Passing It On

It’s old and green, but loved by all

We have a Christmas cactus in our house. Maybe you do, too.

Ours came from my Grandmother Lehmer, a small cutting at first but now a full, beautiful plant. I learned recently that my grandmother got her plant in similar fashion from one of my grandfather’s relatives. Apparently lots of people do this, passing on slips of Christmas cacti through the generations.

While it’s great to have family treasures from previous generations, there’s something special about passing on living things like plants. We also have peonies at our house that came from my mother-in-law’s yard many years ago. I regret not claiming some of her hostas as well.

We once bought a house in an older area of Council Bluffs, Iowa, that had a professionally landscaped yard. Before moving out, the previous owner took plenty of cuttings and plants with her to her new residence, nevertheless leaving a lush, leafy legacy for our enjoyment. Another regret: we left it all behind when we left town.

In these tumultuous times, when many of us face a perilous financial future, consider sharing some of your botanical bounty with friends and relatives at gift time. The cost is minimal and the rewards are great. That’s a solid ROI for anyone.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Photo: The Lehmer family Christmas cactus in bloom in 1989. This finicky plant would prefer a colder, darker room than we can provide. (Larry Lehmer collection).

Remembering the simple pleasures of a Danish Christmas

Lots of bloggers these days are putting up holiday-themed posts. Indeed, the most recent Carnival of Genealogy is devoted to holiday traditions. Although I missed the Carnival, here is a guest post by my late grandmother, Ellen Lauritsen Andersen, describing Christmas memories from her childhood on the small Danish island of Aero 100 years ago:

“Families do a lot of baking before Christmas. About 2 weeks before Christmas, stores in our town opened with new toys on a Sunday afternoon. We could hardly wait so we could go and see what’s new because we could not buy, we didn’t have any money.

“On the 23rd we called it little Christmas Eve. Mother made ableskiver. She sat by a stove burning wood & sticks. At Christmas we put prunes in ableskiver. She also made klejner.

“On Christmas Eve at 4 p.m. we children went with (our parents) to church, just about the only time small children went. I remember the pews were made double, we kids were sitting across face to face to our parents.

“Usually mother put up and decorated our tree, put real candles on it. Then after church, Dad does the chores, feed the cows, milk, etc. (First we eat, usually goose, a very swell dinner, applecake). Then Dad does chores and we do the dishes.

“Mother and Dad went in the other room to light the Christmas tree and we don’t see it until it is lit. We all go in and walk around it and sing Christmas carols. Then we kids blew out the candles and we went into the dining room to get our gifts, small, but oh so welcome.

“We were so happy, getting just one orange. I remember we took the orange to bed with us so nobody else got it away from us. Mother had a sack of hard candy. She would sit and divide it in 8 till there was about a dozen pieces for each of us kids and we really thought we had something swell.

“I remember my first and only doll I ever had. My sister Marie and I. It was beautiful. It was about 12 inches and one was dressed in blue and one in pink.”

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Photo: Ellen Lauritsen Andersen (holding baby) sings Christmas carols with her American family in 1966. (Walter B. Lehmer collection).

Navigating the slippery slope of human communications

 

Have you gotten any 2008 Christmas letters yet? You know, the kind that sum up a family’s year in a page or two?

Typically included in a holiday greeting card delivered via snail mail, these letters are microcosms of a family’s history. I wish I would have saved every Christmas letter I’ve been given over the years.

I received the first Christmas letter of the current season last week, via e-mail. I’ve received similar e-mails in past years, but this was the first one I’ve ever received electronically from a family member. I doubt that it will be the last.

It’s simply another step down that slippery slope of how we humans communicate with one another.

It wasn’t that long ago that humans used three primary means of communicating – face-to-face, the written word and telephone (and long distance was a luxury for many). Given the effort required, messages generally had more impact, were longer lasting and were easier to save than more contemporary methods.

The primary means of communicating today – e-mail, blogging and cell phones – were virtually non-existent 20 years ago. These new modes are certainly quicker and cheaper than the old ways, but are they better, from a family history standpoint?

Most of us are bombarded by thousands of messages daily, whether from mass media, social media or elsewhere. Sorting through the chatter is such a chore that we run the risk of missing something truly important to us or of simply tuning out. Just managing the messages we deem valuable is a formidable challenge as well. Almost all messages these days originate and exist solely in a digital world, where, presumably, they will eventually perish.

The work of current personal historians and genealogists is made easier by the paper trail of family history that our ancestors have left for us. Are we doing as well for our descendants?

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

How do you define ‘home?’

Where do you call home?

Is it your present residence? Or is it someplace you’ve lived in the past?

If you’re a “home is where the heart is” type of person, you probably have several places that you could rightfully call home. Any place that brings to mind the warmth and love of kind people and pleasant memories probably qualifies. But there’s a practical side to whittling that list of homes down.

For one thing, there’s the matter if interment. Unless you opt for cremation and a creative means of dispersing your ashes, you’ll probably have to settle on one spot as your final resting place. And, as anyone who has celebrated family holidays with a spouse knows, some families are blessed with more homes than can be fully enjoyed within a limited time span.

In contemporary America the problem is compounded by the fact that we’re a mobile society. For instance, my wife and I have lived in eight homes in our 38 years together, seven of them in the first 11 years. In the 18 months before we were married, I lived in six places while in the Air Force , although I would not describe any of the four barracks I lived in as “home.”

I have two friends who have spent most of their working years schlepping around the country to places like Florida, New York, Wisconsin and Illinois only to end up back in their hometown of Council Bluffs, Iowa, proving that you can, indeed, go home again.

Each place I have lived has enriched my life in some way, verifying that home to me is more defined by memories and stories than brick and mortar.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

Photo:  Cal Lehmer's home in North Bend, Nebraska, in early 1900s. (Walter B. Lehmer collection).