An Old Fashioned Thanksgiving for COG 112

Since we only lived five blocks from my maternal grandparents house, we always went there for Thanksgiving. When I was real young grandma baked the turkey, stuffing and rolls and mom made the fruit salad, pies, and mashed potatoes. We also had homemade pickles, cranberry sauce, celery, carrots, and sometimes coleslaw. Later on mom started making the turkey and dressing and grandma made the pies, fruit salad, rolls, and mashed potatoes. Since we lived a few blocks away mom cooked the turkey and dressing at home and we loaded it in the car and took it to grandmas.
A Thanksgiving card from my dad's postcard collection.

When I was older I liked to bake, so mom would let me bake the pumpkin pie, which was kind of odd as I did not like pumpkin pie, so I never tasted it, but everyone would tell me it was a good pie. Since I did not like pumpkin pie every year I was asked what kind of pie I wanted, and I usually said Apple pie, so while others were eating pumpkin pie I got Apple pie.
I don't remember when we started recycling the old aluminum TV trays, but we used the leftovers from Thanksgiving to make TV dinners, they had a vegetable, mashed potatoes, gravy, turkey, dressing and cranberry sauce, and they are so good on a cold night when you put them in the oven to heat up and eat. All those aluminum trays are gone now, but we have some nice plastic ones that are similar and still use the leftovers for TV dinners. This year we made 22 TV dinners.

Wordless Wednesday Brown Swiss Jersey

This is my Uncle Ralph Hansen and his Brown Swiss Jersey calf. I liked this picture as it looks like his hat has wings, but if you look close you see it is a crack in the building wall that makes the wings, not the hat.

Saturday Night Fun Historical Maps

Hey Genea-philes, have you recovered from your tryptophan coma on Thursday? Wake up - it's SATURDAY NIGHT! Time for more GENEALOGY FUN!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Go to the Historical U.S. County Maps page on Randy Majors website ( http://randymajors.com/p/maps.html ) .Read the whole page for tips on how to use the tool by entering a current geographical place in the United States and a year (from the drop down list) at the top of the page.

2) Pick one place of interest and enter the name of the place (a current town/city or county) and choose a year from the dropdown list. Use the Back < and Forward > arrow links to move forward or backward in time.

3) Note the Historical jurisdiction for the place you selected for each year. Write down the list from 1850 to 1930.

Well I picked Columbus, Montana where my dad grew up.

1850 Unorganized Federal territory
1860 Nebraska Territory
1870 Gallatin County
1880 Gallatin County
1890 Yellowstone County
1900 Yellowstone County
1910 Yellowstone County
1920 Stillwater County
1930 Stillwater County

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Fall

Week #47 – Fall

Week 47. Fall. What was fall like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.




I always loved Fall at Twin Lakes, the crowds have left for school, and usually it is very calm and so you get the mirror like lake reflecting the trees on the other side of the lake. The yellow trees are larch (tamarack) and they look like a fir tree in the summer, but loose their needles in the fall like a deciduous tree. Several years ago I planted a couple of pear trees, a couple of cherry trees, four apple trees and a plum tree. The pear tree has been loaded for the last several years, and lots of pie cherries this year also, but the most fruit we got was apples, about three boxes all together, so we have been making apple crisps for the freezer, and apple pies also for the freezer. I have been having a baked apple for lunch every day for a month now. (Core the apple, fill with brown sugar and raisins, and microwave for three minutes, be sure to cover as they spit during cooking.) We had such a late spring this year so all the fruit was late in ripening, but they all seemed to produce well.

Wordless Wednesday Thanksgiving Postcard

Another postcard from my dad's postcard collection, it is embossed, and blank on the back side.

My Mayflower Lines

When I first started researching I found my Dillinghams came to New England in 1632, and they were Quakers and did not get along with the Puritans so I did not think I would find a Mayflower ancestor, but down a few generations they married into several Mayflower families.

My Mayflower Lines

Alden
1.John Alden
2.Elizabeth Alden - Willaim Pabodie
3.Mary Pabodie – Edward Southworth
4.Mercy Southworth – Moses Soule
5.Barnanas Soule – Jane Bradbury
6.Elizabeth Soule – Enos Chandler
7.Betty/Elizabeth Chandler – Melatiah Dillingham
8.Enos Chandler Dillingham – Clarissa Virgin
9.Stanislaus Potoski Dillingham – Eliza Minerva Hellenbolt
10.Anna M. Dillingham – Anton Mikkel Hansen
11.Claude Dillingham Hansen – Margaret I. Kelly
12.Charles

Cooke
1.Francis Cooke – Hester Mayhieu
2.Jacob Cooke – Damaris Hopkins
3.Elizabeth Cooke – John Doty
4.Samuel Doten – Mercy Cobb
5.Marcy Doty – Edward Dillingham
6.Melatiah Dillingham – Elizabeth Chandler
7.See Number 8 above

Doty
1.Edward Doty – Faith Clark
2.John Doty – Elizabeth Cooke
3.See Number 4 above

Hopkins
1.Stephen Hopkins – Elizabeth Fisher
2.Damaris Hopkins – Jacob Cooke
3.Elizabeth Cooke – John Doty
4.See Numbers 2 and 3 above

Soule
1.George Soule – Mary Becket
2.John Soule – Rebecca Simmons
3.Moses Soule – Mercy Southworth
4.See Number 5 above

Saturday Night Fun Thankful

Hey genea-philes ... it's SATURDAY NIGHT again - time for more GENEALOGY FUN!!!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Think about the answers to these questions:

a. Which ancestor are you most thankful for, and why?

b. Which author (book, periodical, website, etc.) are you most thankful for, and why?

c. Which historical record set (paper or website) are you most thankful for, and why?

a. Well my mom and dad come to mind first, but my grandmother Cleo Kelly was probably the ancestor that I am most thankful for. Grandma Kelly was the second oldest of 17 children of Orville Travis. Her mother Donna Vanderpool had seven kids and died shortly after child number seven was born and so Orville married Bessie Keith and had ten more kids. If you look at the time between the first three children of Orville and Donna they may have had a couple more as there is almost a four year gap before and after my grandmother was born. Grandma Kelly lived to age 93 and I was 36 when she died, so I knew her longer than any other of my grandparents. She was also the family historian, and collected the Kelly Bible and stacks of newspaper clippings (none with dates or name of the newspaper) on the family, so when I got interested in genealogy I had a pretty good start.

b. Well the author I am most thankful for is Winthrop Alexander author of the Dillingham Family of New England. Winthrop collected information on the Dillingham family for about 50 years. My other grandmother was Anna Dillingham and she was in that book and it took my Dillingham's back to New England in 1632 and into England for another couple of generations, so as a new genealogist to have found information back that many generations was really amazing. Did Winthrop list any sources? Not a single one, but except for a few transposed dates he seems to have gotten all the information in that book correct.

c. The historical record set I am most thankful for is the Washington State Digital Archives. Why I use it almost daily in helping people that send queries to Eastern Washington Genealogical Society.

Genealogy Blogs Survey

I copied this first part from Randy Seaver's Blog GeneaMusings
I received The Weekly Genealogist newsletter from the New England Historic Genealogical Society this morning, and was interested in the results of their survey:

Last week’s survey asked how many genealogical blogs you follow. The results are:

60%, I follow no blogs.
24%, I follow 1–2 blogs.
10%, I follow 3–5 blogs.
2%, I follow 6–10 blogs.
3%, I follow over ten blogs.


The survey respondents (who are those who receive the email newsletter) are, I think, fairly well "tuned-in" to the genealogy world, and yet 60% of them do not read any blogs! And only 3% of them follow over ten blogs. The good news is that 36% follow at least one genealogy blog, and 12% follow more than two blogs.

I think Randy pretty well summed it up above, not every blog post is interesting. but so many are every day that people not reading any are missing out on a lot of information that may help them in researching their ancestors.
My Google Reader says I have subscribed to 297 blogs, and I guess slightly over half are genealogy blogs, but of the top 40 I read every day 25 are not genealogy blogs. I like blogs that have information I can use in researching my family, but I also subscribe to several with general information, and a few just for the great pictures they post as they travel around North America.

Wordless Wednesday Blanchard Idaho Stump Farm

This is my Uncle Leigh Hansen and his mom Anna (Dillingham) Hansen at the "stump farm" at Blanchard Idaho in the 1920s, before they built the house on the homestead.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Politics

Week #46 – Politics

Week 46. Politics. What are your childhood memories of politics? Were your parents active in politics? What political events and elections do you remember from your youth?

I think the first election I remember was the 1956 Presidential election between Dwight Eisenhower and Adlai Stevenson and the new NBC newscasters covering the election, Chet Huntley and David Brinkley. After that every Presidential election they covered we always watched Huntley-Brinkley. The 1960 election was real interesting as we had Henry Jackson from Washington running for President, so it was kind of a letdown when John Kennedy won the nomination and eventually the election. The first time I voted in a Presidential election was for Richard Nixon in 1972, don't remember who he ran against, but since Nixon had started a draft lottery, which I won and did not have to go into the military, so he got my vote.
Washington had a blanket primary when I started voting, it had been championed by the grange in the 1930s and it allowed voters in the primaries to vote for anyone they wanted, you did not have to register as a Republican or a Democrat, you could vote for a Republican for one office and a Democrat for the next office and the top vote getter from each party went on to the November election. I am not sure when the Republican and Democratic parties got together and sued the voters of the State of Washington, but they won at the Supreme Court arguing that the voters of Washington State were not voting properly and so our blanket primary was thrown out. Once again the grange went to work and found a primary called the top two, I think it was from Louisiana and the Supreme Court had approved it, so we adopted that and guess what happened, another lawsuit by the Republican and Democratic parties against the voters of Washington State, well this time voters won, so now we vote for the top two candidates for any office and can vote for Republicans, Democrats, Libertarians, etc., just like when we had the blanket primaries except the top two do not necessarily have to be the top vote getter from each party. Actually most races do end up with a Republican and a Democrat in the November election, but a few races have either two Republicans or two Democrats on the ballot in November. Guess what? The parties are mad, but since the Supreme Court approved it they have not figured out how to have Republicans picking Republican candidates, and Democrats picking Democratic candidates.

Saturday Night Fun Veterans Service

Dear genealogists everywhere, it's Saturday Night! Time for some Genealogy FUN.

Your mission this week, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) To celebrate Veterans Day, pick one of your ancestors or relatives with a military record and a gravestone.

2) Tell us about your ancestor's military service.

3) Tell us about your ancestor's gravestone - where is it, what is the inscription, when were you last there? Show us a picture of it if you have one available.

Well the veteran I picked is my dad Claude D. Hansen, and he was in WWII. He was single and 35 when the war started, so he enlisted in the Army Air Corps hoping to not have to do much marching. He was in the 354th Service Squadron and they serviced the B-17s and B-24s. They went first to England, then to Africa where they spent most of the war and finally to Italy. Pop ran the motor pool that kept the jeeps, and trucks and the generator running. Because he was older than most of the others he was rotated home early, and was in Ft. Dix on VE day awaiting the paperwork to leave the Army, and home here in Spokane on VJ day. After VE day the squadron was packed on a ship and was in the Panama Canal when they dropped the bomb on Hiroshima, so they headed for San Francisco and were mustered out there.


Pop is buried next to mom at Fairmount Memorial Park in Spokane, and I was there last August for Walking With Ancestors.
On Memorial Day they have flags all around the cemetery blocks and all the flags are donated from veterans. You can see pops flag below and the plaque at the base, and a picture of the cemetery flags.

Veterans Day 2011

This is a picture of a parade of men in 1917 in Columbus Montana, looks like a few were in some kind of uniforms, but I do not know the occasion. My dad's family moved to Columbus in 1910 soon after the 1910 census (so they appeared in the Minnesota census). My dad was almost 4 when they moved there and he grew up in Columbus.


The last two years I have made a tribute to my Uncle Leigh Hansen and my father Claude Hansen, both WWII veterans, but before that the next war any of my ancestors participated in was the Blackhawk War, and he did not see any action as they were still in training when Blackhawk surrendered.

Wordless Wednesday Model TT Ford

This is my dad's first truck a Model TT Ford truck, they came with a 20 horsepower 4 cylinder motor and a two speed transmission. I know my dad said he added another transmission behind the original one. He hauled logs with this truck for several years.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy Junior High School

Week #45 – Junior High School

Week 45. Junior High School. Describe your junior high school. Was it a large or small student body? Is the school still in existence today? How has it changed since you went there?

I went to Shaw Junior High School, while I lived three blocks from Whitman School and four blocks from Rogers High School. Shaw was 1.4 miles from my house. Why do I know so precisely? If you lived 1.5 miles from Shaw you got to ride the bus, but I was one block too close. Shaw was opened when I was in sixth grade so the building was still pretty new when I started seventh grade. I went three years to Shaw and most of the time I rode my bicycle except when there was snow on the ground. Shaw was built like three "H"s with the gym on the end, so HHH-Gym. The central hall ran north and south with the cafeteria and shops in the north wing, the other three wings had classrooms and at the south end of the central hall was the gym. It had a big sliding door in the middle so it could be divided for girls and boys gyms or opened for convocations. There were about 1300 students there then most from our neighborhood, but some bused from as far away as northwest Spokane in the area served by Salk Middle School now days.



This picture shows the south wing of classes on the left and the gym on the right from the lawn by the flagpole. Today they have changed the name to Shaw Middle School, and it only has 7th and 8th graders and I heard they have closed off a complete wing of the school since they have so many fewer students now.

52 Weeks to Personal Genealogy High School

Week #45 – High School

Week 45. High School. Describe your middle and/or high school. Was it a large or small student body? Is the school still in existence today? How has it changed since you went there?

I went to John Rogers High School and this first picture is how it looked when my mom went there also. She graduated in January 1933 and Rogers had opened in February of 1932, so she went three years to Hillyard High before Rogers was built.

I went to Rogers for 10th, 11, and 12th grades as 7th, 8th and 9th were in Junior High School. Rogers was four blocks from my house and over thirty years old when I was there, they had built a row of portables behind the school and I had my homeroom in one of the portables. The first floor on the front was a offices for the principal, vice principal and councelors. Second floor in middle was the library and all the rest were classrooms. The building was kind of a rectangle with the auditorium in the middle. I did not know till a long time later that there were windows in the auditorium as they were blacked out for WWII and the black was not removed till long after I was there.
Rogers was actually the smallest of the five high schools in Spokane when I was there but we had about 1800 students most in the top three grades, but it did have a few freshmen as not all the grade schools were close to a junior high school.

In 2005 they started a remodel of Rogers, they removed most of the portables, the band room, cafeteria, the east wing, the old gym and the field house, leaving just the old three story building, and to that they added a two story addition on the south side which includes a common area, more classrooms and two of the biggest gyms I have ever seen. During the remodel the students went to the old building. When the new part was finished they moved the students to the new part and started a complete remodel of the old building (except the auditorium which had been remodeled just a few years before). Part of the money came from the historic preservation fund and so the north side which was the original front is exactly the same as in 1932 except that they replaced all the windows with newer energy efficient windows.

This last picture was from the dedication on September 12, 2009, you can see the old building on the right, and the library is the big curved window facing east, just below the library is the offices, and to the right is one of the gyms. Out in the parking lot is a new clock tower, and it has a purple ribbon on it ready for the ribbon cutting. Rogers colors were purple and gold.
Today they have four grades back in high schools and Rogers is still one of the smallest with around 1000 students there now, but room for more.

Wordless Wednesday Camp 19 Deer

Camp 19 was a logging camp in north Idaho north of Priest Lake in the 1920s. This picture is from my dad's photo album and he worked as a cooks helper at first, and later bought a Model T truck to haul logs.