Our Family Has Gone to the Dogs!

Looking through old family photos from Mom I noticed how many pets get into the picture! Lots. We lean, it would seem from the evidence, toward the canine species. That said one of my personal favorites is Mom with a kitten. There's a story about that (heck, there's a story about everything in our family.) Mom swore up and down that I had the kitten picture but I looked as hard as I could but couldn't find it. Last week when sorting through images I'd scanned from Mom's extensive photo collection I finally found it!! Seems like Mom's collection is so large it kinda got "lost".

So here's the substantiating evidence of our family's love of animals. Not shown here are Mom's current two cats as well as Brother's two cats and Sister's three dogs. Here at blog central, after all these years we're down to just one old dog:)

But first a story:) It was a dark and stormy night, a snow storm to be exact. Dad drove by an old run down house around a bend in the road and saw once more a lone dog tied to his tiny dog house. He'd noticed that the poor old chap wasn't doted upon or even fed well so his eyes turned the dog's way whenever Dad drove past, which was often.

On said dark and stormy night Dad was ready. He parked nearby and made his way with stealth over to the dog who bowed his head in submission. Out came the hedge clippers to sever the tie and the dog was free! Dad snatched him up, threw the filthy canine in the back of Dad's immaculately clean Cadillac and off up the country he drove. Long story short, Dad knew a guy who also loved dogs... and the rescued pooch and new owner lived happily ever after! True story.

Photos from the Archive:

Mom with dog.
Hey, the camera's over here;)

Mom with kitten.
See Mom I didn't have this picture! HA!

One of Mom's cousins with dog.

GrandPa Cambria Williams with dog.

The house built by Daniel Williams.
Blackie the dog is sitting on the fencepost.

Me with Soupbone, the neighbors dog.

GrandMa Hellen Zeller Kelly with her dogs, 1890s

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/06/our-family-has-gone-to-dogs.html

WWII: Uncle Bernie Lands at Omaha Beach

So here's the deal: Uncle Bernie and his sibs didn't learn how to swim as kids. They grew up during the Great Depression and there wasn't much time for that sort of thing. Dad used to sneak off to a watering hole and taught himself to swim, but Bernie missed out somehow. There was a community pool but it cost money to get in or something like that so, well, just know that he never learned to swim as a kid.

When WWII broke out Uncle Bernie joined up. Went to Fort Bragg for basic training where Mom and Dad took the train to see him. It was hot and standing room all the way there, Mom said recently. But they saw him even though there wasn't a proper sleeping room to be had in the whole town... so they stayed in someones house on a dirty old bed. Gross!

Off Bernie went and as it turned out, he was one of the troops who landed at Omaha Beach. You can read all about Omaha Beach at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Omaha_Beach

From WIKIPEDIA

Now you might be ahead of me here in the telling of this story, especially if you've served. He was loaded down with his pack and arms... and couldn't swim!! Sunk like a stone. So as human instinct would dictate, he threw off his pack and arms, thrashing about in the too deep water. His CO yelled, Bernie responded, and they all stormed the beach. The rest as they say is history.

Just for fun, click on the photo of the storming of Omaha Beach above and just look at how much gear the boys were carrying! At least the guys in the photo were in shallow water!! (And I do realize that this is probably the only way in which the storming of Omaha Beach could possibly or remotely be seen as fun.)

Photo from the Archive:

Uncle Bernie, 1942
Fort Bragg.

Cousin Cynthia posted this to facebook about Uncle Bernie and Omaha Beach: He never wanted to talk about it, but he did say that when he jumped off the boat with the other soldiers, he had to swim underwater to the shore to survive. He threw off his gun and the cptain told him to go back to get it. First time he ever disobeyed orders. He said there were plenty of guns on the shore to use.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/wwii-uncle-bernie-lands-at-omaha-beach.html

Uncle Delbert: VE Day!

I've been calling Uncle Delbert and he's been telling me stories. He's 91 so he remembers what he remembers... don't we all?! Mostly he likes to talk about his military service and I'm happy to hear all of what he has to say. The other day he told me about the day the war ended in Europe, VE Day.

He was in Marseilles, France when peace broke out. Everyone took to the streets and loved to love on our boys in uniform. Just like in the movies. He somehow got his brother, also in the Army, on the phone and they made plans to meet on the beach in Normandy. Uncle Delbert got a jeep and drove all day to meet Bernie. And it happened: they met on the beach at Normandy after the war. Just like in the movies:)

Now I don't know how accurate this story is and I really don't care. It's precious to me. The thought of my two uncles meeting up on the beach at Normandy in close to proximity to when the war ended in Europe is spectacular drama. I don't care if it took Delbert a week to get there by train and foot, or how he truly contacted his brother and how he knew where Bernie was. Somehow in some crazy way they ended up on that beach after VE Day. And that's pretty cool when it comes to my family story archive. Thus it was told to me by Uncle Delbert and thus it is recorded.

Photos from my Archive. You've seen these before:

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/uncle-delbert-ve-day.html

Uncle Delbert: The Boys Go To War

Was talking to Uncle Delbert yesterday about going off to WWII. What was the mood, I asked? Looking at the photos taken before the boys in his family went off to war, they show a group of people smiling (perhaps bravely) hugging each other for dear life, together and not knowing what the future held. Here's what Uncle Delbert said about that.

He framed the mood: he was born in 1920 and grew up mostly in the Great Depression. His Dad, my Grandfather, was a coal miner. Dad, he said, came home from the mines with his week's pay of a 50-cent piece. That was it. Groceries were bought on credit at the store a couple of houses away and each week the tab would be paid off. His Dad made extra income by cutting the other miner's hair in a tiny barbershop in back of the house for 25 cents a cut. His Dad, I know, had learned to cut hair from his father-in-law, Gus Zeller, the notorious barber (and Drinking Man) often mentioned here. They really "lived on that extra income" he said.

Uncle Delbert described home life with six kids as fun, and happy with a solid sense of home justice which kept the boys in check. They never thought of themselves as being "poor" even though times were tight. (Mom has said almost the exact same thing of her home life growing up.) It's a wonderful thing that none of the three boys ended up in trouble with the law, he mused. They could be full of bedevilment, I know, from the storied my Dad told about growing up with three rascal brothers! Boys will be boys.

He had never been out of Frostburg when the attack at Pearl Harbor took place changing all of their lives. He was called up for duty, passed the physical and off he went on possibly the adventure of his life. His brother Bernie went too. Dad was called up, as I've mentioned here, but couldn't pass the physical due to severe burns to both hands when he was but two years old. Instead, he served by working in Allegany Ballistics Laboratory nearby. The brothers wrote as often as they could. The war years passed and fortunately they were all reunited after the war.

Uncle Delbert has told me three stories so far about his service years and I hope that there will be more to come. The next to come will be about him meeting up with his brother on VE Day. It brought a tear to my eye.

Photos from the archive:

Uncle Delbert in uniform.
Looks like a photo booth picture to me.

Uncle Delbert, 1942

Uncle Bernie, in uniform, about 1942.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/uncle-delbert-boys-go-to-war.html

Uncle Delbert's Stories

You know how it goes: you lose direct contact with a couple of relatives over time. People have busy lives and move all over the place and it's hard to keep up. Their name comes up in conversations and you hear news of them and their extended family but direct contact is kinda' missing. You might feel like you're in touch but you really aren't.

And so it was with my Uncle Delbert, my Dad's brother and one of Grandma's six kids. He's 91 and I always get news about him and his son Kevin but I just didn't think to pick up the phone and call him. Until just last week. I asked myself: What am I waiting for??!!

Well, first off I had to explain to him who I was!! He got me confused with my sister, which I realized when he asked about my 3 kids. Oh crap, it's been so long that I'm off his family radar! But then we got that situated and on to memories. Actually I was prompted to call him because Mom had seen him at Cousin Cynthia's Cinco de Mayo party Derby Fest... so many drinks, so little time;)

Anywho, Uncle Delbert remembered that Mom is the family genealogist and archivist and asked for copies of old photos she might have, "and whatever else you have on the history of the family." Now you don't have to ask Mom twice for stuff like that! She told me about it and was wondering how to get the pictures to Uncle Delbert and I piped up and said, "I'll do it!"

Next thing I know I have a stack of picture album pages done up in Word weighing in at 40 pages, along with a chart and ancestor report, the former almost 30 pages and the later almost 40 pages. I'm thinking that if I send this to Uncle Delbert and a strong winds blows up he'll never make heads or tails out of it! So off to the local UPS store to see what they could do for me in the way of binding it all together.

It was beautiful, if I do say so my own self:) There was the entire known history of the family in one document.

Uncle Delbert phoned me when he got it and said that he'd been looking at it for the last three hours straight. The next day he called Mom and Mom told me that it was the first time he'd ever called her in the entire time they've known each other! "How did you do this?" he wanted to know. He was blasted away by Mom's research prowess. He knew Mom all those years but never stopped to inquire about her genealogical research. But he will now!!

And I'll be calling Uncle Delbert to listen and write down his stories. I have two really good ones already!

Mom and Uncle Delbert, June 1942

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/uncle-delberts-stories.html

Happy Blogiversary to This Blog!!

It was just a year ago that I woke up in the morning with the thought to blog about the genealogy work Mom and I were doing! Wow, as they say, the time sure has flown by! And it's been tons of fun. I've found cousins distant and closer, put forth my efforts and gotten top quality feedback, worked through problems because I had to write it down, and often, seen the error of my ways in my own words. I mean, really often;) I can say with total authority, my newbie status is still in tact!

So Happy Blogiversary to Nuts From the Family Tree! (So many nuts, so little time.)

Me and the cousins at my second birthday party,
October 1948.
I'm in the top row, second from right.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/happy-blogirversary-to-this-blog.html

FRUSTRATION!

I'm supremely frustrated! Here's the deal. The Eckhart story of the family being swindled out of land that came down through the generations and finally into my family would, it seems, be born out and proven by an article in the New York Evening Post newspaper of 22 OCT 1860. I've found the digitized images of that very issue on Old Fulton Post Card Company's web site. Downloaded it to my computer and viewed it in PhotoShop. BUT... I can't see it clearly enough to read it. There it is, I have my hands on it but I can't read it!!

H. Andrew Brown who wrote the book, "George Adam Eckhart and Philip Hansel of Allegany County, Maryland" says that he tried to find this article but could not. The original exists or existed somewhere, but where? And can a better copy be had at some location or other?

Or is it the way I'm looking at the image? Is PhotoShop the best way to read an old digitized newspaper image? I don't know.

If you have any thoughts on how I might proceed I'd really be happy to learn what to do next!

Photo of the day from my Archive:

My brother being held by Grandparents,
Helen Zeller Kelly and John Lee Kelly
of the Eckhart clan.

The URL for this post is: http://nutsfromthefamilytree.blogspot.com/2012/05/frustration.html