Saturday, November 2, 2013

15-19 Parsons Blvd My Childhood Home

This is the home I grew up in until I was 11.  When we moved to Florida.  I don't have a lot of good pictures of it but I remember it fondly. My nephew happens to be in NY now.  So I asked him to take a picture of the old house if he had time.  He did such an awesome job and went today.  He only arrived yesterday!

Mary 1949

Yes, that is me truly sitting on the steps.  The front yard had a slopping small hill to the sidewalk and a big maple tree in front.  

Old House how it looks now

Here is the house today.  The little hill has been leveled and walled in.  The lions do not fit my memory of the old home.  There looks like a lot of other plants are now in the front yard. And they painted the red brick front but left the big bricks or rocks natural. 

Mary & Dad in 1949

Below I am sitting in the upper level of the front yard just in front of the front door.  Here you can see on of the garage doors is open.  In those days they were manual, you had to get out of the car to open and close them.

Mary 1958

Here is my nephew, Kevin standing in front of the house in the drive way.  It looks like the bay window and garage have been updated.  Well it has been 54 years since I lived in the house, they would have to be updated.  I wonder what it looks like inside.

Kevin and the house today

Thanks Kevin for doing such a great job!


Street sign
Here is the corner street sign, this was the street I walled up the hill to go to PS 79 for kindergarten and first grade.


Thursday, October 24, 2013

Family History Pages

I haven't been able to do much research but I have been making some more Family History Scrapbook pages.  These are my Great Grandparents and some of their children.  They had 10 children my grandfather was the second oldest. 
 
This picture you saw in the Mystery Solved post.  The engagement picture of my great grandparents, Mary Ann Holmes and Walter Thomas Chaplin.
 
 
The gentleman in the middle is my great uncle Herbert Henry Chaplin.  This is in front of Buckingham Palace in 1952.



In the side car is my Great Uncle Walter Victor (Vic) Chaplin with some in-laws. Year unknown.

 
The picture below is the first picture I had seen of my maternal Great Grandmother.  My second cousin in England sent it to me about three years ago.  In the picture are children and their spouse and a couple of grandkids.
 
 
I am enjoying saving the pictures and the stories that go with them. 

Saturday, September 14, 2013

Mystery Solved

Back in May of 2010 I wrote this post about a picture of an unknown couple.  One of my second cousins in England had sent it to me.  He thought it might be from the New York branch of the family.  The copy of the picture he had was in a cardboard folder with the name of a photography studio in Brooklyn, New York.  My Grandfather and a couple of his brothers from England lived in Brooklyn, New York.  I had hopes of it being my grandparents. 
 
Well time has passed and my second cousin found another cousin and went and meet her and they had a lovely visit.  This cousin is a granddaughter of the second youngest son of our Great Grandparents.  So she is a generation closer then we are.  She told us the picture was an engagement picture of our
Great Grandparents. 
 
My first reaction was this is right, I could see a younger version of my Great Grandparents in the faces.  But I had to raise the question of the Brooklyn folder.  My cousins went back and checked with the granddaughter and she confirmed it was a picture that was in her home as she grow up and it was of her grandparents on their engagement.  I am taking her word for it.   There must have been several copies of the picture.  Somehow one of them made it to New York and was placed in a folder from Brooklyn.  Maybe someone needed the frame it was in to put a new family picture and placed the old family picture in the folder.  Somehow that folder with the picture made it back to England.  The granddaughter confirmed that the sons in New York sent money back to their Mom when she became a widow.   
 
So here is the picture of
Mary Ann Holmes and Walter Thomas Chaplin
on their engagement.   
 
I wonder why her face is so serious.  Maybe it was the style of photography at that time. 
 
Here is the only other picture I have of my Great Grandparents together. 
 
 
 
 

Tuesday, August 27, 2013

More Family History Pages

On Friday and Saturday I managed to find some time to myself and I did some scrapbooking. 
In the top page has a picture of my great uncle Herbert.  His granddaughter in England is my Genealogy research buddy. We meet on Ancestry.com and we have really enjoyed each others friendship as we search for the stores of our family.
Herbert was a Vice President at Canada Dry Ginger Ale company back in the day.  This is his second wife Gertrude.  I have ship passenger lists with their names on the list.
 
 
These are also great a great uncle and great aunt.  They are on a tarmac ready to board a plan off to some great adventure.  I don't know a lot about them, other than they were first cousins that married but had no children.
My first cousin sent me these pictures.

 
 
 

Friday, July 12, 2013

Funeral Card Friday

I recently re-found my Mom's Funeral card.  I had two copies of it.  One of them I carried in my wallet for many years as evident by the ragged edges.  I made this page for my Family History Scrapbook. 
 
 
My writing says, My Mom's funeral card, another life cut short. I carried this one around.
 
 

Monday, July 8, 2013

Family Pages

Well I have been doing some scrapbooking, this time of my family and ancestors.  So that is why I am posting it here.
 
This lovely teenage girls is my Aunt Bea, my Mother's Sister.  I wanted to make her page very feminine. So I added pearls and sparkle glitter glue.  Her hair style is so fun!
 
Beatrice Ann Chaplin
 I purchased this paper with cars on it just for this picture.  I think my cousin told me this was my great uncle Vic and a friend but the more I look at this picture I think it is another brother.  Not sure but that is what I am going with.  My second cousin in England is going to visit a nephew of these great uncles and hopefully he will be able to tell us more.  I don't know the make or year the car.

 
Great Uncles and a car
 

Sunday, May 26, 2013

Bloglovin

 
I am trying Bloglovin, and you can follow my blog there also.  I really miss Goggle reader but I can adjust. 
 
 
Take Care all and have a safe Memorial Day!  Remember all the veterans.  I have four in my family, my Mom an army nurse at the end of WWII.  My brother who received his Navy Academy acceptance letter two days before his draft notice came during the Vietnam war.  My Son in Law who was in the National Guards in the largest call up in Arizona to Afghanistan.  My nephew who was also in Afghanistan. 
 
 

Thursday, April 18, 2013

Family History Pages

Well I haven't had any time for research on my Family Tree but I did find some time to preserve some of the stories of my ancestors and me.  I made some scrapbook pages of my Grandparents Corkish.  It took me all week to make these 7 little pages, but they are done and I am happy with them.  I will write one of my second cousins and see if she can find and send me a picture of my grandparent's home. 
So here are my pages.
 
 
Last Friday while at the Scrapbooking Convention I found these fun design templates and I purchased some and these pages are my first fun with the templates.  You use the templates to shape your pretty paper.  They are from Kiwi Lane Designs.

 
These two pages face each other.

 
Yup that is me as a kid.

 
Our last trip to Nantucket Island. Scanned and printed pictures.

 
Original pictures.
 
 
Some memories.

 
More memories and a picture of my friend Miriam and me at the beach.
 
A lot of the story is in this post, for easier reading.
 
Happy searching!
 
 

Saturday, January 26, 2013

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun


Your mission, should you decide to accept it (cue the Mission Impossible! music) is to:* Tell us about your "other" hobbies or interests outside of genealogy and family history research, writing, speaking, etc. Be mindful of your family's privacy, though!

* Write a blog post of your own, respond with a comment to this post, or write a Facebook status post or a Google+ Stream post.


Randy Seaver over at Genea-Musings has a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun and this one is an easy one for me, so here goes.
 
Many of you know I am also a quilter, and I have had my quilting blog since Thanksgiving day of 2008.  I enjoy all aspects of quilting, and I do many different quilting methods.  I took my first quilting class with a friend, that was in the summer of 1995, and the rest is history.  In 1997 my friend opened a quilt stop and she asked me to teach quilting, I knew how to paper piece, a technique she didn't know.  I have been teaching ever since.  Right now the only class I am teaching is a quilting software class.  The software is called Electric Quilt or EQ for short.  I have taught a variety of classes.
 
My other new interest is scrapbooking.  I this about two years ago to document my parents' lives, and share stories that I know about my ancestors and to save my genealogy in an interesting format.  It has almost taken over my quilting time.  I like the hands on experience of using paper and punches.  My latest project has been a wedding album for my daughter and her husband.  It isn't finished yet but my daughter saw it at Christmas and she really liked it.  You can see some of the album pages here.  That is only the beginning of the album, there is a lot more. 
 
Another picture from the Wedding Album
I am also active at church, go every Sunday and have a calling.  I am a convert to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints.  It was one of my smartest decisions I ever made in my life.  I joined the church at age 29 and severed a welfare mission to Santa Cruz Bolivia. 
 
My main job now that I am retired, I was a nurse for 46 years, is to be a wife.
 
Well there you go a little bit more about me.
 

Thursday, January 24, 2013

 
Yes today is the day my blog turns 3 years old.
It has been a great trip. 
 
I did just received a wonderful Blogiversary gift. I was contacted by a second cousin once removed on my Hartmann (Dad's) side.  This is my hard to find relatives and even some I do know I can't find any documents, well some but not the ones I want like a marriage certificate or death certificate of the wife.  He gave me some new info on a great uncle's side.  He will be visiting with his Dad soon and we hope to gleam more information. 
Here is hoping to new doors opening and brick walls falling down!!
 
This last year has been a little slow for me.  Work commitments kept me busy.  I finally retired and was looking forward to do more quilting and genealogy.  Well life throws you curves and mine are always big ones.  
 
The day I retired I became a guardian of two delightful little girls ages 7 & 9.  So I am very busy being a stay at home Mom.  They have me doing things I haven't done in 20 or 30 years, like bike riding and horse riding.  I have the sore knees and a nice saddle bruise on my right thigh as proof.  
 
I am still looking for family but at a very slow rate. I still plan to post great finds when I find them but in the meantime I am playing with the living!
 
Thanks for all your support and friendship it is appreciated!