Food 52 Weeks Personal Genealogy & History

Created by Amy Coffin
Hosted by Geneabloggers

Week 5: Favorite Food. What was your favorite food from childhood? If it was homemade, who made it? What was in this dish, and why was it your favorite? What is your favorite dish now?

This is the one prompt that stumped me. There are many foods I liked but favorite isn’t like jumping out at me. What I remember more is our routine some of our meals were and why I only remember these days is beyond me. Thursdays we had liver and onion or liver and bacon. Fridays we had Spaghetti with butter and garlic sauce or fish sticks but I don’t remember with what. The other was canned salmon with rice & peas but once you have had fresh salmon canned salmon is just plain nasty. Another was homemade Mac and Cheese, I really liked how my Dad made it. I liked all the meals we had. My Dad made great Split Pea soup with a Ham bone as well as Lentil Beans with a Ham bone. My Dad was the chief cook in our house; he was a very good cook and cooked better than my Mom. He was also the cook on his shift at the firehouse.



Not my Dad's Mac & Cheese



One of the strange things we did and I am not sure how we even started doing this. We liked coffee ice cream but if we didn’t have any we would take my Dad’s instant Santa coffee and add it to vanilla ice cream and cream the two together to make our own coffee ice cream. We also liked vanilla ice cream with a glob of peanut butter.

I still can’t stay I have a favorite dish, I just like food.  Especially chocolate & ice cream.

Fearless Females: Picture of a Female Ancestor

Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

This photo was sent to me by my second cousin in England, who I meet last May through Ancestry.com.  Below is the body of her email.  She grew up around the same area but never knew that side of the family.  My comments below are in purple.

In the family picture Ida is the lady in the middle sitting on the ground. Walter (Uncle Victor) sitting on the chair on the left. The lady with specs and spotted dress, sitting is our great grandmother Mary Ann Holmes/Chaplin. Ida is Great Uncle Glynne wife.

The lady standing behind her is I think Lilian Rolfe/Ward and her husband is second from the right standing.

I had not yet been told about the Chaplins. I do remember seeing lots of their faces about in Gorleston.



Julian cannot help as he was not yet born. Is a second cousin once removed the first cousin I meet on Ancestry.com.


I did meet Uncle Victor in the Post Office but did not know who he was at the time. I have a picture of him with my mother in New York. He even dated my Aunt Em my Dad's sister but she said he was too old of her.


I met Uncle Glynne one day and was introduced by my father, but I cannot remember what he looked like.

All I know is this was taken in Gorleston, England.
It was one of the first pictures my cousin in England sent me.  We would love to know who everyone is in the photo.

New Document and a New Spelling

Last night just before going to bed I found a 1910 Census with my Grandmother listed as a daughter with her 3 siblings and her mother as head of the house. 

You will notice that the last name is spelled Jirek. I have always seen the spelling as Jirak. Her Mom's name is correct her, sibling names are correct. Her age and her borthers' ages are correct. I have a different age for the sister but my original source might not be reliable on that.

The other interesting facts are Mary's brother Joseph is married but no wife is listed for him and there is a boarder an infant a William Doherty age 1 & 2/12. Where is his mother?


My great grandmother has been a widow since 1902, so for 8 years. According to this census she spoke Bohemian.

My Grandmother worked in a Cigarette factory and her brothers were painters. 

Well I have learned more and need to find out more. 

One small step for me and my ancestors.

Fearless Females 2011: Favorite Female Ancestor

Lisa is repeating her Fearless Females 31 Blogging Prompts to Celebrate Women’s History Month and I am planning to do a few, but hopefully different ones than last year.

March 1 — Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.

Last year I wrote about my Aunt Em, who is my favorite female that I know.  This year I am wondering more about my maternal great grandmother Mary Ann Holmes Chaplin.  I wrote my first entry about her here.   I had just seen her picture for the first time.  I think her first name is Mary but to me she is Mary Ann, I don't want to confuse her with the other Mary's in my family.

I would like to know what made her who she was.  How did she deal with the hard things in her life.  She buried a husband, 3 sons and a granddaughter before she died.  She had 10 kids.  She moved a lot from the census records I have looked at and her husband did a variety of jobs.  Was this the norm for the time she lived in or something that had to be done for work.  I wonder how she meet my great grandfather.  I wonder about her faith, her dreams and the kind of things she enjoyed.  The few pictures I have seen of her, I think she enjoyed family. 

She was still alive when I was born so she knew about me, I wonder what she thought when she heard of my birth.  And what she thought when she learned about the death of my mother.

I like her face! 

Sounds: 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History

Geneabloggers is hosting 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants.

This topic took me a little while to decide what was the most important sound of my childhood.  But once I found it I was on fire to write it.  I even got out of bed to start writing this post.  I added a little video but it made my typing work too slow, so I got frustrated and went to bed.  This morning I am ready to finish up.  



Mantel Clock

This is the item that made my favorite childhood and adult sound.  Even my kids like it.  Unfortunately the motor died for a second time and I haven't gotten it fixed.  But after thinking about this last night I am going to get it fixed one more time. 

Mary George 1952, Clock is on the TV

It was a wedding present to my parents.  It lived on top of the TV when I was a kid in Whitestone, New York. 

Mary 1965 Graduation

In Fort Lauderdale Florida it lived on a half hutch in the living room.  Here it is hidden behind my high school graduation cards.


I don't remember how it came to be mine or what year I received it from  my Dad.  I believe I have had it since I left home at 19. 

This picture shows the inside of that clock with the hammers that make the Westminster chimes.  I wish the label hadn't been riped off.  It chimed every 15 minutes.  This link actually shows the musical notes of the chime.

Manufacturer's Label

 The chimes start about 30 seconds after the start of the video. 

Technology: 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History

Geneabloggers is hosting 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants.


What are some of the technological advances that happened during your childhood? What types of technology to you enjoy using today, and which do you avoid?


I think the two things that stand out in my mind from my childhood are the changes in phones and washing machines. 

We had only one phone in our house in Whitestone New York, a black rotary phone.  Our # was FL-23863.  The FL stood for Flushing.  When we moved to Florida we had a party line for awhile.  We never had more than one phone in our home.  So as a teenager I had to sit in the kitchen to talk on the phone there was no privacy for teenage chatter. 

Both my husband & I like a phone in easy reach.  We have one by our computers, by my sewing machine and by his TV chair.  It took me a long time to talk him into cordless.  His phone by his desk is wired as is the one in the kitchen.  He doesn't like how they are never where they should be.  I of course like the freedom to move around and I use a head set at home so I can be doing things with my hands. 

We both like our cell phone but I didn't have one until 2005 when I started driving into Phoenix to work and my transportation was not the most reliable.   Now we both have Droids which are really like hand held computers. 

Now the washing machine, I really love the

improvement on those.  Yes my mother did our laundry in Whitestone on one of these.  The poor woman worked hard to do our laundry.  First she had to carry it from the top two floors to the basement.  Then she had to wash it in this tub with the soap, wring it out, I am not sure if there was a motor for the wringer or a crank.  I am sure she had watch the time for this since it didn't have cycles. Than she had to manually drain the tub, full it with rinse water to rinse the cloths, wring the cloths out again and carry them damp and heavy up to the second floor to hang them out on the cloths line. 

When we moved to Florida in 1959 she did have an automatic washer, that must have been a big improvement but she did not have a drier until 1962 or so.  She only had to carry the cloths from the car port in front of the house to the back of the house until she had her drier. 

The other big changes I have seen are as a nurse.  When I was first a nursing student in 1965 there were still glass syringes.  The needles had to be sent to Central supply to be sharpened and sterilized to be used again.  I can remember the plastic syringes and disposable needles when they came out.  IV fluids were always in glass bottles.  You were very careful not to drop on of those. 

But for the patient I think the torture item to beat all was the cold metal bed pan or urinal.  Most of the ones I used were stainless steel but I remember a few of these.  We tried to warm they up with hot water but that didn't always work.  And oh what a clatter they made if they were dropped in the middle of the night.

Toys: 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History

Geneabloggers is hosting 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants.

I am four weeks behind on these posts but I am hoping to catch up.  I am making my own schedule here.  I decided to do Toys first.  



http://www.dollinfo.com/Default.htm





 I am going to start with the last toy I received.  It was a Ginny doll it came out a couple of years before the Barbie doll and I really wanted a Barbie doll.  My Mom told me I could not have one, as I was getting to old for dolls.  We were moving to Florida so I was 11 1/2 years old.  Of course she was right.  Ginny had her own little traveling case for her and her cloths.   

Some of the other toys I enjoyed included a bike, red rubber balls, jacks, Lego's, and roller skates with a key. 
The game we played with the red rubber ball was called 7 up.  You bounced it against a wall and as you counted up the ball had to bounce that many times.  We might have clapped for each bounce under our legs or something, not sure on that part. 

My Mom and I used to play jacks together sometimes.  We would sit on the kitchen floor or basement to play.  I learned how to roller skate in our finished basement in Whitestone, New York and the next day I went to a Brownie skating party and did the Hokie Pokie on roller skates. 


http://www.etsy.com/listing/43364601/fun-unique-dependable-childs-metal-toy

 One unusual toy I had was a toy typewriter very much like this one pictured here.  I am not sure if this one made it to Florida.

I also liked clay and Playdough, I remember when that came out.  It was fun and I still liked the smell of it. 

A new Trick I learned & I am Sharing it

While catching up on my reading of blogs.  I read a great tip on The Family Curator by Denise.  You do need to read her story about losing a flash drive and then finding it.  I did check with her about sharing her tip and she did give me the go ahead.

She used screen shots from a Mac but I use a PC so I thought I would share the same tip but using Screen shots from a PC. 

Got to your Start Menu > Computer > Removable Drive.

Right Click on the drive, on the fly out menu click on Rename.

If you are not sure what is in the drive you can click on the drive and you can view the contents. Then name is correctly.

Here it is with the new name.  Be careful with the name it only allows about 13 characters.

To add identifying information follow the steps below to add a text document and/or a contact card. I am using Windows 7, so you screens might look a little different.

You can double click on the pictures to see them larger.  You can also change the font style and size, I made mine big and bold since many of us have senior eyes. 

Well I hope you never lost your flash drive, but now you can be prepared and identify it first.  One more trick Denise suggested was to label it with an address label, so it is quickly identified from the out side.  I also have the one I use at the Family History Center on a lanyard so I can recognize it from the rest of the ones I have here at home. 

I return it to my research bag after I have downed loaded the new files to my computer.  I do that because I showed up at the Family History Center one day with out one and of course I had a good document I wanted to save.