The Continuing Celebration of Christmas

Even before our written languages, man has been keeping a record of life.  We see this in cave art and in ancient traditions passed down from generation to generation.  Archaeologists continually uncover ancient artifacts that tell stories of the ancients that created them.  As Christians we know that historically, genealogies have been important through our study of the scriptures.  Exactly why is it so important to know who begat who back in those days?  Or even now for that matter? 

This is something I have been pondering for a long time and I have learned some things that are significant to our family in researching and discovering who we truly are.  If we pay attention to the history of who we come from, we learn valuable life lessons and get a grander perspective of life and spiritual matters. We understand who we are in deeper ways and it fortifies our gratitude as we learn of the lives of our forbearers.

If we think of our lives as just our own existence and the family members we actually know while they are alive our view is quite myopic.  It is a bit like living in one place all our lives and never seeing what goes on outside of that little triangle of home, school and work in that tiny community. Traveling outside of our tiny village and seeing life in a bigger wayspatially is very broadening and educational.  In the same way, looking beyond our living generations is too.  Both time and space are great teachers when it comes to a more comprehensive perspective of who we really are.

Our family has a heritage of being Christians that spans a period of nearly 500 years that I know of so far.  Not just our American ancestors but our Italians, our Swedes and our English and our Welsh born family members as well.  It includes our pioneers, our soldiers, our statesmen and our farmers. There are also our teachers, doctors and nurses and adventurers and our parents and grandparents, aunts, uncles and cousins.  This Christian Heritage is as much a part of who we are as a family as our DNA. 

If we knew more of our ancestors and their descendants we would know that every major war has affected our family personally.  We have ancestors and family members that fought, were maimed or killed in the Revolutionary War, the Civil War, WW I and II and every conflict since.  We have lots of family that crossed that terrifying sea in the hopes and faith of a better life in America. Imagine for a moment the courage that took and the hardships endured which lead to blessings in our own lives.  That type of bravery can only be developed through faith in God and the hope of a good outcome.

As we come to know them we recognize that they had serious trials and they overcame them often with sheer grit and fervent prayers.  Their faith in God sustained them and brought them peace along the way.  Faith eased their fears as they moved forward in their struggles.  Because they chose faith in God they benefited from it.  God does not insist we believe, He invites us to develop a desire to come unto Christ and find rest in him.

Imagine how the Mayflower passengers felt when their companion ship, the Speedwell, sprung some leaks just out of the harbor and had to turn back! Had they not had that enduring faith in their God they would have truly been alone on the voyage at that point. Our ancestor was the only passenger to have made this voyage before, and his faith was important to them when times and waters got rough.

Many of our ancestors accepted that invitation to have faith in Christ.  Many found Him in their own time and in their own way.  We have found evidence of members of many sects in our family, Catholics, Baptists, Methodists, Congregationalists, Lutherans, Anglicans, Episcopalians, Seventh-Day Adventists, Pentecostals, and Mormons.

The compelling component in all of these religions 

is Jesus Christ born in that humble stable in Bethlehem of Judea.  

Their testimonies are reminders to us in times of trials and they have reassured us of who we are. People who have chosen faith.  Christians.  The sense of gratitude our ancestors had over the smallest things is humbling and a constant reminder of the Giver of every good thing. 

So it is uplifting and edifying to know we are a family that over centuries has chosen to believe.  Of course not everyone, as we all have our agency to choose, but many have had faith in Christ.  An understanding of that brings hope into our lives everyday.  We are a part of something bigger than a little nuclear family.  Our faith is something that is steadfast and not caught up in every wind of current affairs or doctrine, pop culture or politics sculpted by the media.  Holding fast to the iron rod of God's word has blessed us richly.

The earliest known baptism in our family was into The Church of England indicating faith in Jesus Christ.  It occurred in England on 30 April 1581 at Upper Clatford, Hampshire, England.  Stephen Hopkins was the infant son of John Hopkins and Elizabeth Williams.  I would suppose this indicates also that his parents were believers since it was an infant baptism.  That same Stephen Hopkins, one day found his way to the Mayflower.

Stephen Hopkins was a strong and faithful Christian.  He relied on his faith in God through a frightening shipwreck on his first journey to America, he suffered persecution for his thoughts of breaking from the rule of the Crown on that first trip to America while being marooned for months in Barbados.  On his return to America on the Mayflower, he was instrumental in resolving Native American conflicts, and turning them into an enduring friendship with the Wampagnog people on the shores of America.  He endured extreme poverty, deprivation and near starvation and the loss of his little son, Oceanus, the only child born on the Mayflower voyage, when he was but seven years of age.  Life was painfully hard in the early years of the colonization.  Through his faith Stephen prevailed.

That one thing is more significant to me than any notoriety regarding being on the Mayflower.  The greatest thing about all of that is that much is known and written about these early pilgrims.  That is the gem in finding them in our family tree. 

The significant thing here is that Christ and Christmas were important to our ancestors for many many generations.  And that it is central to our lives still today.  The message of faith and hope in Christ and the agency to chose for ourselves, is one of God's greatest gifts to us.  No one is forced, only invited.

Another of our ancestor's with a beautiful faith was, Lillie Briggs,  my paternal great-grandmother.

Lillie Briggs and Martin Allen Godfrey her husband.

Lillie came across the plains in a cover wagon with her parents, siblings and two other families when she was 13 years old; our own Julia's age.   They stopped each Sabbath Day to honor it, on their journey to North Dakota and to study and talk about the Gospel and to give thanks.  Sometimes they would pull up to a church building and listen to the sermons though the open windows from their wagons.  She wrote to her children shortly before she died and she bore testimony to them that she had prayed for them daily since she had come to know Christ and that they should do the same. 

Lillie left her testimony in this Bible 
she gave to her son Martin Willie Godfrey.

My Maternal Great Grandmother, Mary Davies, left her testimony in a little Welsh Bible that I have: She wrote on the covers the following in 1866:

The Translation of the little poem that is written

 on both the front and back covers of this Bible
is transcribed below. 

There is one missing page so I'm filling in contextually.

Mary Davies is my name

Troedywrair, Cilycum is my nation.

Penrhuviar is my dwelling place.

 Jesus Christ is my Salvation.

When I'm gone and in my grave

And all my bones be wroten (rotten)

In this Bible you'll find my name

So I'll not be quite forgotten.

**Place names spellings yet to be verified.

Here in St. Matthew, Mary learned of the mission of Jesus Christ in this tiny Welsh Bible.  It is such a blessing to have this one thing that testifies of who she really was. 

Obituary after obituary of our ancestors state what upstanding Christian people they were.  I know they were flowery back then when it came to obituaries, but they didn't have to say anything about a person's religion.  The description of their character was enough.  No matter how humble their lives were, they served others and lived good lives based on Christian principles. 

This Cape Cod church is a place we visited on our trip east this year.  This is the first church on the Cape and my ninth Great-Grandfather, Thomas Newcomb, was the minister here in Truro, Massachusetts.  He baptized six of his children in 1717 here in the original building built on this exact footprint.  The replica built in the early 1800s now stands on this place. Many ancestors are buried just to the viewer's right.  The spirit was very strong here for us when we visited.

Our Swedish ancestors were baptized and confirmed a member of their Lutheran churches on all of our lines and kept that faith long after they came to America.  Because of them my brothers and I were raised as Lutherans by our parents. 

Jim's Italian family brought their Catholic heritage from the old country to the new.  Some of them remained Catholic while others deferred to other sects like the Episcopalian faith and The Church of Christ.

 Some of our ancestors from England cared enough about their Christian faith and worshipping according to the dictates of their own hearts, to leave England and come to America where they could worship as they chose. 

The important thing to us is that they chose faith in Christ and it was central to them.  That gives us comfort to know they were blessed because of their faith as we have been.  It is wonderful to know Christianity has long been a life-changing tradition in our family.

So this season we celebrate Christmas with different cultural traditions than our forefathers did, but with the same intent.  We celebrate the Savior's birth in that stable in Bethlehem, but more importantly His life, teachings and example and above all, His Atonement for all of us.  If there cannot be peace on earth just yet, we can still find it in our faith in Christ.

After working with lots of people on their family history these past four years I would venture a guess your story is not that different than ours in many respects.  Your heritage, no matter what it may be, is a big part of who you have become.  May you find joy in who you are because of who they were.  Merry Christmas!

Cousins, Cousins Everywhere!

This is my cousin, Bobby.   Well, Robert Michael really, who now goes by Bob but in this picture he is Bobby.  Bob is turning 70 today.  Our mothers are sisters.  As we were growing up they lived a few miles from us in Sacramento. So I love this dear cousin and he is like my brother.  In fact, he is the only person I know today that has been a part of my life since the day I was born.  Of all our cousins, he and his older brother, Billy, were the only ones we ever lived near.

William Kenneth, AKA Billy

I have so many memories of them growing up.  Our moms were close so we were together a lot. All the holidays for sure and many many other just plain ole ordinary days.  It was wonderful.  We lived in a housing tract but they lived in a little paradise for kids. It was rural with acreage and farm animals and a barn and pastures and a chicken coup.  They even had a Grandpa that lived above their garage in a really nice apartment.  It was pure heaven to be there. They had cows and chickens and dogs.  Their family sure loves dogs.  They had a little dog named Perky that was very special to them.  They had a portrait of him on their wall.  In fact, as I write this and have added the photos of my cousins I am pretty sure these same photos were right up there beside Perky, one on each side of him!

I remember some other really unique little things about their house.  Aunt Wilma bought the most wonderful smelling hand soap.  It was green and oval and I loved using it.  We always had the white soap with sharp angular edges at our house and those oval green bars were so fabulous. I loved the feel of them in my hands.

They had those old-fashioned (now) metal chairs in their backyard that were all the beautiful colors and had a rounded shell shaped back on them.  I think they rocked a little, well it was more like they were bouncy.  Do you remember these?

I'd love some of them in our backyard now they are so comfortable and colorful.  I use to love to sit in one of those chairs and look up into the big trees they had all over their yard.  My favorite one was the rosy peach one but I'd take the sky blue or forest green if my favorite was in use.  I think some of the trees were sycamore trees and I loved them.  They had the biggest lawn in the front of their house too.  In the summer it was cool and breezy with those big shade trees.  They made those hot Sacramento days bearable.

They had a big brown cow that I use to watch my Uncle Bill milk sometimes.  They named her Bonnie.  I've never been too sure how I felt about that...even then?  But I'll consider it an honor to protect my self-esteem.  Same with another Aunt and Uncle that named their motor boat after me.  What the?  I see old photos of my Auntie Grace sitting in their boat that had my name in calligraphy "Bonnie Jo" on the side of it. When our little granddaughter was named Hazel Jo I was honored to have a little girl (finally a person) with my middle name.

I remember running and playing at their house and all the cool little nooks and crannies where kids could hang out and not be cooped up like in a tract house with a fenced yard.   I liked the gravel driveway that crunched when you walked or drove on it.  And shooting a real gun at a target when we got much older.  I think the dads supervised that one.

 After that when we thought we were too old to "play"we migrated to the boys' bedrooms to chat about things, play music, etc.  I remember Bob playing his guitar and telling me all about high school.  When he was there and I was only a mere child in junior high.  I hung on his every word not knowing if I was excited or petrified by what lay ahead for me.  He enjoyed being older and wiser and gave me lots of advice.  So did Billy!  I thrived on that role of not being the oldest...like I was at my house. They really helped me a lot.  I knew the names of every cool car, how to dance (or so I thought) and what music was "cherry" because of them.  There is so much more, so many heart prints of those days.

Our Thanksgivings and Christmases with our dads smoking, lounging around and playing cribbage and watching football is vivid still.  I can just hear them saying "15-2, 15-4 and a pair is 8" while they slammed down their cards on the coffee table with a grin!   Meanwhile our moms cooked and prepared these amazing feasts for all of us.  They would chat and giggle a lot as they did this in the kitchen and always with a dress and an apron on...never pants.  And the boy cousins were always trying to sneak pie out of the mud room where they had been set to cool and be out of the way during the dinner preparations.  And if I'm not mistaken I think the boys succeeded a time or two at snatching a taste of the pies and our parents got after them for it.  Good times for sure.  I hold them so close to my heart now. It's funny how the years teach you what is most important. Like those carefree, childhood memories that shaped and bonded us forever.  Just the everyday simple things that make family special.  They were simpler days; the innocence and wholesomeness of them wash over me and I feel very nostalgic.  There are so many more things I could share.

Neither one of my cousin married young.  But when they did they both married such great women. Both Beth, Bob's wife and Leanne, Billy's wife are wonderful.  My sweet cousin Billy died at a young age (56) of heart disease.  That was such a shock, I'll never forget it.  Within 18 months Bob had lost his only brother, his dad and then his mom.   That was very sad, just too much really.  He and Beth don't live too far away and we have done a lot together since then.  They have a lovely family of three daughters and some grandkids to keep them busy as well as happy.

Some things I love about Bob...He is so sweet and I love his laugh. He has an awesome sense of humor and I love the twinkle in his eyes when he finds something humorous, or even better hilarious, and just watching him enjoy it is the best.  He was so good to his parents and helped them through their difficult years while his father took care of his mom and then suddenly died four months before she did.  He is a really GOOD person.  He gives great hugs!  He has a sweet relationship with Beth and is kind and helpful.  He still loves animals so much and if I know him at all, he is still grieving over his beloved Misty after a couple of years.  He use to take her out to sea on his commercial fishing boat and shared a twenty four inch bunk with her. She was a big beautiful lab.

He taught me the importance of following your dreams.  When he was in high school he use to say he was going to build a boat and be a fisherman.  I'm sure he got a lot of eye rolls on that one.  Well, guess what?  It took him awhile but he did it!  And he was a successful commercial fisherman most of his life.  He is a lot like Jim, he knows how to work hard and get a job done.  He is retired from fishing now but still he loves the sea.  He and Beth love to travel all over the world and most times they cruise to do it.

They are so bright and knowledgeable about so many things and are so well-read. We like the same movies, picnics, hanging out together and Cleo Lane, The Straight Story, and Kenny Rankin!  We love getting together occasionally with my brothers and their wives and watching old rock stars in concert on the Big Screen.  It is kind of a hoot to see how old those people are now.   Not us mind you...just them! We spend Christmases together again sometimes and other holidays depending on all the kids and our schedules.  And nobody throws a crab feed like they use to with crab fresh off the boat.  What's not to love?  Cousins are the best.

Have a wonderful birthday, Bobby!  Love you and Beth so much!  Big hugs from us to you today and every day!

Eat Cake, it's your birthday!

❤♡♥♡❤♡♥♡❤♡♥s, Bon and Jim

Happy Mother's Day

Mother's Day as we know it is 100 years old this year. But the celebration of the goodness mothers is eternal. Whether you are a mother or love someone that is, this is a special day to contemplate the blessings of the human family and all of our mothers since Eve that brought us to this place.

The painting by Pino is one I love. It is called Sacred Steps. It evokes such ethereal, elevated, and eternal feeling and thoughts of the sacred calling of motherhood. The painting depicts the memories of raising children to me, perhaps more than the actual day to day sacred steps to the empty nest. 

As I watch our daughters, which of course includes Chris' wife, Missy, go through this process now through the eyes of my own experiences, I am enthralled all the more by the sacred steps taken to redesign and refine who a woman becomes day by day on the journey. Being a mother is a sanctifying endeavor.  The joys lift you so high while the total sacrifice of your complete self in the process, seals you to it. To love a child in that way is to fill the measure of our creation as women like nothing else I know.  Of course these relationships are eternal.

There are no perfect mothers but there are legions of mothers with hearts full of perfect intentions. Those mothers who want the very best for their children and who sacrifice and give and serve constantly, day after day and year after year in an eternal way. There are no releases in this calling of motherhood.  They are just as important to our lives, out of the nest, as in it. We still worry and fret and yearn for their burdens to be lightened or their shoulders strengthened to carry their load. And also for a way to help them, as their mothers, in those daily struggles.

We still drop everything to run to them in times of need, all of us in our own unique ways. Although our bodies may get weary, we still desire to lift and pull and pray and give to edify and love and support them.  Because that is what Mothers do, without even thinking about it.  The polishing comes from the day in and day out, thick and thin of it, until it becomes who we truly are.   I will always remember my sweet mother sitting in her wheelchair in her 80s, offering to help lift my burdens as I scurried around doing things.  Her body was weakened but her heart and love untamed and as strong as ever.  Motherhood is a miracle.

No joy is as profound to a mother as the happiness and successes of her child.  No mother wants anything negative to befall her children.  No matter what they do or who they become we love them completely.  We love them all equally which is to say unconditionally.

This holiday means more to me each year as I learn of the sacrifices of my own individual foremothers.  They had been women that have been valiant in their stewardship of motherhood through the centuries.   Motherhood was not easy then, as it is not easy today.  We've had different trials but equally challenging in many ways. This world will never be trouble free but their sacrifices have benefited us through the ages.  A child is the only one who hears its mothers heartbeat from the inside and that heartbeat echoes within us all of our lives...passing on something of substance from each generation to the next.  No matter where our mother is, she is never far from us.

In our family they have been women who packed up and shipped out of England and Sweden and Wales and Italy to keep their children from starving to death, in some cases, and from little possibility of improving their lots in life while remaining in their homelands.  They are women who crossed the plains in fear and deprivation but with great faith in a brighter future because of it. Every generation tells of their abundant faith in God to see them through.  This is a sacred heritage that I have seen back to the 1500s.  Not a non-believer in the bunch so far.  The study of these, our people, through the centuries has strengthened and fortified my faith in countless ways.

They have experienced hardships and poverty and dangers and dying children in almost every generation, sometimes more than one or two at a time.  They have been uprooted and they have survived childbirth on the prairies and in sailing ships crossing the ocean with no privacy and no cleanliness and and often under insufferable, horrific conditions.  There was starvation and illnesses and sorrows of every kind while they pressed forward with a perfect brightness of hope in the future, for their children and ultimately for us their posterity.

To learn of them is humbling and enlightening to say the very least.  Being a mom has never been easy, not ever.  But what a tremendous blessing to have a mother and to be one or to love one or many.  There is no more sacred or important thing we can do in this life than to help our Heavenly Father's children through the joys and sorrow of this life.  What a trust He must have in us, His daughters.

And in our husbands and the fathers of our children, who have an equal but different responsibility in this great work.  What a perfect plan of happiness and joy we are given.  All of us are blessed with having or being a mother.  Some of us are both.  But not all.  To all women everywhere that help by being teachers and nurturers and who love children~God bless you. And to all men everywhere the same blessings to you for doing likewise.  And that includes all Grandparents and even some Great-Grandparents who have had the glorious privilege of seeing His Plan of Happiness play out into the third and fourth generations as well.  Our loving Heavenly Father has thought of everything!  Find and cling to the Joy in it!

My Mom and Apple Pie

With Mother's Day coming up I have been thinking a lot about my precious Mom.  My Mom was the Queen of Apple Pie baking.  She was well-known for her scrumptious apple pies.  Seriously, nearly famous.  I have never tasted an apple pie that even came close.  I don't know what was so magical about her pies but they just seemed to say "I love you!"  They were simply unforgettable.

She was a beauty inside and out!
Don't you think?

These were her beautician days when

Finger waves were all the rage...

I looked at a lot of images to find a pie that 

looked like Mom's but none were exactly like hers.

Mom and Dad always made the pies together with the help of us kids.  They bought a huge sub-zero freezer for the garage and many years we would get lugs of apples and over the weekend we'd make 52 pies.  One for each week of the year.  There were apple peelings all over the place and everything was sticky as we all peeled and generally made a giant mess in the process. I can still remember the apple juice running down my arms and trying to pare the peeling off in one long strip.  I didn't mind the slicing but I didn't love the coring.  But a good bath at the end of the long hot sticky days and the satisfaction of seeing those pies frozen one layer at a time, and stacked in the freezer was amazing.

Mama would always wear a pretty apron even when she was doing this kind of work, she was lovely and such a classy lady to the end. And the fact that Daddy helped her was a heart print for me and a really cool memory now.  I can still see him in his white grampa t-shirt and his suspenders on those hot days in Sacramento working in the kitchen.  It made me want to marry a man just like him.  And I did.

 Working together as a family was very strengthening to us.  Mom gave away a lot of those pies so there really wasn't one for every week and that was fine.  It was a great learning experience in so many ways.  I am definitely going to try this again and get good at it.  It is about so much more than the pie.

This week I have been scanning old papers, documents, photos and even a few recipes.  I was pretty good at saving things like this when I was a young woman, never fully realizing what they would mean to me now.

Mom's recipe in her own handwriting~
priceless to me now!

I found another card written in my handwriting and
 thought maybe someday our posterity might
 like to see it in my writing.
Mom was not kidding on hers
when she said,
"All generous measurements!"

The Apples are Pippins

Or Gravensteins
Tart crispy green apples are the best for pies.

After assembling all the ingredients...

On top of the bottom crust, add a large, heaping,

 round mound of apples and 
sugar mixture and butter.

Add the top crust and pinch closed around the edges.
Poke the top with a fork for air vents.
Sprinkle a little sugar and cinnamon on the top crust.

Bake at 400 degrees for 15 minutes and then turn 
down the oven to 350 for 55 minutes.
Cool and enjoy!

Thin slices promote even baking

For the Crust:

Flour, Crisco, Salt and Water

Although some people do,

Mom did not use any butter in her crust~

Just Crisco for a light and flaky texture.

The butter went into the pie filling.

For the Pie Filling:

Here's Everything you need!
Apples, Flour, Sugar, Cinnamon,
Salt, Nutmeg, Butter and of course 
a little Water.

So as you can see there was nothing extraordinary about the ingredients or the way the pies were made.  This is just a little slice of life with my Mom.  I think the magic in the pies was simply my Mom's touch.  Or maybe it was that old beat up 1/4 cup tin measurer that did it.  I have it around here someplace I'll have to dig it up and see it if helps!  But neither my Mom nor I were ever very good at exact measurements.  You can tell that by the slight variation in her measurements between her original recipe and the one she dictated to me as she was making a pie years later.  She varied the recipe until it was pure perfection. She just have a sense for how much to use, I guess.  The most important ingredient is the love. And a lot of it.  That I know for sure.

Our Parents Wedding Day~28 September 1941

Ross Colberg and Josephine R

September 28 1941

St. Paul, Minnesota

Just this past week I found this in an old envelope as I have been going through some things from the past.  It took my breath away when I saw it.  This is a rose from the wedding bouquet of my mother.  The rose is over 72 years old.  I don't remember ever seeing it before.

I have not retouched this or altered the photo in any way.  I was astonished at the color and the green fern.  I just removed it from the envelope and placed it carefully on the back of my iPad for a dark background and snapped the shot.  I put it right back into the envelope and am now trying to decided how to preserve it and display it.  What a treasure, I am thrilled to have discovered it!

The following is an excerpt from the biographical sketch I wrote and complied for our family after my father died in 1979. I wrote the introduction and my piece and then I asked my Mom, two brothers, my husband,  and a close friend of Dad's to add something.  The compilation was a very exciting project portraying a unique perspective of my multi-faceted father from the people closest to him.  It was also excellent grief therapy for me.

The following is a portion of what my mother wrote about their meeting and marriage:

"To My Darling Children,

I was born in Pierre, South Dakota on May 17, 1919.  There was another big event that day as I have a twin brother named Joseph.  At that point in my life I had four sisters and three brothers; Letha, Lena, Harold, Margaret, William and Wilma who were also twins.  We lived on a farm about twenty miles from Ft. Pierre, South Dakota.

When I was five years old we lost our mother from an infection after giving birth to another baby girl, Ruby.  I am so sorry I never got a chance to know my mother as I know I would have loved her very much.

After I graduated from high school in Pierre in 1938 I moved to Bismarck, North Dakota in January of 1940.  I went to Bismarck to attend Beauty School.  During that six months I lived with a couple I met and who became dear friends, Rose and Fred Gerberding.

That move to Bismarck really changed my life. It was the best move I ever made because this is where I met Ross.  Yes, he definitely was the best thing that ever happened to me.  Through friends we met on a blind date.  He looked so handsome that night.  He had on dark pants, a white sports coat and tie.  We double dated with our friends and had such a wonderful time.  After that we saw each other all the time.  He was such a gentleman and always so nice.  Yes, it definitely was love at first sight!  We met on May 4, 1940 and we always had such a good time when we were together.

About Dec 1st of that year Ross was transferred to Fargo, North Dakota.  He worked for Firestone Tire and Rubber Company.  It was a sad day for us both because we knew it would mean many months of separation.  Not having a car he didn't get home very often--I really missed him.  In the spring of 1941 I moved to Ellsworth, Wisconsin to stay with my friends, Rose and Fred, that had been transferred there earlier in the year.  Ross came there to see me a few times.

I August of 1941 I decided to go to work in St Paul, Minnesota.  At about that same time I learned that Ross had been transferred there too.  We were both so happy to know we would both be there.

On September 28, 1941 we were married  in a Lutheran Church in St. Paul at 8:30 in the morning. yes it was a very strange time to be married but Rose and Fred were our attendants and being a Greyhound bus driver, Fred had a run to make in the afternoon.  The main thing was that we were married!

It was a very small and simple wedding.  Ross' mother was the only relative there, but we were just thankful to have her with us.  We were just new in St. Paul so didn't know anyone to invite.  We were both working fortunately but worked opposite hours unfortunately.  So I'd get up in the morning and fix his breakfast and get him off to work and at night he'd wait up for me until midnight and then come down to the Ice Cream Parlor and walk me home.  We always stopped at a little hamburger place and had a nickel hamburger and a ten cent piece of cherry pie.  We were so happy and loved being married.   I really enjoyed being a housewife and always have.

Oh yes, I almost forgot our honeymoon.  It was a trip---from Minneapolis to St. Paul. After the wedding we went to get our pictures taken.  Then we went to breakfast with Ross' mom, Rose and Fred, and a couple of Fred's aunts that must have come along just to increase our numbers. Neither Ross nor I knew them.

Afterwards we jumped into the car, Rose and Fred in the front seat and Ross and me in the backseat. Sandwiched right in between us was none other than "Mama!"  This was so embarrassing to us at the time because we happened to run into some friends of ours on the street corner as we stopped at a light and it was obvious we had just been married.  Why?  Because I wore my wedding dress all day long and there she sat in the middle of us.

The next event of the day was a tour of the Capitol Building.  Over the years we laughed so many times about that, especially going there in my wedding dress.  Of course everywhere we went people stared.

Finally in the afternoon we put his mother on a train to send her home.  After that we stopped in a little place to have a drink and celebrated our wedding day.  After paying for the drinks we discovered we barely had enough money left to catch the streetcar home to St Paul which was just across the river. We had also been able to see Horace Heights put on big band show so we were pretty exhausted so we were happy to come home to our little apartment that we had just rented the week prior to our wedding.  I stayed there and got things ready and Ross lived at the YMCA until the day we were married.  The night before the wedding Rose and Ross' mom stayed with me in our apartment.  Everyone was a little frazzled and cramming three women in the bed was a bit much.  Just as we were about to go to sleep I said, "This is the first time I have ever slept with a Colberg!"  This sent my future mother-in-law into fits of laughter!"  She told that story repeatedly over the next many years.

Our apartment was tiny and our first home was so much fun.  In our home our living room was also our bedroom.  We had a Murphy bed that pulled out and down from the wall   So every day and every night we had to rearrange our furniture.  When the bed was up it had a nice mirror on the back of it so it looked just like a real living room.  Those were wonderful times.

I can remember how proud I was to be his wife, and how through our marriage I'd look at him and find it hard to comprehend that he was mine, all mine!  We didn't have much in the way of material things then, we went into our marriage with a few dish towels without hems and a few cents in our pockets but we were very much in love and we had each other, so what else really mattered?"

The End of Part I

I Am My Own Grandpa

Meet my Birthday Twin, Ross.
Gramma and Ross a few years ago on our birthdays.

This is our Grandson, Ross.  He is 11 years old today.  I was that plus the old speed limit 55 yesterday.  He has been a special boy to me since the minute I witnessed his birth. Well actually probably longer than that.  I have always told him we are birthday twins and he is the best birthday present I have ever gotten. In four more years he'll be 15 and getting his driver's permit and I can claim the number in the middle as my own.

Not wanting to speed that up any...

but I would like to take my time

 and land up there in one piece,

with as little work in the body shop

 as possible between now and then.

My own birthday was very full with wonderful things and people yesterday and working, so Ross and I were having trouble connecting so he could wish me a happy birthday.  He wanted to call me at 6:00 am but Laura didn't think that was a good idea.   3:00 am our time! So we finally got to talk at length today.   So fast forward to this afternoon when I was sending out some thanks to friends that sent good wishes yesterday.  One of them was Ross' Aunt Debbie, his Dad's sister.

I was saying to Debbie that we recently learned that our family and theirs are descendants for the same ancestor, Stephen Hopkins.  So I was saying isn't that funny..Laura and Robert are cousins, 14 generations removed.  Hee hee.   And then I had the funniest thought come into my head. 

 Oh my gosh, not only that but I am the cousin of our grandsons, Spencer and Ross!  So I just had to call Ross back and tell him that not only are we birthday twins and grandson and grandmother but we are also cousins! 

 Loooooong pause...

"So what you are saying then Gramma is that, I'm your grandson and your birthday twin, AND your cousin?"

"Yep and your Dad is my son-in law and my cousin, your Grandpa Bryant is your grandpa and your cousin and he is your mother's father-in-law and her cousin and your brother's cousin and grandfather.  And your Grandpa Bryant is my cousin.

Dead air as he ponders and I can see that brain of his in motion......... 

"That is really cool Gramma but you forgot one?

"Really, what?"

I can hear him smiling through the phone....

"We are all brothers and sisters!  We have the same Heavenly Father!"

Hmm, I hate it when they are smarter than me, that was supposed to be my line! 

Then he said, " I only have one thing to say about all this.....this marriage between my parents was definitely meant to be!"

******************************

It has been a delightful couple of days.  I don't regret getting older even a little bit!  It is a blessing!

 http://youtu.be/4_K9H9mdNeg

 

And if you are still here, the best song of all below if you didn't see it on Facebook yesterday!

http://youtu.be/IpINczqQWOU

Hazie's Family History

http://youtu.be/fjUTkknHrrs

One cute kiddo if I do say so myself!  Look what our friend
sent us!  Very cool!  Thanks! ;->

Our Legacy

The Link
http://alegacythatmatters.blogspot.com/

As some of you know my interest is growing in Genealogy and Family History. I know this is a niche that not everyone is interested in following so I have created a new blog where I will be writing exclusively about this topic from time to time.

Disclaimer here...I am not an expert in family history or genealogical research. And that, believe me, is an understatement! Writing this blog is my attempt to learn and record and keep the things I am learning in one place.

I have plans to write some short biographies of ancestors in our own family (at our son's request) and also to share with you ways that you can begin your own research into who you are. I will share some resources that are available and some tips and some free websites I have learned about in the past 8 months. I started our genealogy over 30 years ago but if you haven't kept current you basically start over learning how to find what you need.

This is probably a good blog for you to subscribe to by e-mail as I am not sure how often I will write in it yet. Hopefully a lot, but other things will have to give in the process. So we'll see. I would also like it to be more of an interactive blog with comments and questions about methodology, etc. Also I would encourage you to "Follow the Blog" so I have some kind of idea who is interested. I can just do my own thing and have it stored on a blog or you can bring it to life by participating.

This week I have just been setting it up and have written only two posts to date. I have several niche blogs and I know some people think this is nuts. But for me it is the perfect way to organize my thoughts on various subjects and it is a great way to store things and find them easily. What you may store on your computer in documents folders, I like to store on blogger.

Blogging Tip!

Did you know that by adding the gadget that says "Follow by email" into your sidebar and adding your own e-mail in the text box, you can get a hard copy of your blog post each day? I don't print mine but I do save each one and then I organize them into email folders for each of my blogs where they reside and can be easily copied should anything ever happen to the Blogger platform. I find it simple and efficient.

So sign up to receive a copy of your own posts or someone else's if they have added the gadget into their sidebar. If you want to follow by e-mail it is very simple. Just add your e-mail address into the box at the top of the sidebar and follow the prompts. From then on any posting will be sent to your e-mail box each day. Simple and you don't want to be caught without any kind of hard copy of your own work. Of course backing up in other ways is also great but this is one way I feel assured that if I haven't backed up recently, each day is saved so nothing will get lost.

I hope you will enjoy this blog and I have put a button on my side bar that will link you directly to it. Just look for the above photo, double click and you are there.

The Satisfaction of Tenacity! We did It!

There are 45,000 graves in the Italian Cemetery in Colma, CA. Today we went to the grave of Jim's great uncle that we found and purchased this marker for last week. As far as we know right now, 3 of those resting here, are our family members. If you missed the entry on how we found this 103 year-old, unmarked grave you can read about it here. Never, never, never give up!

The marker could not accommodate his full name.
I am kind of glad because with all the confusion
over his name some like Peter, some like Pietro,
but me...I like Petey Franchini!

The little marker is not fancy but it means a lot to us. This little, 8 day old infant died a pretty terrible death and we felt such joy in knowing he can at least be found now for future generations. And that we could pay our respects to him today by visiting and laying some flowers on his grave. His name is Pietro "Peter" Franchini and he was born in San Francisco, CA on July 20, 1908. He died at 12:30 am on July 29, 2008 of a severe intestinal disorder and pulmonary complications.

His parents were Pietro and Catterina (Lagomarsino) Franchini, of San Colombano, Genova, Italy. At the time of his death he had one older sister, Margherita Emma Franchini, age 5, (married name Marguerite Ferrera) who lived out her life as an only child. She tried to find his grave as an adult but was never successful. But today her daughter, grandson and I paid that long over due visit for her.

Pietro's niece, Gloria, placing flowers on his grave.

Jim, Pietro's great nephew happy to find him
now and finally dedicate his grave!

When we came last week we were slightly off in the location of the unmarked grave. We had the right area but discovered today that although we were in the right row, we were down a few from the right plot. This place is actually much nicer, more private and protected by a larger headstone behind it with a little lamb on top (love that!) and right near this crypt. It is just more protected from the wind and elements and when the sun is shining it illuminates the stained glass window in the crypt. It was amazing to stand on the same ground these ancestors had stood sorrowing, as they laid their precious baby boy and only son to rest.

While we were there we wanted to go to the crypt where one of Jim's great uncles on his maternal grandfather's side is buried with his wife. Gloria's cousin, Lorraine lives in Mill Valley today. We left them some flowers as well. I never did meet Uncle Louie (from Tasso, Italy) as he died the year Jim and I met. But I did know his great aunt Theresa and attended her funeral. I heard the most beautiful rendition of Ava Maria I have ever heard in my life that day and still remember it very well. She was a lovely lady. Jim's mom told me her uncle Louie had a great sense of humor; he was apparently a real character. This Louis is not Jim's grandfather's brother but possibly a cousin of his. Some Italians call their aunts "Lala" and their uncles "Baba" but these terms may have been used unofficially in the case of Baba Louie and Lala Theresa. We are calling their daughter this week to get a clarification on this relationship.


We have really enjoyed researching and learning more about those who have gone before us and are a part of our family's heritage. We've got the real "Roots" thing going on over here. Yet another fun thing we enjoy doing together now that we have the great blessing of discretionary time for such important things.

P.S. Would it be weird to tell you we had a little picnic at the cemetery? It sounds a little creepy and I thought it might be, but oddly it seemed very fitting, very normal and just fine. There is a tiny road right near the grave. Jim set up a little makeshift table and we just stood and ate and talked about the family and it was neat. OK, I might as well show you a picture so you won't think we were sprawling out on the grass or anything really weird like that!

I think maybe Jim's mom probably
wouldn't adore this photo,
but I am safe she doesn't have a computer!

She was playing bocce ball with her
old Italian cronies this morning
in the drizzle for three hours before we came here.
She is pretty amazing for nearly 85!
I hope Jim and all our kids and grandkids
inherited her health and longevity!