I'd Like to Meet...

I am looking forward to meeting my mother Edith Inez Chaplin. 

Yes, you read that right. My mother died a week before my first birthday from Breast Cancer. 

She was 32 years old. 

Feb 5, 1949, my mother Edith died from the complications of Breast Cancer. It was one week before my first birthday. 

I have wondered what she was like and what she saw in my father. Remember all kids have a funny view of their parents. What things did she enjoy, her favorite color you know those normal kinds of things. Dad didn't tell me much about her maybe because he had a new wife and maybe because it was too painful for him to remember.

I can remember when they told me I had a different mother than my brothers. I think I was six. It was the second time, they told me about my mother. They had told me the year before but I didn't remember that. They gave me a compact with an "E" engraved on it and her picture. I, unfortunately, lost the compact.

I also wonder what she worried about as she lost her battle with cancer and what things she would have liked to tell me if she could. She was diagnosed in August and was gone by February, after spending 25 years of my life as an Oncology nurse, I know she had a very aggressive kind of cancer.

What I do know about her I know from my Aunt Bea & Uncle Bill her siblings. Her nickname was "The Swede" because she was so blond when she was little, as her picture above shows. As a little kid, she had an active imagination and was frequently caught talking to her boys, her imaginary friends. As a young girl of 9, her Dad passed away and she had to fend for herself after school as everyone else in the household had to go to work.

When I went to New York that summer I was 15, and the first I did when I walked into Aunt Bea's house was kick my shoes off. My Aunt tells me, "That is exactly what your mother always did as soon as she walked in the house the shoes came off." It made me feel very good to know I had a habit of my mother's even without knowing it. She liked to sing and would sing harmony with Uncle Bob, Aunt Bea's husband.

As a teenager, if she didn't want to go out with a guy again, or didn't want to give a guy her phone number she would give them the phone number to the police station. Now that sounds like something I would do. Come to think of it I have. 

I used to think I got all my sass from my Dad maybe not.

She worked as a waitress and had office jobs. She eloped at 18 to a guy about 10 years older but that ended in divorce. I was told my Dad's parents didn't like this fact and they waited until his parents died to marry.  But they died in 1943, I think the delay also had something to do with WWII, as the war ended in September of 1945 and they married in October of 1945.

My Aunt Em, my Dad's sister liked both of my mothers and enjoyed them both as much as if they had been sisters. I don't know when or how she & my dad meet. She became a Catholic to marry him. And that is about all I know. I like this last picture of my mother, she looks like a really classy gal. I also think some of the fashions from the forty's had a really classic style and made women look great.

I just remembered one more story. My Mom use to tell me that my Mother and Dad wanted to have children really bad, and they had been married for 3 years before I came along. The story goes that once the doctor told Edith she couldn't have any children she got pregnant. That was really cool of my second mom to share such a story with me.

As I re-read the letter from my uncle and aunts everyone expressed a lot of love for both of my mothers and that I was always to respect and honor both of them. I think I have.

31 Days to Better Genealogy Day 4

I really have been busy working on my special project mentioned in Day 1. So this my Day 4 is way out of sequence from the hints I am following by Amy Johnson Crow but it is the hint that I have been working on. In her book 31 Days to Better Genealogy this is Day 31. So I jumped to the end. Right, it is my project, I can do it anyway I want. This hint is to write something, any thing, even just a page on an ancestor. 

I watched a webinar about using Scivener to help organize your writing. It sounded like a good tool to use to help me with my project of writing about each one of my ancestors for the Chaplin line. I found some more videos on how to use the program and downloaded the free trial. 

What I like about it, I can make sections, or pages and have one main idea on each page. I can move them around to rearrange the order. It lays it out in a way that makes it easier to write than to put it in one long word document. I can add pictures and make side notes, like check for this. I even copied my timeline for Edith from excel and pasted it onto a page. I also can add footnotes.  The program also has the ability to change fonts.

I am writing this more in a story form instead of an official case report. I haven't figured out how to do an official case report. I have some ideas but I will save that for a later day. 

Cork Board

On the cork board it a place to hold your index cards for your project.

Top of First Page

This is the top of the first page that is just the beginning of Edith's life. With an image of her Birth Certificate. 

Bottom of Page 1 with Footnote

This is the bottom of the first page that shows the footnote I added.  Oh my gosh my memory is gone. I forgot how I add this. I am thinking I took it from my genealogy software. 

This is the page where I inserted my timeline from excel. I just copied and pasted. 

I did just print page one to see how it looks and it looks very nice and the foot note is at the bottom. Much easier to add than I think it would be in a word document. 

So I am learning lots and feeling like I have a good start to my project. Once I finish with my first draft of each page, I will have someone else proof it for me. Once I make those corrections it will be on the her father. 

Week 8: Heirlooms

A couple of weeks ago the prompt for the 52 weeks 52 Ancestors was: "Is there a special item that's been passed down in your family? I wanted to share the three special pieces I have. 

This is my maternal grandmother Minnie Elizabeth Chaplin cameo ring. It is very tight on my little finger,either she had small fingers or I have big ones. I have worn it on very special occasions but never for daily use. Being a nurse rings have to be practical, this is beautiful but not practical. This ring was given to my mother's older sister Beatrice but she had three boys and when I was born she gave it to my mother. The setting sits up almost 1/2". I have never seen this worn by any family member, not even in pictures. It was saved for me. My Aunt Bea was a lot of fun and made be feel like part of the family.


This Cameo pin belongs to my Mom's mother or grandma Mildred Corkish. (My second Mom) I do remember my Mom wearing this pin. Again since I was the only girl I was given this pin also. I think maybe I worn it once. Mostly it lives in the safe. I'm not a fancy dresser so I have no idea what I would wear it on. It sure is a beautiful cameo. I might just have to find something to wear this on!!



My Mom (second-mom) Annette Carolyna Corkish worked as a nurse. She was an army nurse during World War II and she was the nurse who took care of my mother Edith Inez Chaplin, when she died of breast cancer. I can remember her working at Booth Memorial Hospital in Flushing. This is a picture of the charm bracket her co-workers gave her in 3-6-1959 from the OBS staff. This is just before we moved to Florida. She obviously was well liked by her co-workers. And yes she is the reason I became a nurse. She never wanted me to be one, she said the work was hard. I never regretted my decision to be a nurse.

When I was looking for my treasures and after I saw them again I realized I had forgotten how many I really have. Finding all these things made me feel very blessed. Something I think I tend to forget. My family tried hard to make traditions to have and to pass down. I trying to survive after the lost of two mothers before age 17, I felt the pain and lost but forgot the good stuff. This has helped me to remember.

Interesting Details

While writing the post about inviting my mother to dinner. I decided to add all her sources to my genealogy program. 

I was also transcribing each document. 

Except the marriage license which was hard to read. 

Let me tell you transcribing each document makes you read things closer and you learn things you didn't notice before. I have had these documents for a while, I mean like more than 30 years, from way back when I first started genealogy. 

I have many years of not working on genealogy. 

So I started with her Birth Certificate. 

It might take you a moment or two to noticed that the address where she was born is the same as her father's and mother's address. I never noticed that before, She was born at home. I sure it was a common practice back in 1916 but not common to my generation. Just something to look for. 

She did age by 10 years on each of the three census records she was found on. 1920 age 3, 1930 age 13, 1940 age 23. 

The 1940 US Census presented two interesting facts. 

I picked up that Edith's highest level of education was 3 years of high school. The other more interesting fact was Edith was listed as married but listed under her maiden name.

My first reaction was no she wasn't. She had married someone at age 18 but I thought she was annulled from him by this time. 

So I went back to the marriage license and found that the annulment wasn't final until 1944. 

This is from her marriage license to my Dad, George Joseph Hartmann in 1945.

So back to check on what info I had on the first marriage. 

Here is what I have. It looks like I have to add two more events to her individual information in my genealogy program. A marriage and an annulment. 

All I know about this marriage is he was a bit older than Edith and he wasn't an honest man. I guess with a reason for the divorce as fraud that supports the family lore of not being an honest man,

 I search for Einer and found a couple of census records for him, 

he was from Denmark and in 1940 he was 33 so he was 

about 10 years older than Edith.

Now, I know that she was married to him for almost 9 years. 

I don't know how long they were separated. 

I don't know when she meet my Dad. 

My Dad and Edith married a year after the annulment.

I do know my Dad said his parents didn't like Edith because she was divorced. All my Dad would say was, 

"All you need to know is I loved both of your mothers and I would have stayed married to them." 

If I asked him any questions about his parents or grandparents 

he would say, "They are dead, leave them alone, 

you don't need to know them."

The other thing I noticed is that 1940 is the year Edith's mother died. So it makes you wonder if Minnie was showing signs of her illness yet. Minnie died in Oct of 1940, the enumeration date was in April. They both died of breast cancer 9 years apart. 

Well, some of this information wasn't new but I can see it in a new light with some more details to make her story more interesting. I will continue to transcribe my documents because it helps to reveal hidden nuggets of information even though they are in plane sight.

Even though it is labor intensive it is worth it. 

 She is still the first person I want to meet when I get to the other side and believe me I am in no hurry to get there.

Week 4 Invite to Dinner

From Amy Johnson Crow's email. This week is "Invite to Dinner." Which ancestor would you most want to invite to dinner? Do you have a story of a memorable dinner with an ancestor? Is there a special recipe that's been handed down? 

I wonder if you could guess who I would invite to dinner? 

I have questions for all my Ancestors but the one I want to meet the most and first is my Mother, Edith Inez Chaplin. 

Here is one of my favorite pictures of my mother.

Edith's Individual Information from my Genealogy Program.

As you can see she had a very short life. She died at age 32. You don't even have to scroll to see all her life events in my program.

I have written other posts on her, this one probably has the most information on her and pictures of her at different ages of her life.

What would we talk about over dinner? Everything!! 

About her life, are the stories I heard true, like giving a guy the police station phone number if she didn't want to hear from him. First I would have to find out what kind of food she wants to eat and likes to eat. I have no idea and my Dad never told me. I might not have asked since he wasn't a real talker. 

And would not talk about the past. 

I would have to ask what Dad was like as a young man.

 I would also ask about what her family taught her and what she would have wanted to teach me. 

Was she glad she became a Catholic? Did she miss her old religion? How did her Mom react to that? What did her Mom think of my Dad? Just realized that her Mom died in 1940 and my parents didn't marry until 1945. And I don't know when they meet. 

Her Dad was already gone, he died when she was 9.

I am sure I would think of a ton more questions while we talked.

I learned a lot of things about my Mother while reviewing and transcribing her documents. I will save that for another post. 

Longevity week 3

Longevity is defined as the length or duration of life. 

As a person who mother died a week before her first birthday and having lost my Mom who raised a week before my 17th birthday. I know all to well how fragile life can be. Both my Moms die of cancer. Which probably influenced my decision to work as an Oncology nurse for almost 30 years of my 47 year nursing career. 

Note to self: Write a blog post about my nursing career. 

As a young person I thought my Mother gave up too soon, didn't want to live or didn't love me. Kids get crazy ideas. As I watched my Mom die, I know she fought and did all she could to stay alive. As a nurse I learned that in-spite of our best efforts the disease is bigger than the will to live and the treatments available. 

That knowledge does not make the loss any easier. 

A couple of years ago there was flood of colorful pedigrees. A fellow genealogist J Paul Hawthorne came up with a clever idea to show the place of birth of your ancestors. He used an Excel spreadsheet. I had extended the idea to also do a couple of other colorful pedigrees. You can see my original post here.  One of them was the Cause of Death and Age At Death Pedigree. 

I updated my Pedigree, because after all I did add a couple of years to my age. 

The colors are significant also. The dull red is for cardiac disease and the pink is for breast cancer. As you can see my gene pool sucks. So far so good, I have been blessed with good health. My Dad had his first heart attack in his 40s. I was ten so it was when he was 46. I remember he went to the hospital and was there for a few days but that is all I remember. 

I can remember the frustration my Dad felt when my Mom in 1964 was given the same chemotherapy that my Mother had in 1948.  Mom had Colon Cancer and my Mother had Breast Cancer. They both received 5FU or Fluoruracil. I even gave this medication and it is still used in the treatment of Breast and Colon Cancers in combination with other chemotherapy agents.

Today while working on my Cause of Death and Age Pedigree I also paid more attention to the ages on my chart. Here is my little chart I made. There are 17 people on my chart and I have four full generations and two people from the 5 generation. 

The youngest goes to my Mother, Edith Inez Chaplin born in 1916 and died in 1949. The oldest goes to my Maternal Great Grandmother Mary Ann Holmes Chaplin born in 1865 and died in 1950. Interesting that the oldest and youngest are on the same side of the family. 

My Dad's side with all the heart disease I noticed my Dad out lived his Dad by 19 years. I hope to out live by Dad by 20 years. I would love to live long enough to see my two little girls into their 30s.  They are currently 14 and 12. 

Even those four who died in their 40s were way too young. My Grandfather William Thomas Chaplin died when my Mother Edith was 9. She was too young to not have a Dad. She was 24 when her mother my Maternal Grandmother Minnie Elizabeth died.

And let's face it even dying in your 50s and 60s is young.  

I have lived longer than 13 people in my direct line. The next ages to beat are 71, 72 and 85. My plan is to beat you 85. 

My aunts and uncles have better longevity then my direct line, and I hope I follow their pattern. 

The button above I wear on my birthday. I had a magnet but can't find it, that said.

Aged to Perfection and Polished like a fine Gem.

So no matter what age you are enjoy it.

Here is the link to Paul's blog post and 

he has a link to the Excel spreadsheet in that post. 

If you want to do one of your own.