Carnival of Genealogy: "There's One In Every Family".

This post has been submitted for the 100th Edition for the Carnival of Genealogy subject "There's One In Every Family". The carnival is hosted by Creative Gene.

I sure my family has some interesting characters I just don't know the stories.  What I do know is a recipe.  My mother use to make this for our Birthday's it is one she grew up with.  It was severed with whip cream and the fruit of the season.  When I was a kid it was bananas for me with a February birthday that was about all the fruit you got get in the old days.  One of my brothers had strawberries.  I don't remember what the other two liked. 

Hot Milk Cake

1 Cup of milk

1/4 lb of butter

4 eggs

2 Cups of sugar

2 tsp vanilla

2 Cups of floor

1/2 tsp salt

1 tsp baking powder

Put milk & butter in a sauce pan and bring to a boil.  Beat eggs with sugar & vanilla until light & creamy.  Slowly add flour that has been sifted 3 times with salt and baking powder.  Beat in hot milk & butter.  Pour into a greased & floured tube pan.  Bake at 350 degrees for 1 hour & 10 minutes.

Advent Calendar: The Christmas Tree



Christmas Morning 1949

Here I am at age 22 months running gleefully towards the Christmas Tree.  Looking in amazement at the tree and enjoying my very own rocking chair.  That is my Dad's writing, he made the photo albums.

As a child we always had a real tree and I loved the smell of the tree.  I still do but I have had an artificial tree since I brought my first home in 1989.  I didn't want to deal with the mess of the water and needles. 

The year Richard and I married we lived in my little town house which was a 950 square foot.  His boys slept in the living room and his daughter in the second bedroom.  Since the boys slept on the hide-a-bed sofa there was no room for a tree.  We took a card board box, covered it with blue wrapping paper for the background and cut a green tree shape out of wrapping paper and put that on the box.  We put holes into the box and push mini lights into the holes at the edge of the green shape.  It wasn't much but we enjoyed it.  If I can find a picture of this tree I'll add it later. My sister in law as brought us a little pine tree from the drug store, table top tree since we weren't going to have one.

I can remember as a child going to the Christmas tree lot and buying a tree, we usually went in the evening and we were all bundle up to stay warm.  This was when we lived in Whitestone, New York.  It was an adventure to go out in the cold and to see Christmas light.

In Florida we didn't have to bundle up and I think we started going in the afternoon to buy the trees.  It was not a much fun for some reason.

My Dad was in charge putting the lights on the tree.  I use to want to help him and I would get right behind him on the step ladder and he would yell at me to get out of the way, and he added, "If I fall you will become an ink spot."   Luckily he never fell and I never became an ink spot. 

Mom did the fine points of decorating like the ornaments and tinsel.  My Mom would get upset if the boys threw the tinsel on.  I was usually patient enough to put it one one strand at a time.  I don't do tinsel any more, I have cats.



Christmas Tree 2008

 My favorite lights were the bubble candles and I was really glad when they came out again.  So I do have large lights on my tree.  A few years ago I purchased a pre-lite tree and it was fine for two years but now I have a full section where the lights don't work and I have to add a string of lights anyway, what a drag.

Merry Christmas
Christ is the Reason for the Season

My Last Thanksgivng thought for 2010: Left Overs

My Dad like I said was a very good cook, he seldom followed a recipe.  I on the other hand didn't get the cooking gene from him.  I am a good cook, I can follow a recipe and I can even adapt a recipe, but that is as far as it goes. 

My Dad use to make Turkey Noodle soup after Thanksgiving.  His was good, but it doesn't rank up their as one of my favorites.  I make Turkey Tortilla Soup and Sour Cream Enchiladas.  

Chicken Tortilla Soup 

4 boneless chicken breasts or turkey left overs
1 large onion
1 can Original Mexican Rotel
2 cans Rotel Tomatoes (I use 1 can and 1 can of diced tomatoes)
1 can Kidney beans
1 can Pinto beans
1 can black beans
1 can corn
2 cans chicken broth
1 tablespoon chili powder
1 teaspoon sugar
Optional toppings: tortilla strips, cheese, sour cream, avocado, black olives


Boil and shred chicken. Dice and saute onion in 1 tablespoon of oil. Drain and rinse beans. Drain corn. Add all ingredients to soup pot and simmer till hot and bubbly. Add salt , pepper and garlic powder to taste. Serve with choice of toppings.
I also use my Crock Pot and let it cook while I am at work. 


My second recipe is from a family cookbook one of my chemotherapy patients gave me back in the 1990s.  This one recipe is a family favorites in my house.
 
Sour Cream Enchiladas


1 dozen corn tortillas soften with oil, I skip this step and they are fine.
2 cans of cream of chicken soup
1 Cup of sour cream
1 – 4oz can of green chilies
Left over chicken or turkey
Grated longhorn cheese, chopped green onion tops


Heat soup, sour cream, chicken & chilies in a sauce pan. Place a small amount of sauce in the bottom of casserole dish. On each tortilla place a spoonful of sauce cheese & a few onion tops. Roll up each and place in the casserole dish. I do this an easier way, I just put down a layer of sauce and a layer of tortillas, more sauce more tortillas until gone. Cover with the remaining of sauce and cheese and onions.


Bake 350 degrees for 30 mins.


Can you tell I live in the South West and I fit in very well. 
Happy Left overs.

More Thoughts on Thanksgiving

Pumpkin Decoration, No I didn't make it.

Some more thoughts I have had about Thanksgiving how they are different from when I was a kid. 



Sweet Turkey, I forgot to have the kids take the lollipops



When I was a kid the adults all sat at one table and the kids sat at a card table in the living room.  Our house in New York had a formal dinning room and a kitchen.  Now we have all the generations sitting together.  Extra tables are pressed into service but they are in the living room, or here in Arizona out on the back porch or car port.

We use to sit and visit for a long time, now everyone has to run off and visit another family. 



Thanksgiving Decorations



I never remember my Mom having Thanksgiving decorations.  I have several favorite pieces.  On second thought she might have had one of those folded things that you unfold and it forms an item like a paper pumpkin, with a card board stem.  I can see a bell in my minds eye but I am not sure about Thanksgiving.  I don't have any old photos of Thanksgiving, so I can't say.  I guess they didn't like to stop visiting to take pictures any more than I like to stop visiting to take pictures. 

Click Here to see pictures of Thanksgiving present.

Treasure Chest Thursday Thanksgiving Memories

I have been thinking about how Thanksgiving is the same and how it is different from when I was a child.   And a couple of unusual Thanksgivings just for fun.

How is Thanksgiving the same, there is a gathering of family and friends and a lot of good food. There is a lot of work to get ready for the feast as well as a lot of clean up when it is all done. There is a lot of visiting, talking and activity.

The characters have changed over the years by characters I mean the people present. When we were in Whitestone, New York we had lots of family at the house. My Dad’s brother, his family and sister with her family. My Dad was the chief cook at my home when I was a kid.

Since he was a fireman and worked 24 hours on and 48 hours off and if he was off he spent the time cooking for the Holidays. He was a great cook, a better cook than my Mom. If he was working we had our dinner on a different day, like the Friday.  I don't remember any particular Thanksgiving on a Friday but I know it happened.

We had a relish dish with black olives, green olives, stuffed celery, Gherkin pickles.  This was always ready early so we could nibble while we waited for the main dishes.  The main dishes were sweet potatoes, mashed turnips, fresh green beans just done plain,  canned cranberry sauce, occasionally we had creamed peas, turkey and stuffing done in the bird.  I can never remember having a ham. Of course pies, pumpkin and apple for desert with whip cream.   How we loved to clean the beaters after we whipped the cream.  He used a egg beater, not no small electric hand held mixer.

When we moved to Florida and there was no family about we ate with just the six of us.  It wasn't the same but still good.  After my Mom died my Dad would still cook but he used canned vegetables instead of fresh. 

After I became as nurse I seldom had dinner with my family as I usually worked on Thanksgiving from 3 to 11:30 PM.  When my brother Don married his wife would prepare the feast and we would join in with her Dad. 

Thanksgiving Bolivia 1980

I had two unusual Thanksgivings in Bolivia when I was a missionary.  I can't find any pictures of the first one, but here is one from the last one. I went home the following January. I am the one with the cast. Notice the mashed potatoes in the bucket, that is what you need when you feed a lot of hungry missionaries.

You can see pictures of recent Thanksgiving celebrations on mequitler blog with my husband's family. Here is my very first blog post about Thanksgiving.  Also on my quilting blog if you look on the side bar for recipes you will see some of the foods I fix for Thanksgiving and Christmas, just a little different.  I make my own cranberry sauce, never canned, I have baked corn, a yam, apple, cranberry and walnut dish.  But what every you eat and who ever you eat with, enjoy the day and have a happy grateful heart.

Treasure Chest Thursday Poem about my Dad



Edith & George



OK this might be a stretch but I don't think so.  Many of our treasures are in our minds and hearts.  So how do we move them from our special places to share them with others.  How will my kids know about my father when he was gone before they were in my life.  One way is stories.  I am not much of a story teller.  I don't have that kind of flare to make stories sound interesting.  For some reason I am very comfortable with poetry.  Wednesday evening at the local genealogy meeting our guest speaker spoke on ways to share family history.  One of his suggestions was to use an Acrostic poem format, each line begins with a letter from the person's name.  So here is mine about my Dad.  I actually wrote this during the meeting and shared it with the group. 

George J. Hartmann
George J. Hartmann was my Dad and he was an interesting man.
Early in life he learned how to work hard.
Originally he went to college to be a teacher, the first person in his family to have a college education.   But he didn't like teaching.
Retired instead as a fireman, first from NYC and than Miami Florida.
George's first son was also a George but not a junior.
Edith was his first love who he always loved.

Joseph was his grandfather who came from Germany.

Hard worker, stubborn and worrier would describe him.
Annette was his second love who he always loved.  He was a lucky man to have two good wives.
Really believed in work and always doing a good job and that there was no such thing as a free lunch.
Three sons he had with Annette, George, Donald & Edward.
Mary was his only daughter with Edith.

Ancestors came from Germany and Bohemia



Annette & George



Never did he forgot the pain of burying two wives before their time.

Never did he stop loving his wives or his children.


I will never forget my Dad and the lessons he taught. 

Wordless Wednesday: Slide Show of my Family Photos

Here are some pictures of my family. I come from some good stock!

Wordless Wednesday - Almost

This Picture reminds me that through out all generations there are family gatherings.  As the season of Thanksgiving approaches I hope we all remember the things we are grateful for.

Christmas 1939 to 1942

My Aunt Em couldn't remember exactly what year this was.  My Dad is standing by the window.  My Grandparents Hartmann are at the head of the table.  Uncle Richie youngest child is on the right at the head of the table.  Aunt Em is on the left second from my Dad.   This is the house my Grandpa & Dad built and I lived in until I was 11.