Veterans Day 2015

Thinking about the veterans I know and I wanted to share this post again.  
Too all Veterans...Thank You for your Service. 

These documents are my Mom, Annette's Separation Qualification Record.  She was in the Army Nurse Corps towards the end of and after the end of WWII.  She was stationed at the 248th General Hospital at Manila Luzon Philippine Islands.  She entered the service on 29 Mar 1945 and was relieved of active duty on 15 Aug 1947.  Her rank was 1st Lieutenant. 

She earned two medals

Asiatic Pacific Service Medal

WWII Victory Medal Front

WWII Victory Medal Reverse Side

We don't have her medals or any pictures she took while in the service.  She never told me about her experiences.  When I first asked she felt I was too young to know, when I was older she was too sick with Cancer to be asked. Pictures of the medals are from various web sites.

February In Memory Of

Though I enjoy celebrating my birthday and make the best of it.  There are two dates in February I really don't like. 

The day my mother died and the day my mom who raised me died.

Here is a post I wrote about Fearless  Women Who Died Too Young. 

This following post is about my mother who gave me life and died too young on Feb 5th, 1949 a week before my first birthday.  

This last post is about Annette the mom who raised me until she died too young on Feb 4th, 1965 a week before my 17th birthday. 

For some reason this year I felt their lost a little more acutely than usual.  And as hard as those losses are they made me the women I am today so I am grateful for the experiences.  I also know that in many ways it is better than what my adopted daughters are going through.  As they repeatedly see the poor choice a mother makes and watch her slowly self destruct.  Maybe this contributed to my not wanting to write in February.

Happy Birthday,Annette!

One of the bloggers I follow does this really cool thing where she wishes her ancestors Happy Birthday or remembers someone on an anniversary.  I felt it was a good idea and I had wanted to try it two years ago.   Well two special girls came to live with me and I have been busy.  This year I decided to try my hand at it.  After all I need to make time for my interests.  

So today, the 7th of January 1919 my Mom, Annette Carolyna Corkish was born.  Her parents were Alfred B. Corkish and Mildred E. Swan.  She was born on Nantucket Island the youngest of six children.  

I don't know much about her early life.

She studied nursing in Boston and became an Army nurse in the Pacific at the end of WWII.  After the war she moved to NYC and lived with a sister.  She meet and married my Dad.

Family lore has it she was one of the nurses who cared for my mother when she was dying of Breast Cancer.   

She was a strong women to take on my Dad and me, a 16 month old when they married. 

Annette on her Wedding Day

She definitively was pretty!

She also did a good job of taking care of me and my three half brothers she had with my Dad.  Unfortunately she also died too young from Colon Cancer in 1965 a week before my 17th birthday.   

She never wanted me to be a nurse, she told me the work was hard and boy she was right.  I never regretted my decision to be a nurse and I am sure is proud of the good career I had as a nurse. 

Happy 96th Birthday!

I think of you often and I am glad you were a part of my life.

My Dad's Photo Album

My Dad made three or four photo albums of our family.  Think about that it was my Dad who made them not my Mom.  I have two of the albums.  I am not sure what happened to the others.  My brother who lived with my Dad until his death and lived in his home until the house sold did not have the albums when

I visited him in 2009. 

A few years back I had taken some of the pictures out of the book and placed them on black pages and wrote what my dad had written for each page.  I wanted my albums to all be 8.5 x 11.  I didn't feel good about this so I did not proceed with the project.  

Saturday morning while preparing to go scrapbooking with some friends, I hit upon a wonderful idea.  Why not cut the pages out of the books, leaving his pages intact and add them to my paper to fit my books.  I asked my fellow scrapers and they agreed. 

I am posting just some of the pages here.  Now that the pages are scanned I can also send copies to my brothers.

 

My Mom's & Dad's Wedding Day.   This is my second Mom that raised me, my Mother had died in February. 

 

 

Honeymoon in Niagara Falls both the NY and Canadian sides.  They swam in the Great Lakes.

 

And we came home

 

  Mary Puss  is home and - and fooling with Daddy

 

That was my nick name my Dad gave me and when

I was in a bad mood it became sour puss.

 

I did nine pages but I won't bore you with all of them.  I am happy with the results.  I may add some journaling notes and copy what my Dad wrote as his white ink is very faded on the black paper.  I even tried my white ink pen on the old porous paper and it soaks in and is very faded.  I want to save the information.

 

I did post more picture here.  

 

Here are the two album I have.

 

 

 

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.

 

 

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!

 

 

Antique Hanger

I am not sure when an item becomes an antique but because this hanger belonged to my Grandma Aunt I will call it an antique.

We have been remodeling here at my house and yesterday while I was replacing the cloths and hangers in the cloths closet I notice this one wooden hanger that had HARTMANN written into the wood.  I thought I remember this hanger.  I am not sure but I think it is the one my Dad hung his Fireman uniform on and it is his writing. 

I turned it over and I could barely make out some writing on the other side, the first word I noticed was Corkish.  It took a couple of minutes but I was able to see Mrs. Richard Bently Corkish.  I have never seen or remember seeing this writing  on the hanger before.   But I remember the writing from birthday cards I use to receive from my Grandma Aunt.  I stand corrected my grandfather was Alfred Bentley, so this belonged to my uncle's wife.  Thanks cousin Holly for the correction.

Why did Grandma Aunt Lucille write her name on her hanger?  Was it so it would be returned to her? Was it a tradition or a gift? 

I think my Dad wrote his name on it to find his uniform easier when it hung with other uniforms.

So how did this hanger make it all the way to Mesa, Arizona from Nantucket Island, Massachusetts?  This is what I think my Mom Annette Corkish used the hanger and took it with her to New York.  She married my Dad who used it.  Then I took it when I left home and moved many times until I arrived here. 

I like wood hangers so I won't have thrown it out.  I think I never noticed the writing before because I wouldn't have appreciated it then as much as I do now. 

Funny how things change as you mature.

One small step for me and my ancestors.  

A Treasure from the Cigar Box

This is the first post about the items in my Dad's cigar box , read about the cigar box here.

These documents are my Mom, Annette's Separation Qualification Record.  She was in the Army Nurse Corps towards the end of and after the end of WWII.  She was stationed at the 248th General Hospital at Manila Luzon Philippine Islands.  She entered the service on 29 Mar 1945 and was relieved of active duty on 15 Aug 1947.  Her rank was 1st Lieutenant. 

She earned two medals

Asiatic Pacific Service Medal

WWII Victory Medal Front

WWII Victory Medal Reverse Side

We don't have her medals or any pictures she took while in the service.  She never told me about her experiences.  When I first asked she felt I was too young to know, when I was older she was too sick with Cancer to be asked. Pictures of the medals are from various web sites.

Happy Birthday Annette

Funny how your brain works, I was think a lot about my Mom Annette yesterday.  This is the Mom who rasied me after my Mother died.  I was thinking it is her birthday week, and maybe I should post something about a person on their birthday on my blog.  But since I thought I had already missed her Birthday I would wait until Sunday to do it, when life wasn't so busy.

So this morning I cranked up the old Genealogy software to check which day was offically her Birthday and it was the 7th, not the 6th.  See I was thinking about her on the correct day. 

Our Family 1951, Whitestone NY

Mom, Happy Belated Birthday, I haven't forgotten you and all you did for me. 

Mom with all four kids 1960, Fort Lauderdale FL

Other posts about Mom are here, here & here.
 

Almost Wordless Wednesday

Grandma Corkish and me

I was about to get ready for bed when I had to do one more thing.  I found this old letter from my brother's mother in law.  She had borrowed a couple of pictures from my Dad and had sent them back to me.  This is one of those pictures.  I am thinking I am about 6 in this picture, so that would be about 1956.  The stance is just cracking me up.  I still like to stand with my hands in my pockets.

I can't do math at 11:30 at night this would have been 1954.

Memorial Day: My Mom Was an Army Nurse During WWII

It is Memorial Day weekend a time to remember the fallen soldiers of our country.  I remember when we would get the red poppy flowers and wear them.

My mother survived WWII but I thought I would write about her today.  She was an Army Nurse during the war, she was stationed in the Philippines, and that is all she told me when I was at age 11.  I can remember it well we were standing in her bedroom and we were packing to move to Florida.  She was packing her old army foot locker.  She promised to tell me when I was older, only that talk never came.  She had some photos but she would not share them with me.  I do not know what happened to the photos.  I was the oldest and left home first.  I have no idea what my Dad did with them when he moved out of the house we lived in. 

I do not know if she was one of the nurses that was captured while in the Philippines but I hope to find the answer to that question. 

I used her old Army foot locker for years as my coffee table and when ever I moved from one apartment to another. I no longer have the foot locker, but it did made it to Arizona.  I had her American flag that was present to the family and draped her coffin when she was buried. It was stolen from me when it was hanging outside for a holiday. 

I cannot find any records on her service yet, but I will keep looking.  So far all I have to document her service is her gravestone.  And the only reason I have this is from a Find a Grave volunteer. 

One small step for me and my ancestors.

Find A Grave Update

Oh this is too exciting, another email!

Great News!



Find A Grave contributor, Christine has fulfilled your photo request for Annette Hartmann. To see the new photo(s), visit Annette Hartmann's online memorial by clicking on the link below:


http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=68941016

This is my second Mom's grave stone.  I knew she had been an Army Nurse during WWII but now I know her rank.  I also thought she signed up in Massachusetts where she is from but maybe she signed up in New York.  It is a lead since I have never found any records of her in Massachusetts. 

I had her veteran's flag that was on her coffin and I had it hanging outside of my townhouse back in the 90's.  I went out one evening and came home and some one had stolen it.  I was not a happy camper, I still get mad about it when I think of it.  I guess if I had been smart maybe I should have place the flag in one of those triangle boxes.  Oh well too late now.  I was just proud to hang her flag.

My attempts to be a contributor have not been too successful.  I found one open request and took the picture and submitted it.  But every other time I have searched to find an open request they were claimed the day before I went in to check.  I am set up to be notified by email when a request is placed but I have not received such an email,  and yes my email is correct. 

I was showing the pictures of the grave stones to my husband, who isn't really into genealogy and he said, "This is so cool that people are willing to take these pictures.  What a great idea." 

One small step for me and my ancestors.

Funeral Card Friday - Annette C. Hartmann

Annette C. Hartmann

When I have seen the post about Funeral Cards, I think, "oh I wish I had some".  Well on Sunday while looking for the newspaper clippings about "me",  I found this one funeral card. 

This was for my Mom, (second Mom) Annette.  She died when I was a senior in High School from Metastatic Colon Cancer.  She fought a good fight.  It is hard at any age but as a teenager it is even harder.  Finding this card brought back memories. 

I am glad I have it and have placed it in a safer place, so it can be found with my other Genealogy Material.

One small step for me and my family.

Sharing Memories: Time with Grandma

Lorine McGinnis Schulze from Olive Tree Genealogy Blog has this wonderful weekly Sharing Memories blog post.  I'm not sure why I don't catch them every week but you can find all 37 of them on her side bar of her blog.  I'm going to have to review the list and see if there are any more topics I can use. 


Since my blog has multiple purposes of sharing my learning experiences about doing genealogy and sharing the stories of my family so they are not forgotten, this is a perfect topic. 

I remember two trip for sure to my Grandparents home in Nantucket Island.  This were my Mom's (my second mother's) parents.  My Mom did adopt me, when I was 10, so they are my adopted grandparents.  They are the only grandparent I knew, since both the Hartmanns and the Chaplins all died before I was born. 

Nantucket Island October 1949

Here are some pictures from my first trip in October of 1949, my parents had been married about 4 to 5 months.  As you can see I like cats from an early age.  Notice the basket my Mom is holding for the clothespins, is that one of those expensive Nantucket Island Baskets??  Of course I have no recollection of this trip. 

Mary, Donald & George 1956, Nantucket Island

The trip in 1956 I do remember but not all of the details.  We drove from Long Island New York to Cape Cod, Massachusetts and took the ferry to Nantucket Island.  In our new 1956 Chevy. 

Alfred B. Corkish & Mildred E. Swann Corkish 1956

The things I remember about my grandma's house, was we sleep upstairs and there was no bathroom upstairs.  We had to use the chamber pots because kids were not allowed to go downstairs after they had been put to bed.  She had an ice box and the ice man came two times a week with a big block of ice.  I had swordfish cooked for dinner and loved it.  We could have Rice Crispies for breakfast and I don't know why I enjoyed them there so much better than at home but I can remember sitting and listening to the snap, crackle and pop.  Maybe just because it was vacation and we had more time.  I can remember being the only child who was allowed to play the piano because I did not pound it like my brothers.  I remember ship in a bottle on the mantel. 

This is my Nantucket friend Miriam we wrote each other well into high school and maybe even nursing school.  I loved the beach and still do, I'm just too far away from the beach to enjoy it often.  Grandma's house was about a block away from the beach.  We would swing on the swings in Miriam back yard.  We went to pick fresh blueberries and my brother George was bitten by a tick and my Mom had to get it off of him. 

My Nantucket friend Miriam Hull

My parents slept in the front bedroom upstairs which was my mother's bedroom when she was a girl.  The house use to have two families in it one on the second floor and one on the first floor.  I guess eventually my grandparents bought the whole house.  There was one bathroom down stairs.  There was a front parlor where the piano was and the fireplace with the ship in a bottle.  There was a big kitchen and a big dinning room.

Last trip to Nantucket Island August 1958

This picture is from the last visit in 1958, we flew there that year.  This was taken just before we left to fly back to New York.  Noticed how dressed up we were. 

Grandma Corkish was legally blinds and she could just she shadows one of my fondest memories of her are the pictures books she made for us kids.  Oh how I wish I had one of them now.  She took those marble covered composition books and cut pictures out of magazines and pasted them on to the pages of the note books.  Sometimes the pictures would be upside down, but we didn't care.  I would sit for hours looking at each book, I think there were three of them one for each kid.