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Writing Challenge: What Did You Want to be When You Grew Up?
Posted on July 31, 2022 1 Comment
This is a common question we ask young people all the time. It is a question fraught with pitfalls. As a high school counselor, I devised a strategy for my students. I told them “Just figure out a school and some major or aspiration you ‘might’ want to accomplish.” Adults want nothing more than to […]
The Circle Game: Loss and Healing
Posted on July 26, 2022 17 Comments
Dear Readers you may be wondering where I have been. I have been wondering that too. If one has lived a half century or more one has endured loss. Sometimes the losses are monumental like death or war, and sometimes so subtle we may hardly notice them. Then one day you wake-up to the passage […]
A Love Letter to Young Genealogists
Posted on June 11, 2022 9 Comments
Dear Young Genealogist, Once upon a time I was you. I always had an interest in the past and unlike many of my peers I enjoyed hanging out with old people (gray haired retirees). I liked their stories and their points of view. I tried to imagine living through life without cars and planes and […]
Hands in the Mud: Writing Challenge
Posted on March 27, 2022 3 Comments
I was daydreaming about mud which led to this piece of writing. I will have some writing suggestions at the end. “Learn to humble yourself, you are but earth and clay.” Thomas a Kempis When I was a kid we made mud pies. The best mud was made from dirt with lots of clay in […]
Catch & Release, Word Fishing: Writing Challenge
Posted on March 20, 2022 2 Comments
“Every man is a quotation from all his ancestors.” Ralph Waldo Emerson If fishing is a metaphor for writing, the title is the bait. I often start with the title. It’s setting the hook, attracting the reader, but it has another purpose. It sets the scope and determines what it is I am hoping to write […]
One Fine Autumn Afternoon at the City Hotel
Posted on March 4, 2022 4 Comments
This is a work of historical fiction grounded in the facts as catalogued in My Woman Warrior . This is just one incident in my 2nd great grandmother’s life. It is my first attempt at historical fiction, so be kind. At the end I will briefly talk about my process. Mrs. Catherine Adeline Mosier ran […]
Heirlooms Gone, but not Forgotten
Posted on February 13, 2022 8 Comments
We keep some things so close, that even though we do not own them, they are never far away. The things that are indelible. The things that in a millisecond transport you back to the beginnings of our time, upon this earth. Their texture, fragrance, as close to you now as they were then, a […]
Writing Challenge: What Reminds you of your Grandmother
Posted on January 12, 2022 3 Comments
What is something that always reminds you of your grandma? This was a question that was asked by Connections-Experiment in a Twitter post. My first reaction was instantaneous. Grandma’s Trinket Chest. Before I tell you more about this former candy box, as we all know we have at least two grandmothers. I only had the […]
Sign of a Kind Heart: A Soprano’s Aria Chapter 26
Posted on November 19, 2021 Leave a Comment
Monday Aug 5 – Up early. Jessie and Sylvester get started about 8 oclock to Hayward for him to Entrain for Fort McDowell where Uncle Sam will make a soldier boy out of him. Eilene and Leo Hoffman came about 2:30. I will cut and fit her gray dress. I dislike the job exceedingly. I […]
The Mystery of the Fleur-de Lis: Why would John SHELDEN / SHELDON use this symbol in his sheep brand?
Posted on November 6, 2021 9 Comments
You just never know what mysteries you will be presented with in your research and how sometimes there is very little to be found about them. Such is the case of John SHELDEN’s [John of Kingstown] sheep brand as registered in South Kingstown, Rhode Island in 1705. You might think why does it matter—and perhaps […]
Wheaton Wood 