--the sight of her great-grandchild stirred her to speech.
And I recall going in alone to see her maybe four or five years ago, playing the piano for her a little bit, then talking to her as she ate her lunch. I told her about our drive to get there, about what I had been doing lately, about my daughter's school, about my husband's work (although I sincerely doubt Grandma would have grasped much about the computer geek stuff even if she had been "with it" at the time). Then I patted her hand and looked her in the eye, and said, "I love you, Grandma," and she returned the look, squeezed my hand, just the tiniest bit of pressure, and said, "y-y-yes." Which was quite clearly the moral equivalent of "I love you too and I would tell you how much if I were able!" It was not vague, it was not an automatic response, it was quite clear and directly to me, and it was not easy for her to do. I think it may have been the last thing she ever said. But that memory also brings me comfort.
And so, I'll miss her. But I don't mourn her passing the same way I might have done if she had died suddenly while still in her prime. For the family, we saw the light in her eyes grow dim and go out (with occasional very brief embers glowing) long before her body stopped breathing. We've mourned the passing of the real person, that spark that made her her, for years now. Now we can rejoice with her, as her cage has opened, her spirit has taken flight, and she can return "up Home" for a real family reunion and to meet the Lord. May we someday, too, get an invitation to the Great Reunion and see her again.
Sunday, September 7, 2008
German Noodles
There was a moment of panic this week. I went through my recipe file box and couldn't find my Grandma's recipe for homemade noodles. It still isn't there, but I calmed down and remembered what she taught me and rewrote it. Eventually, I'll find it stuck between a couple of other recipes or flat underneath the whole shebang, but at least I know how to do it.
The noodles (I'll put the recipe below in case anyone is interested) are important to me, not just because I love the taste and they remind me of special family dinners since I was a tiny child, but because they run in my family something like mitochondrial DNA. That is, the recipe came to my mother and then to me from my maternal grandmother, who got them from her mother, who got them from her mother, and so forth.
I know my direct maternal great-great-great grandmother Elisabetha Schaub Yockey died when her daughter (my 2-great, Lizzie) was only 3 years old, so Lizzie didn't get the noodlemaking lesson from her mother. But I also know that Lizzie knew her maternal grandmother (who came over from Germany, bringing the recipe in her head) and both of her mother's sisters well, and was cooking and helping to care for her younger half-sibs while still quite young. Doubtless, the noodlemaking lesson came from a visit with her grandmother or aunts.
Like the mitochondrial DNA, that noodle recipe wasn't lost just because of an early loss of a generation (so long as that generation has already reproduced!). It goes back up the maternal line until it is lost from sight in the dim mists of time. I can just see Eve saying to Adam, "Well, I've made up a new recipe. Try it and see what you think." He must have told her it was a keeper.
So when my daughter asks, I'm going to teach her like my grandma taught me.
I'm going to plop a stewing chicken in a big pot of water and boil it. While it boils, I'm going to get out a large bowl, scoop out about 2 cups of flour into the bowl ("about this much flour, more or less"), sprinkle a little salt over it ("a good pinch"), hollow out a hole in the top of the flour, crack a large egg into the hole, then take half the eggshell and fill it with milk, dribbling it in with the egg. Then I'm going to take off my rings, put my hands in, and say,
"Mix it until it looks and feels about like this. If it needs more liquid, dribble a little water or more milk in, in order to gather up the flour on the sides of the bowl. Form it into a ball and knead it a couple times. Let it rest a couple minutes. Then flour the counter and the rolling pin, and roll it until it is this thick. [Call it 1/8 inch or a little thinner.]
"Then cut it into rectangles about this size. [4 inches by 6 or 7 inches.]
"Flour between the rectangles and stack them, then use a sharp knife and cut them across the short way, very very fine, about this wide. [Another 1/8 inch.] Be careful to keep your fingertips and fingernails out of the way of the knife!
"Then shake them apart and spread them on a clean dish towel on the kitchen table and let them dry about an hour or two. Read a magazine or cook your side dishes, or something--maybe go up and do your hair so you look nice when your husband gets home. You can make the noodles a day ahead of time and let them dry on the kitchen table overnight if you want.
"After a while, take the chicken out of the pot--it should be so tender it's falling off the bones by now--and pull it apart. Take enough of the broth out to make a good gravy and thicken it with a mix of flour and cornstarch and a little milk. And there's your main dish, stewed chicken with gravy.
"Then, with the remaining broth at a good rolling boil, drop in the dried noodles a few at a time. Keep the broth at a boil the whole time you are adding noodles, or the noodles will be 'green'. You can add a little water at a time if too much boils away but don't add too much at once or you'll bring it down from the boil. [For those of you who don't have funny "Dutchy" little German grandmas, "green" means gummy, rubbery, raw tasting.] Boil them until they are tender but not too limp.
"At the end, you'll have boiled most of the water out of the broth, but if it's still too liquid, add a little flour and stir it real good. You end up with a good pot of noodles in gravy, and you can put them in a pretty serving bowl and set them on the table."
Now, I'll admit, my husband had better not be paying any attention to whether I've "done my hair" for him, if I go to this much trouble cooking, because I guarantee I haven't. But Grandma recommended it, so I 'll include the suggestion too. I expect my daughter won't make the noodles very often, but I hope she will decide to throw together a batch once in a while, just for the sake of the emotional DNA.
The noodles (I'll put the recipe below in case anyone is interested) are important to me, not just because I love the taste and they remind me of special family dinners since I was a tiny child, but because they run in my family something like mitochondrial DNA. That is, the recipe came to my mother and then to me from my maternal grandmother, who got them from her mother, who got them from her mother, and so forth.
I know my direct maternal great-great-great grandmother Elisabetha Schaub Yockey died when her daughter (my 2-great, Lizzie) was only 3 years old, so Lizzie didn't get the noodlemaking lesson from her mother. But I also know that Lizzie knew her maternal grandmother (who came over from Germany, bringing the recipe in her head) and both of her mother's sisters well, and was cooking and helping to care for her younger half-sibs while still quite young. Doubtless, the noodlemaking lesson came from a visit with her grandmother or aunts.
Like the mitochondrial DNA, that noodle recipe wasn't lost just because of an early loss of a generation (so long as that generation has already reproduced!). It goes back up the maternal line until it is lost from sight in the dim mists of time. I can just see Eve saying to Adam, "Well, I've made up a new recipe. Try it and see what you think." He must have told her it was a keeper.
So when my daughter asks, I'm going to teach her like my grandma taught me.
I'm going to plop a stewing chicken in a big pot of water and boil it. While it boils, I'm going to get out a large bowl, scoop out about 2 cups of flour into the bowl ("about this much flour, more or less"), sprinkle a little salt over it ("a good pinch"), hollow out a hole in the top of the flour, crack a large egg into the hole, then take half the eggshell and fill it with milk, dribbling it in with the egg. Then I'm going to take off my rings, put my hands in, and say,
"Mix it until it looks and feels about like this. If it needs more liquid, dribble a little water or more milk in, in order to gather up the flour on the sides of the bowl. Form it into a ball and knead it a couple times. Let it rest a couple minutes. Then flour the counter and the rolling pin, and roll it until it is this thick. [Call it 1/8 inch or a little thinner.]
"Then cut it into rectangles about this size. [4 inches by 6 or 7 inches.]
"Flour between the rectangles and stack them, then use a sharp knife and cut them across the short way, very very fine, about this wide. [Another 1/8 inch.] Be careful to keep your fingertips and fingernails out of the way of the knife!
"Then shake them apart and spread them on a clean dish towel on the kitchen table and let them dry about an hour or two. Read a magazine or cook your side dishes, or something--maybe go up and do your hair so you look nice when your husband gets home. You can make the noodles a day ahead of time and let them dry on the kitchen table overnight if you want.
"After a while, take the chicken out of the pot--it should be so tender it's falling off the bones by now--and pull it apart. Take enough of the broth out to make a good gravy and thicken it with a mix of flour and cornstarch and a little milk. And there's your main dish, stewed chicken with gravy.
"Then, with the remaining broth at a good rolling boil, drop in the dried noodles a few at a time. Keep the broth at a boil the whole time you are adding noodles, or the noodles will be 'green'. You can add a little water at a time if too much boils away but don't add too much at once or you'll bring it down from the boil. [For those of you who don't have funny "Dutchy" little German grandmas, "green" means gummy, rubbery, raw tasting.] Boil them until they are tender but not too limp.
"At the end, you'll have boiled most of the water out of the broth, but if it's still too liquid, add a little flour and stir it real good. You end up with a good pot of noodles in gravy, and you can put them in a pretty serving bowl and set them on the table."
Now, I'll admit, my husband had better not be paying any attention to whether I've "done my hair" for him, if I go to this much trouble cooking, because I guarantee I haven't. But Grandma recommended it, so I 'll include the suggestion too. I expect my daughter won't make the noodles very often, but I hope she will decide to throw together a batch once in a while, just for the sake of the emotional DNA.
Thursday, August 28, 2008
An Interesting Ad
I notice that there's an ad on the side of my blog--for a tree removal service. Considering we're talking about family trees, here, does anyone else wonder if there's something nefarious going on? Perhaps someone in league with J.K. Rowling's fearsome Lord Voldemort, who points out in the seventh Harry Potter book that some of his followers' family trees need pruning?
Well, I just looked at it again, and the ad does also offer tree care. Maybe it isn't so alarming after all.
I think I will keep an eye out and see what other "appropriate" ads the software selects to tack on to my blog. It'll be my latest spectator sport!
Note added 11/10/08: I now see an ad for the Stump family tree. I like it.
Well, I just looked at it again, and the ad does also offer tree care. Maybe it isn't so alarming after all.
I think I will keep an eye out and see what other "appropriate" ads the software selects to tack on to my blog. It'll be my latest spectator sport!
Note added 11/10/08: I now see an ad for the Stump family tree. I like it.
Sunday, August 24, 2008
Shame on Me!
Wouldn't you know it. I can't answer the most recent question from one of my fellow-researchers, on my source for an ancestor's birthdate, and it's my own fault.
Of course, I started doing genealogy B.C. (Before Computers--and if you prefer the "B.C.E." notation, I guess that would be Before Computer Equipment) and I assumed I would always have my paper files, including photocopies of my original source material. I went to libraries and courthouses, wrote letters, developed pictures, cut out obits, but always had some kind of paper. Who needed to cite sources if the sources were stapled to the Family Data Sheet?
Then, sometime in the early 1990s, back when I had a Mac, I started using some now-long-extinct software for genealogy work. It was not at all intuitive and really ended up just providing a typed version of the Family Data Sheets I already had. I printed them, clipped them to the handwritten versions, and quickly drop-kicked that software package into the trash. So again, why cite the sources?
But now, many years A.D. (After Digital), I use a PC laptop, Family Tree Maker 2006 (I'll probably discuss my feelings about FTM 2008 at some point), scanners, digital cameras, e-mail, and the internet to supplement my research arsenal.
Unfortunately, when I began using FTM (still in the early to mid '90s), I carried over my old mindset about citing sources. I'm not sure just how many versions I've upgraded through, but considering how many years it has been, we'll just leave it at MANY. I figure the Family Tree Maker people ought to know me by name. I'm pretty sure the first version I bought was by Banner Blue, although I think the first upgrade was by Broderbund, and I've upgraded regularly ever since. I'm clearly dating myself among genealogy circles, but then considering most genealogists' tendencies, it wouldn't take long for a good one to ferret out my age anyway.
Over the years, I gradually learned the importance of being able to know my sources without pulling out the original paper files, especially as I accumulated electronic files. FTM is great about linking Ancestry.com files and filling in the source info for me, but not from other on-line sources. I know it is important. Sometimes it's vital; for example, when trying to establish the relative credibility of two different dates... But somehow my software doesn't read my mind about new info I enter (or alternatively, reach out and smack me upside the head, forcing me to attribute my data to some source when I start to get lazy about it), and it doesn't have the automatic retroactive sourcing function that I would like. I wonder why that is?
So here I am, trying to remember whether my date for the birth of my great-great grandmother's sister came from an old letter listing material in a family Bible, a tombstone, a local newspaper article by a genealogy researcher, or from a list (of equally mysterious origins) from my Aunt Grace. I know the material was part of my early research, but any of those sources would date back to my efforts B.C., and would be in a box in my attic. Alas.
Of course, I started doing genealogy B.C. (Before Computers--and if you prefer the "B.C.E." notation, I guess that would be Before Computer Equipment) and I assumed I would always have my paper files, including photocopies of my original source material. I went to libraries and courthouses, wrote letters, developed pictures, cut out obits, but always had some kind of paper. Who needed to cite sources if the sources were stapled to the Family Data Sheet?
Then, sometime in the early 1990s, back when I had a Mac, I started using some now-long-extinct software for genealogy work. It was not at all intuitive and really ended up just providing a typed version of the Family Data Sheets I already had. I printed them, clipped them to the handwritten versions, and quickly drop-kicked that software package into the trash. So again, why cite the sources?
But now, many years A.D. (After Digital), I use a PC laptop, Family Tree Maker 2006 (I'll probably discuss my feelings about FTM 2008 at some point), scanners, digital cameras, e-mail, and the internet to supplement my research arsenal.
Unfortunately, when I began using FTM (still in the early to mid '90s), I carried over my old mindset about citing sources. I'm not sure just how many versions I've upgraded through, but considering how many years it has been, we'll just leave it at MANY. I figure the Family Tree Maker people ought to know me by name. I'm pretty sure the first version I bought was by Banner Blue, although I think the first upgrade was by Broderbund, and I've upgraded regularly ever since. I'm clearly dating myself among genealogy circles, but then considering most genealogists' tendencies, it wouldn't take long for a good one to ferret out my age anyway.
Over the years, I gradually learned the importance of being able to know my sources without pulling out the original paper files, especially as I accumulated electronic files. FTM is great about linking Ancestry.com files and filling in the source info for me, but not from other on-line sources. I know it is important. Sometimes it's vital; for example, when trying to establish the relative credibility of two different dates... But somehow my software doesn't read my mind about new info I enter (or alternatively, reach out and smack me upside the head, forcing me to attribute my data to some source when I start to get lazy about it), and it doesn't have the automatic retroactive sourcing function that I would like. I wonder why that is?
So here I am, trying to remember whether my date for the birth of my great-great grandmother's sister came from an old letter listing material in a family Bible, a tombstone, a local newspaper article by a genealogy researcher, or from a list (of equally mysterious origins) from my Aunt Grace. I know the material was part of my early research, but any of those sources would date back to my efforts B.C., and would be in a box in my attic. Alas.
Monday, August 18, 2008
Welcome
I decided to start a blog. But how to go about it? Well, for my purposes, the best way to start was to ask my beloved computer-geek husband. With his help, I'm launching it today: news from A Nut on the Family Tree.
With 30 years of genealogy research under my belt, I figure maybe I can help other genealogists and family researchers overcome some of the roadblocks I've experienced. Look here often for updates on various useful subjects. I do intend to add links, pics, and resources, not just my own long-winded commentary.
One look at my user name ought to reveal that I got into genealogy because the women in my family are The Story Tellers. As I grew up and became one of them, I realized I ought to pass along the stories so that they don't die. It's a proud tradition. Maybe someone else who reads some tidbits here will be inspired or empowered to learn and tell their own family's stories. And that's a worthwhile goal.
As my uncle likes to say, every family tree has its share of nuts, fruits, and squirrels. They are often amusing and always worth celebrating!
With 30 years of genealogy research under my belt, I figure maybe I can help other genealogists and family researchers overcome some of the roadblocks I've experienced. Look here often for updates on various useful subjects. I do intend to add links, pics, and resources, not just my own long-winded commentary.
One look at my user name ought to reveal that I got into genealogy because the women in my family are The Story Tellers. As I grew up and became one of them, I realized I ought to pass along the stories so that they don't die. It's a proud tradition. Maybe someone else who reads some tidbits here will be inspired or empowered to learn and tell their own family's stories. And that's a worthwhile goal.
As my uncle likes to say, every family tree has its share of nuts, fruits, and squirrels. They are often amusing and always worth celebrating!
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