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.  

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History Grandma's House

I have three sets of grandparents but only one set was still alive when I was born. These were my Mom's (my Second Mom) parents, Alfred & Mildred Corkish.  They lived on Nantucket Island.  We went there about 3 or 4 times until we moved to Fort Lauderdale, Florida.  I really only remember the trip I made when I was 10.  I have pictures from earlier trips but no memories.What do remember from when I was 10.  
There was a piano in the front pallor but I was the only child that could play on the piano because I didn't pound on it like my brothers did I played softly.  I didn't know how to play I just liked to pretend I could play.

On top of the piano was a ship in a bottle, that I really admired and wanted.  Not that I was ever going to get it but a kid can dream. I don't remember the story about the ship in a bottle, if Grandpa built it himself or one of his sons. 

My grandma still had an ice box in the kitchen and the ice man came twice a week with a big block of ice.  Here is a picture of an old ice box I don't know how old Grandma's was but it looked a lot like this one.

Picture from macombhistory.us

There was only one bathroom on the first floor and after we had gone to bed we were not allowed back down stairs. So we used a chamber pot upstairs.  Here is a picture of a chamber pot. 

Picture from collectiblesbypj.com

There was a short dirt road to the house.  It was close to the beach about 2 blocks or so I think.  It was a wood frame house and the wood was that grey weather beaten look that is typical of New England. 

It was originally a two family house with one family downstairs and one family upstairs.  When my Mom was a kid they lived upstairs and later the purchased the whole house.  I remember it seemed long and narrow. 

Grandparents Corkish & my family 1958

I enjoyed my time I spent there and would love to go back and see the house. 

Here is an earlier post with a picture of me and Grandma, I was about 6.
Here is an earlier post about Grandma's house.

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.

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. 

Almost Wordless Wednesday

This a group pictures in Nantucket Island, Mass, in the side yard of Grandparents Corkish home at 3 Cottage Ct.
Left to Right: Mildred Swann Corkish, Alfred Corish, Annette Corkish Hartmann, George J. Hartmann Jr.
Front Row: Donald, George and 10 year old Me.