Passing It On

Five We Like: Another week of family history goodies

There’s a lot of good family history information available on the Internet. Here are five places we’ve enjoyed visiting this week:

Return of family-history letters 'almost a miracle.’ A cache of family letters dating to 1865 is lost, only to pop up several months later several states away. The finder, who bought the letters on eBay, recognized their family history value and began a quest to reunite them with their rightful owners.

A catalog of broken dreams. National Public Radio reviews Important Artifacts, a book by New York Times op-ed page art director Leanne Shapton: “Foregoing narrative entirely, Shapton tells the story of a couple's relationship in the form of a staggeringly precise ersatz auction catalog that annotates the common detritus of a love affair — notes, CD mixes, e-mails, photos, books— and places the objects up for sale.”

Interview with an actual witness to a 1932 mob hit. The current film Public Enemies is Hollywood’s version of mobster life in the 1930s, but Aunt Tootsie recently shared her own real-life observations of a mob hit that resulted in her testifying in court as a terrified teen.

Beginning family history research. This 10-minute video gives viewers an overview of some of the options for starting a family tree.

A cartoonist in the family. Victor Pazmino was a comic book artist whose career ran well into the 1940s. He wasn’t well-known but apparently enjoyed some success in his chosen field. Thanks to the foresight of some relatives, we know a bit about this man who never married and died in 1970, still, I would love to know more.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo courtesy of procsilas.

Nut Tree potato salad

Due to popular demand (and the oversight of not including it in the regular post), here is the recipe for the famous Nut Tree potato salad. Click on the photo for a clearer version.  Enjoy!

That potato salad includes some family history, too

Let’s talk potato salad. (It makes my mouth water just thinking about it.)

Potato salad is more than just the mainstay of pot lucks and picnics, it’s a vessel for passing on a tasty bit of family history. As the story in today’s Des Moines Register by Vickie D. Ashwill is headlined, potato salad is “a family tradition.”

The Register recently asked readers to share their potato salad recipes and more than 50 responded. Many of those recipes that had interesting lineage were featured in the article.

One recipe had been passed on through six generations after being imported to Iowa from New York. Another was credited for sealing the deal when one young man was so impressed by his picnic date’s potato salad that he proposed and they wed. Only later did he learn that potato salad was all she could make.

There were tales of secret ingredients and special techniques and one sad story of a recipe lost. Peg Funke and her siblings told Ashwill that they “have no real clue as to where [mom’s] special recipe originated, since she never found the time to even scribble down her 'spuddy little secret’.”

One common thread throughout the article is that of fond family memories evoked from this simple side dish. One family conceded that there is likely to be a spirited dispute over possession of the green-speckled potato salad bowl used by the family for the past 40 years.

In my childhood, potato salad was pretty much potato salad, tasty but without any special memories. In my adulthood, however, I’ve become an ardent devotee of the Nut Tree potato salad my wife and I learned to make when we lived in Vacaville, California, home to the now-defunct and much-missed Nut Tree complex.

I’m perfectly willing to share this recipe with our children, even though none of them has ever asked for it. After all, what’s life without a good potato salad story?

Writing prompt of the day: What recipes do you associate with family stories?

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family stories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo courtesy of erix!.

Grandma’s journals answer some questions, raise others

Family journals can be lifesavers. Literally.

Thanks to the 28 years of journals kept by my paternal grandmother, I am able to answer many of the questions I neglected to ask when she was still alive. Of course, the journals also raise some questions I will likely never know the answers to.

I always pictured my Dad’s parents as quiet, strict, stay-at-home types. They were much more complex than that.

In the last year I have learned that they lost the first house they were buying when the owner of record went broke just at the start of the depression. They later moved into the house I knew as their home and began an endless series of upgrades, including replacing the floors with maple flooring they bought from the first school my father attended.

Grandma had been married once before she married Grandpa, something I’m certain Grandpa knew about but which was apparently kept from their first-born, my Dad. I have found no mention of her first husband in the journals, however.

I have learned, to my utter amazement, that this hard-working, blue collar couple from Iowa also owned land in Florida and, apparently, Texas. They were smitten by Florida from their first visit and eventually bought some property in Clearwater Beach, land they never developed and which Grandma sold in the early 1960s after Grandpa’s death.

The vague journal references to Texas, though, are a mystery to me. In 1956, when they leased the oil rights to an unnamed company, there was a series of meetings, letter exchanges and phone calls with lawyers before Grandpa and his three brothers signed off on the deal.

Since an unrelated woman from their hometown of North Bend, Nebraska, was also mentioned in the oil leasing deal, I wonder who actually owned the property and what the outcome was. Perhaps I’ll learn more as I work my way through the journals.

In the meantime, I’ll continue to enjoy Grandma’s observations on family, work, life and health as well as her near-compulsive fascination with the weather.

Writing prompt for the day: Have you collected and examined the diaries and journals of your departed family members?

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Photo: Harry lehmer and Jessie Breckenridge in 1919. (Walter B. Lehmer collection).

Five We Like: Another week of family history goodies

There’s a lot of good family history information available on the Internet. Here are five places we’ve enjoyed visiting this week:

Life Advice From Old People. Actor/writer Seth Menachem records and posts short video interviews with older people he meets, from his neighbors to famous folk like actor Jon Voight. Each offers special advice from their own life experiences. Thanks to Josh Fleming for finding this for me.

Search 500 Genealogy Blogs. If regular search engines aren’t quite cutting it for you, you can specifically search nearly 500 genealogy-related blogs at this site. While you’re there, click on the “suggest a geneaology link” button and suggest they add this blog to their list.

The Internet Archive. This nonprofit site, started in 1996, “was founded to build an Internet library, with the purpose of offering permanent access for researchers, historians, and scholars to historical collections that exist in digital format.” It’s remarkable in its breadth and depth.

Heir Hunters. This BBC One program (similar to America’s The History Detectives) is available for viewing on your computer.

A Tombstone Tells the Story.  To learn how Ellen Notbohm “went to North Dakota looking for ancestors and came home with a police escort,” you’ll just have to read this interesting story yourself.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo courtesy of The Moment

Ordinary people, extraordinary stories

In the course of my writing career I’ve had the opportunity of meeting and writing about many famous people.

For instance, there was the time in the 1970s that Hank Aaron confided to me that major league baseball managers were over-rated, that none of them had taught him anything that made him a better player.

Then there was the time that hall of fame pitcher Bob Feller called to complain that a trading card company was treating him badly, issuing press releases that he would make an appearance he had not agreed to. “Hell, now I have to go or I look like the bad guy,” Feller groused.

And there was Ron Stander, a not-so-well-known name but a man who once stood toe-to-toe with heavyweight champion Joe Frazier and was one punch away from claiming Frazier’s world championship belt. Ronnie once shared with me a hilarious tale that involved drinking, a courthouse, stuffed birds, a snowbank and an arrest.

But throughout my career I generally found telling the stories of so-called ordinary people to be even more satisfying. The first feature story I ever wrote as a professional set the course that would eventually lead to my present career as a personal historian.

Joe Whiteface had grown up on a South Dakota Indian reservation, where he was enthralled by American football, which he knew only from watching it on television. When he found himself in Council Bluffs, Iowa, for his senior year of high school, Joe decided to try football himself.

Joe’s career was ended before it began. At an early practice, he fractured his leg during tackling drills and ended up in the hospital where I first met him. Knowing that a kid in a hospital bed would make a lousy photo, I stopped at a magazine stand and bought a Street & Smith football yearbook as a prop for the photo. I could then use the book as reference material for the upcoming season, I reasoned.

I got a good story from Joe who was remarkably upbeat, considering the circumstances. One reason was the magazine. He couldn’t put it down. He may not have seen one before. There was no way I could take it away from him so I left it and he thanked me profusely.

I remember Joe Whiteface as much as I remember Stan Musial , Red Skelton, Waylon Jennings and George McGovern from my journalistic past. I’ll bet the ordinary people in your family history share similar spots in your memory.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Photo: Walter B. Lehmer met these girls on the train they were taking to California to visit their soldier boyfriends during World War II. (Walter B. Lehmer collection).

Legacy Letter Project connects students with seniors

One of the great benefits of learning about and sharing a family history is the transfer of wisdom among generations.

With age comes the wisdom that can only be gained through life experiences that test us, toughen us, reward us and open doors to possibilities, often without warning. David Gould, a professor of leisure studies at the University of Iowa, used this premise to launch the Legacy Letter Project.

Gould learned something remarkable when he assigned his students to interview a senior citizen about how their lives had changed since they were of college age.

“[I] ultimately found out that my students really didn’t have any connection with someone who was ‘a senior’ in their life. When I realized that that multigenerational conversation wasn’t going on between my students and seniors, I looked for an opportunity to bring that about,” Gould said.

What resulted was the Legacy Letter Project. Starting in January 2007, Gould solicited letters of life lessons learned from older people who were willing to share them with his students. In May he randomly distributed the responses to his students with a cover letter.

“The letters I have received have come not only from all over the United States, but a few foreign countries as well,” Gould wrote. “They have arrived in the form of poems, short stories, eulogies, and more. They have shared the wisdom gained from raising a Downs Syndrome child, to surviving domestic violence or breast cancer.”

“While I hope you enjoy the letter you receive, the larger lesson is that someone cared enough to write it. Someone possibly sixty years your elder wanted to tell you a little bit about their life, and what they’ve learned.”

The Iowa Alumni magazine did an article on the project and the project’s web site has links to many of the responses received by Gould, and guidelines for submitting your own letters if you wish.

Writing prompt for the day: What do you know now that you wish you would have known when you were in your 20s? Please share your responses in the comments section below.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Five We Like: Another week of family history goodies

There’s a lot of good family history information available on the Internet. Here are five places we’ve enjoyed visiting this week:

• Humorous Headstones. From Mel Blanc’s “That’s All Folks” to stones carved in the shape of motorcycles to Lego skulls, this site features some deviations from tombstone norms.
• Lords of the Dance! I dare you to sit still while watching this clip. It comes from an off-air break during the July 4 Boston Pops concert hosted by perhaps television’s most beloved late night host, Craig Ferguson.
• The 1500-Year-Old Mound vs. Sam's Club. Deep Fried Kudzu has been following the effort to save an ancient Indian mound in Alabama before it can be tapped for fill dirt for a Sam’s Club. Sam’s Club appeared to be winning last week, but check the site for the latest updates.
• Genealogy Wise: The genealogy social network. This site has only been around a couple of weeks, but has taken off in popularity. As of July 17, over 6,800 people had joined and over 2,600 groups had been created. There have been a few stumbles, but the site merits a look by anyone who’s into social media.
• Sightlines: A Poet’s Diary. Inspired to write since childhood by her writer father, Janet Riehl has penned a six generational family memoir told through story poems. Check out Janet’s web site to learn more about this unique mode of recording a family history.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo courtesy of cygnus921.

‘Show, don’t tell’ makes stories more memorable

Imagine losing all your childhood memories.

That’s what happened to Townes Van Zandt, the troubled and eclectic songwriter, whose life ended at age 52 better than 12 years ago. I learned this while watching the excellent biographical documentary, Townes Van Zandt: Be Here to Love Me, in which the composer of Pancho & Lefty revealed that insulin shock treatments wiped out all memory of his childhood.

For the rest of his life, Van Zandt only remembered his earliest years through stories told by others. His active mind had to conjure up the images that were missing.

What Van Zandt went through was the same thing any person goes through when hearing a story that they do not remember from their own experience. It is also one of the great challenges of anyone sharing stories from their own experiences: to give listeners enough detail to accurately re-create the event in their own minds.

This is what good storytellers do. They provide vivid detail. They create drama. They stir emotions. They put listeners at the center of the story. This is why writing coaches stress “show, don’t tell.”

As listeners, we cannot help but create our own mental images based on our personal experiences and what we are hearing. As storytellers, it is our duty to make certain we are giving our listeners our stories in a way that creates the images we intend.

Writing prompt of the day: Find an example in your own writing that can be improved by “showing, not telling” and experiment with it. Ask others for their opinions on which way works better.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Whoa, Nellie … show a little patience there, Bub

News flash: We live in an age of instant gratification. What? You already knew that?

Well, then, you probably also know that putting together a successful family history project doesn’t work like that. As the cliché goes, it’s a marathon, not a sprint. Therefore, it is prudent to employ the marathon training tactic of LSD – long slow distance.

While we’re accustomed to receiving a mind-boggling cache of possibilities to every Google query in mere seconds, the seasoned family history researcher knows things aren’t that simple. There’s lots of work behind those nuggets of information that make up your family’s history.

Somebody first went to the trouble to record those vital records and family stories for someone else to discover many years later, probably in a musty government building, a church basement or tucked within the pages of a family bible or journal.

It’s a wise researcher who knows better than to expect the unexpected. Consider, too, the false promise of the Internet. The Chart Chick, Janet Hovorka, reports that the average life of a Web site is between 44 and 100 days. If you spot something you like on the web, better grab it immediately.

Then, you’d better hang on to it. Some numbers from Janet:

• Nearly half (45 percent) of computer users don’t back up their files
• Nearly half (43 percent) of computer users lose important information each year.
• More than two-thirds (69 percent) of computer users have lost data due to accidental deletion, disk or system failure, viruses, fire or another disaster; 40 percent have lost data two or more times in the last year.

Between the relative fragility of the Internet and the grunt work required to find information outside of cyberspace, it’s wise to keep your expectations in check and prepare yourself for the long haul while preserving your family history.

Writing prompt for the day: What’s the one piece of your family history that you most want to know about? Create a plan for learning about it and get to work.

Larry Lehmer is a professional personal historian who helps people preserve their family histories. To learn more, visit his web site, send him an e-mail or follow him on Twitter.

Flickr photo courtesy of me'nthedogs.