Memory Jogger: Lessons and Hobbies

I forgot which blog I found this suggestion, and I started this post back in May and just found it again.  I haven't been doing much on my blogs too busy with work, organizing my Genealogy files, both paper and computer.  What a time consuming activity that is.  So I'm going to finish this now, why waste the potential.

This was a good memory jogger for me, it was about lessons or hobbies we did in our families. I wanted piano lessons as a kid and wasn't able to have them.  My parents didn't have extra money for something they didn't think I would stick to.  When I was in my late 20's I started lessons.  When I told my Dad I was taking lessons he was curious as to why I would do that since I would never be a concert pianist.  Like that is the only reason why someone should learn how to play the piano. The little bit of talent and ability I had came in handy while I was on my mission in Bolivia.  I used my basic piano skills to teach the first book of piano lessons to the kids in my mission and my companions who were more accomplished did the more advance students. It worked very well. I took more lessons when I came home. But when I married a fellow with 3 kids that was the end of my piano time. Some day I would like to pick it up again.

The similar thing happened with sewing I begged my Mom to teach me how to sew but she didn't want to, I really don't remember the reason.  One afternoon Mom and Dad went out and I took a part one of my full skirts and made a pair of culottes out of the skirt.  I cut out the pieces for the culottes by following the pattern and sewed all the seams back up.  I even had the waste band back on.  The only thing it didn't have was the zipper.  My Mom was so surprised she decide I really wanted to sew and she took me to J.C. Penny's for sewing lessons.  I can remember buying fabric on sale for $0.50/yard around 63.  I sewed all my own cloths for many years, I made a lot of my cloths in high school, my formal for the senior prom, all my cloths for my mission and I made cloths into my 30's.  Now I can't stand sewing cloths.  I made some holiday scrub tops about 10 years ago and that was the end of that.  I much rather make quilts. 

Mary 1965 Graduation Day, in a dress I made.

When I made that culottes my Dad said, "Mary must get her sewing talent from her great grandfather."  My great grandfather Joseph Hartmann was a tailor.
 

Happy Birthday Dad!

Today would be my Dad's 98th Birthday if he was still with us.  He is on his wedding day to my Mom, Annette Corkish.  He was 36 in this picture on June 25th 1949, just a couple of weeks until his birthday.

Some of his favorite sayings are:
        There is no such thing as a free lunch.
        If it is worth doing, it is worth doing well.
        If you want something you have to work for it.
        If you can read you can do anything you want in this life.

I'm sure there were more but I can not think of them at this time. 

One of my memories I have of him is he had a money jar in the kitchen cabinet and he knew every penny that was in it and I mean every cent.  It was very difficult to take any money from the jar because he would miss the money and he would point out to you exactly how much was missing.  I only tried once.  He had a thin stack of half sheets of paper and he would divide the paper into eight equal parts.  One square for each day of the week and a total square.  He used both sides of that paper.  That is how he accounted for all his money.  Everyday he would write down what he spent and totaled it on the end of the week.  He had no credit cards until later in life.  He was practical with money.   He believed in work and working hard. 

Well Dad, I hope you are having a good day!
Love me,

Wordless Wednesday

My Great Uncle Walter Victor Chaplin WWI

Picture sent to me by my second cousin in England.

Thanks Cuz!

Sharing Memories: Grandparent's Work

Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy suggested a blogging topic of Parents and Grandparents Occupations.

Well it took a little time to research all the different census records and to take notes but I finally came up with a list of occupations for my grandparents.  Since all my grandparents where gone before I was born I do not know them personally. 
I do know my adoptive grandparents and my Grandpa Alfred Corkish was a fisherman.  When I was little I was told he was a whaler and he sailed on ships to do the whaling.  He had a model sailing ship in a bottle on his mantel that I remember admiring when we went to visit when we were little.  He is the only male grandparent that did one career his whole life.  Every census record had his occupation as fisherman, except for when he was a kid.  I don't remember him telling us stories about fishing, but them I only remember seeing him twice, during two different summers. 
 
My other grandpas did several different jobs in their life time. 
George Joseph Hartmann
1930 Clerk
1920 Gas Maker for Presto lights
1910 truck driver
1900 at school

William Thomas Chaplin
1920 motorman for the rail road
1910 haven't found him yet
1901 England a baker
1891 scholar

Joseph Hartmann
1910 Retail merchant liquours
1900 Tailor and Hotel Keeper
1880 Tailor
1870 Tailor
1868 Farmer on passenger list

Walter Thomas Chaplin great grandpa
1901 Piano Dealer
1891 Furniture salesman
1881 shopman
1871 scholar

All my grandmothers and great grandmas were mothers and housewives both very demanding work.  One grandmother Minnie Elizabeth my maternal grandmother did work outside of the home.  The 1930 census list her as a clerk she had been a widow for 5 years at that time and my mother was only 9 when her father died, so she had to work as did the older siblings.  She had graduated from nursing school but I do not know if she ever worked as a nurse.  Maybe she did before she was married.

This has been fun to look at all the occupations and wonder about the work they did.  Or the adjustments needed to be made to be a farmer then a tailor.  I think of a tailor as someone who works in a small shop but maybe he was a tailor in a factory in NYC.  Did my great grandpa play a piano when he sold them?  I guess we are just going to have a lot to talk about when we all meet again. 

More Questions than Answers

While doing some 1881 UK Census research yesterday to write a post about the kind of work my grandparents did I found some interesting information.  In the first imagine we see my great x2 grandfather William John, his wife Elizabeth and two of their children.   I saw this census a couple of weeks ago and didn't notice anything strange.  I never thought about the other kids and where they were. 

So yesterday I went to look at the census of the same year 1881, to see what kind of work my great grandfather did.  It is easier to see the imagine of the census on line then printed out, I searched for him instead of his father.   And this is when I found the imagine below.  You also need to read the line that is crossed out.

William K, Walter T & Herbert H, were on 17 Mealcheaper St, and they all had jobs. It even said the head and the wife were away from the home right on the census record. William John & Elizabeth Jane where on 32 Broad St, with Ernest & Frederick. It looks like the same town when I Google map it, walking directions and it’s only .2 mile from each other.   That is not a very far distance.

This is just page two that list the other two brothers and Walter T is my great grandfather.

I mean I have no real idea of what life was like in 1881 and I'm sure there were very good reasons as to why they lived apart.  I just don't know the reasons and I wish I knew.  It just blew me away but then again I’m coming from my time frame and my life experiences. I can tell you when I was alone at 16 with a sick mother and three younger brothers I was scared a lot and after she died it was even worst. My Dad was a fireman and he worked 24 on and 48 off, so I was the chief cook and bottle washer when he was gone.   I didn't like it but I did what had to be done for our family just as my father did what had to be done for the family.

 He had to work he had four kids at home the oldest 16 and the youngest was 6. 

 I also believe my ancestors did what had to do but it gave me many questions. 

Why??

Where is Agnes? She should be 13. Was she sent to be a servant? I don’t find her when I search for her by name, I don’t see her on the 1871 Census either. I just found an Agnes Jane that died in the 3rd quarter 1868, on the FreeBMD Index on Ancestry. I wonder if it is my Agnes Jane?  I have a birth year of 1868. The FreeBDM Index list her as born in the 2nd quarter of 1868.  So that must be why there is no Agnes on the Census.


William John was the manager of the coffee tavern on this census, maybe he didn’t have room for all the kids, maybe they didn’t want to lose the other apartment?


Leaving 3 boys 17, 16, & 14 alone? It was a different age and I’m sure they were working too hard to survive to have energy for rough housing or other teenage boy mischief.

Sharing Memories: Mom's Work

Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy suggested a blogging topic of Parents and Grandparents Occupations.

Here is a previous story I wrote about my Mom's work as a nurse. Lots of memories of this also. We use to meet her at the bus stop in Whitestone when she came home from work. My Mom didn't learn to drive until after we moved to Florida in 1959 at the age of 40. She never needed to drive in New York but she sure needed to in Florida.

When she first became a nurse she couldn't even take Vital Signs only physicians could do that. Nursing sure has come a long way, nurses now do very complex evaluations of patients when they are in ICU.

She use to come home from work, and take her uniform off, sit in the chair and role her stockings off down to the ankles in sit in the arm chair in her slip exhausted. I know the feeling. Her nursing cap was an oval shaped upside down cupcake cup, with a black ribbon. I wish now I had taken that from home when I left home. I don't have her school pin either. I'm not sure what school of nursing she graduated from but it was in Boston.   This picture of a nursing cap is very similar to my Mom's.

Mom was also an army nurse during World War II, again I have no stories about this or pictures.  When I asked questions when I saw some of her pictures when I was 11 she told me, I will tell you about it when you are older.  Well I never heard the stories.  I had her old army footlocker for years, that I used as a coffee talbe when I first left home and had my own appartment.
The only thing I know about my Mother, Edith is she worked as a secretary.  Maybe when the 1940 census comes out I will know more, she was only 13 on the the 1930 census and she was a student at that time.

Sharing Memories: Dad's Work

Lorine at Olive Tree Genealogy suggested a blogging topic of Parents and Grandparents Occupations.


My parents are easy to remember. My Dad was a NYC fireman, his station was in the Bronx. I can remember him going off to work in his fireman's uniform and coming home. I even have a picture of me in his hat when I was a toddler but I don't have a picture of him in his uniform. He use to ride the bus to work over the Bronx-Whitestone Bridge into the Bronx.

When he retired from the NYC Fire Department after 20 years we moved to Florida. Since I was the oldest at 11 and a younger brother was on the way he returned to work. For the first little while when we first lived in Florida he worked at a Farm Store a drive through dairy store. They where great, drive in buy milk, eggs, bread and/or ice cream and drive out. Never leave your car. When my kids were young I missed these stores, they are not here in Arizona.

Anyway back to my Dad's Occupation he did find a job as a Fireman again for Bar Harbor Fire Department. He later told me he lied about his age to get the job, there must have been an age limit. Of course being a fireman in NYC was a lot more dangerous and strenuous than in South Florida. Bar Harbor was almost an hour South of where we lived in Fort Lauderdale, so he drove to work. Later it became part of the Miami-Dade Metro Fire Department.

He actually drove the hook and ladder truck as a fireman.

Today is Dad's Work, tomorrow Mom's work and later this week grandparents.

My First Genealogy Society

As I learn more about genealogy one of the suggestion I have heard is to join a genealogy association or society. So here is the story of how I joined this one.

One night while looking around in blogland I came across Michelle Goodrum blog. She had a page of societies and organizations and I noticed one of them is here in Arizona. So I left a comment and she answered. I went to my first meeting in May and joined on the spot. This month on Wednesday evening she was one of the speakers and did a very nice Google demo and had a great looking handout for everyone. Of course we did visit after the meeting. It is always fun to meet new friends in blogland but the fun is increased as you get to meet them in person.
She has a very nice blog go check it out! Michell she is also part of GeneaBlogger. For those of who who don't know what GeneaBlogger is go to the link to check it out. Thomas is the master mind of GeneaBlogger and he follows 900 blogs about genealogy. He is the person who encouraged me to start my blog at the January Family History Expo. On one page he has the links to all the blogs and on another page he has all the blogs listed by categories, it just amazing the what he does. He is a sharing and encouraging person.

Also updated two of my pages, and the tabs are above to see my other pages.
Have a great day!