This week's #family history challenge--What's Your Favorite Discovery--from Amy Johnson Crow's #52Ancestors52Weeks sparked a vivid memory. In mid-January 2009 I discovered first hand what our nation's capital is like in winter. Washington, D.C.'s humid air wraps your body in a vise; a cold breeze off the river increases its grip. I walked briskly from the … Continue reading Grandma Serena Had A Cat
Chase City
Points of View
I look through a viewfinder at least once a day. Photography makes me practice seeing different points of view; the very act of framing the familiar often reveals a hidden detail that adds unexpected meaning, an "aha!" that leaves me changed. Genealogy can be a framing exercise too, with questions serving as viewfinder. During research on my dad's neighbors, the Crute family, … Continue reading Points of View
Tip of the Day: Details Matter
I took another box of mixed media from the house, the house my father last lived in. Most of the holiday cards I threw out, their messages meaningful only to Norman. Many of the photographs were ones I had sent him, or copies of pictures he had snapped and sent to me years ago. Several letters … Continue reading Tip of the Day: Details Matter
Chase the Man. Chase the City.
Today's NY Times Opinionator piece discusses the history between Abe Lincoln and Salmon P. Chase, an earnest, no nonsense man who was both a fabulous Secretary of the Treasury and Lincoln's arch rival. Why care about this troublemaker? Because the dude had a fan club among the founders of a little town in Mecklenburg County, … Continue reading Chase the Man. Chase the City.
This Day in Family History: September 21, 1952
Sixty-one years ago, my mother left campus life behind to visit a little town a couple of hours south. In truth it wasn't the little town she wanted to see, but the family of the man she loved. Marilyn Minor was a junior occupational therapy major at the Richmond Polytechnic Institute that fall of 1952. … Continue reading This Day in Family History: September 21, 1952
Shoots, Roots, and Leaves 