My intent had been to post my 3rd Quarter sales results today. Alas, I’m not going to. My mother-in-law, age 93, has taken a turn for the worse. We will have to move her to a hospice care facility today. Not sure how close her death is. And I’m to make my last of four trips to Minneapolis tomorrow, up and back in a long day. I’ll have to see if I can even go.
Blogging is on hold until the situation clears.
About a week ago I remembered that I was right about the time of an anniversary—within a day or two of it. It got me thinking about all the things that have happened in the Augusts of my life. That’s not to say all momentous things happened in August. I met the woman I would marry in May, and we were married in January. Our children were born in January and April. All but one of our various moves happened in other months. Yes, the entire calendar is filled with important things, spread out.
But, it seems to me that August has claimed more than its fair share. Several of these events are wrapped around my genealogy research, so are not really a result of outside causes.
Here they are, in the order they occurred.
August 11, 2014: A cousin in New York—one of those 11 first cousins of my mom discovered in 1998—contacted me, saying she had been contacted by a woman who had been adopted at birth but who, DNA testing revealed, was related. Looking at the data, it appeared my mother was her mother. I talked with the woman the next day and we began the process of confirming what the data suggested. Sure enough, DNA confirmed she was my half-sister. That confirmation came on September 1, 2014. Missed August by a day.
So there’s the list. I don’t know how they strike you, but to me they are all momentous events.
But, am I over-thinking this? Might I not find, if I searched my life, that each month would have it’s collection of momentous events? Perhaps. For now, however, I’ll stick with August as the pivotal month in many of the years of my life.
Yes, the wife and I are babysitting the three older grandchildren, while their parents have some engagements that required both of them. It’s been a great couple of days, and the end is not yet. I’m working half-days while we are sitting.
So, I wasn’t able to get a real post written and uploaded for today. Once I finish my work for the day, I shift to writing tasks. My main one is re-reading The Gutter Chronicles: Volume 2 in a rapid manner. Rather than looking for structural edits, line edits, or fixing typos (all of which I’ll do if needed), I’m looking for duplication. When I read it aloud to Lynda, I noticed some areas that seemed repetitious—such as repeating something about a character three or four chapters apart, something that only needs to be mentioned once in the book.
I’ll be back with a new post on Monday, possibly a writer interview.
During World War 2, my dad had an interesting story. Older than the average G.I. at 26 when the war broke out for the USA, he found himself in North Africa, staging to go on the invasion of Italy. Just before he embarked, he was transferred to the Stars and Stripes, the G.I. newspaper and on his way to Algiers to set type. Before long he was in Italy, setting type on the mobile unit of the paper: within sound of the guns.
So, some years ago I found The Day of Battle: The War in Sicily and Italy at some discount store, I grabbed it. It sat in my reading pile for a couple of years, until I finally read it beginning last fall and ending in early January.
I’m glad I did read it. Rick Atkinson has done a wonderful job of making the war in these areas come alive. He deals with the generals and the soldiers. He helps the reader see what it was like to be pushed forward by Patton. Or how impossible missions were undertaken in Italy and men slaughtered as a result. I had never read any detailed information about the campaign in Italy. Atkinson brought it alive for me.
I’ve read some of the reviews on Amazon. Most are positive, though a few are that are negative. At least one criticized Atkinson for using obscure words. He did have a few of those, but, in my mind, not many. I only looked up one or two. I was able to pass over the others without loss of meaning. A few seemed to be military technical terms.
This book is a keeper. I have a fair collection of WW2 books. Most I’ve never read, and those I’ve read I haven’t retained as well as I wish I had. Someday in the future I might pick this one up again, and re-read it. Or, if I ever do get around to writing that memoir of my mom and dad, this could be source material for the conditions Dad worked in.
If I review this on Amazon, I’ll give it 4 or 5 stars.
I’ve said it before: I enjoy routine. To be able to start each day in the same way, to progress through the day with the same activities as the day before. The routine will vary between weekday and weekend, but each has its own routine, and I like each in its own way.
I was in a good blog routine, until my website was stolen sometime between Jan 15 and 22. I had just missed making a routine blog post. I went to do the next routine post and…couldn’t log in. Someone had changed my user name and/or password. It took three or four days to figure out what to do with it, pay for some beefed-up security, and get my site back. I think it was Jan 24 or 25 when that was accomplished. I made a quick blog post about it, and, since that time…nothing. No more blog posts. In fact, very little writing. I was thrown out of my routine.
But here I am, back again, on a routine Monday, with my routine blog post. I also had some success working on my work-in-progress of late. I’m now past the midway point, approaching the three-quarter point. I think I can finish by the end of February, which might mean publishing in March. Now, I also need to get back to a routine blog posting schedule. I’m going to stick with Monday and Friday. That was working well, describing my weekend activities on Monday, and my weekday activities on Friday.
Along with that will be discussion of my work(s)-in-progress, my reading and reviews of books read, my observations of the world, and here and there a post about any old thing I think will attract readers. So, look for me to be here more regularly. I don’t plan on disappointing you.
Oh, yeah, a few days before I drafted this post, and a couple of days after, I had a pair of personal calamities. I’ll talk about them as well.
While I had much family here for Christmas (some still here, till tomorrow), I didn’t worry about keeping to my blog schedule. So here I am, writing this post on New Year’s Eve, my birthday, for posting tomorrow. I think what I’ll do is just paste in our Christmas letter, perhaps adding a few comments at the end.
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December 2017
Greetings family and friends!
This branch of the Todd family has fallen into routine. Not a rut, for that has a negative connotation. Routine, on the other hand, can be good. It helps you to be efficient in your activities, and to effectively complete all tasks you need to complete. Yes, routine is good.
Our routine was broken a few times this year, three of them being extra significant. In June we drove, in caravan with our daughter Sara and her family, to the quadrennial General Assembly of the Church of the Nazarene in Indianapolis. Richard was a delegate to one of the pre-assembly conventions. We went along to help out with the four kids, and, of course, to see old friends. Last time we attended general assembly was in 1980 when it was in Kansas City. The trip was good, without unsafe incidents of car trouble. It was indeed a good time. We saw those old friends, worshipped a great God with thousands of others, and were renewed and refreshed. Our accommodation was an older home rented by the week. We had a yard and parks nearby, so the kids had room to run.
Then, on the way home, we spent a week in Branson, at a townhouse that is part of our timeshare company. We saw plenty of sights there. Branson has so much to do, for all ages. When someone wasn’t up to something, we just stayed at the townhouse. Miniature golf, Silver Dollar City, and a whole lot more filled our five days there. While we were gone for the almost two weeks, Lynda’s brother was here from Santa Fe to be with their mom. So we got to see him.
Another unexpected “event” came from Dave’s genealogy research. For years he has been trying to find out more information about his (supposed) maternal grandfather. Having only a name and a few anecdotal statements by his grandmother, he hit dead ends. Until DNA relatives showed up in 23andMe, and he was able to make connections. It turned out his grandfather had two other families, and he is now in touch with most of his previously-unknown first cousins from those families. Getting to know all these people, through Facebook so far, has been a delight.
And Dave had another “event” that broke up the routine. He’s been Corporate Trainer for CEI for eleven years now, and figured he’d stay that until his retirement at the end of next year. But, in early November his boss asked him to take on management of projects that have moved into the problem stage after construction. It started with three projects, is now up to four, and more are in sight. This has taken him back to his project management days. It has certainly been a change, as his hours have increased as he deals with the problems, leaving him almost no time for training. He thinks this new normal will take him right up to retirement.
Lynda has had some physical challenges this year. She’s had severe aches and pains show up in her legs, that caused her doctor to put her on a new medication. It turned out that med has some bad side-effects, however. She weaned herself off that med before things got bad. Now she’s wondering if other meds she takes have caused other problems, such as morning listlessness and what she calls “brain fog”. She does a lot of studying of health issues, and is hoping to gradually get off some meds and see if that helps. Meanwhile, she continues with stock trading, with Dave’s help from time-to-time. It looks like the year will turn out profitable.
We made several trips to Oklahoma City for grandchildren’s birthdays. They are growing up fast. The three older ones are in school, and little Elijah gets into everything when his sibs aren’t around. They teach him well. All three seem to like school, and to do well at it. Richard continues to split his time between pastoring the church and managing the R.O.C. ministry.
Charles is now working two jobs. He continues as a dean for the College at the University of Chicago. He is also a dorm parent for an off-campus dorm. In both of these he stays busy. He will surely advance through university administration. The dorm thing is temporary. He plans on doing that for a year or two, then seeing where life and career takes him. Because his dorm job required him to be there over Thanksgiving, our family gathering is a Christmas this year.
Esther, now 92, continues as always, a little slower, a little farther removed from the world around her, but still kicking. She hasn’t had any new health problems develop this year. The biggest thing was the death of her sister, Faye, in July. We made the trip back to Meade for the funeral. So Esther, the oldest of four sisters, is the last still alive.
We close this letter with a wish for the best for each of you. May God bless your lives, filling you with good things, and may they spill out with compassion for others.
Love,
Dave, Lynda, and Esther
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Emmanuel has come. We had a good Christmas with much family here, and contacting many more by phone. Yesterday I spent a quiet birthday with my mother-in-law and brother-in-law, as Lynda is in Oklahoma City for babysitting. For the moment, all is well. 2017 was a challenge in many ways. May 2018 be better.
That’s what I just did. I put together a joint first cousin list for my wife and me. Later in the post, I’ll say how many are on it.
First cousin is a pretty close relationship. They are children of siblings, grandchildren of common grandparents. First cousins share grandparents. Few people don’t know at least some of their first cousins. Although, I remember seeing an obituary of a person with the last name matching some in my wife’s family. I checked with an uncle of hers, and he said yes, that’s my cousin, but either he’d never met him or barely knew him. I didn’t detect a lot of interest.
Growing up, I always felt our family was somewhat small. Mom was an only child, so no aunts and uncles on that side. Her grandmother had half-sisters, but they never had children, so no first, first or otherwise, there. My dad was one of six children, five of whom lived to adulthood. All together they had 14 children who were first cousins. Four of these lived out of state and we rarely saw them. Almost never did those ten who stayed in Rhode Island ever get together. But, that was the tally: 14 first cousins from my two sets of grandparents.
Then I married Lynda. I came to find out she had a somewhat larger family. On her dad’s side there were four children who had seventeen children, not including three who died in infancy. They would make a total of 20. On her mom’s side, it was two children producing five, plus two who dies in infancy. It would have been more, except two of Lynda’s aunts died in a blizzard while in their teens. So, if you put those two lines together, that’s 23 first cousins. Definitely more to keep up with than me.
Thus, put us together, and it was 37 first cousins. That’s starting to be a big number, the number I had up until 1998.
What happened in 1998? I began making genealogical discoveries. That year I learned about the large family in New York/New Jersey (and some who had moved west) that had been kept hidden from us three siblings for decades. That didn’t produce any first cousins for me, but a bunch for my mom, and a bunch of second cousins for me. Through all this discovery, Lynda’s total stayed at 23 in her blended first cousin group.
Then came 2014, which I learned about my half-sister, the daughter my mother put up for adoption. That added one to the group, now a blended group from two sets of grandparents, so I was one of 15 first cousins. My half-sister had two brothers, who were also adopted, so I didn’t count them. And Lynda’s first cousin group was…still 23, our joint group becoming 38.
Then came August 2017. As I reported previously on this blog, through DNA testing, along with a few statements my grandmother made, I was able to trace who my maternal grandfather was. As I had come to suspect, he had two other families: a small one before WW1 and a larger one after WW1. My mother wasn’t an only child after all; she had five half-siblings, all of whom had children—13 children, in fact, who were my half-first cousins. At that relationship level, it’s a bit silly to keep adding the “half” to the defined relationship. We were cousins, first cousins, having a common ancestor at the grandparent level. That mean my blended first cousin group went to 28. My wife’s…stayed at 23 (how boring!). And our combined group was 51.
Genealogy research took it from 37, a manageable number, to 51, starting to be unmanageable in terms of keeping track of everyone. Of those 51, 39 are still living. The oldest and youngest are still alive. The birth years span 1937 to 1970. Three died in infancy, and none others have passed on. I’ve yet to meet twelve living first cousins.
So, why have I written all this? I really don’ know. It was on my mind today, as I completed for two of the new cousins to take DNA tests to confirm the relationship. I guess I wrote this simply because this is part of my life. This blog is to share my life, more than just my writing.
In looking back on my posts, I see it’s been quite a while since I wrote anything about research. When I did, it was mostly in connection with books I was writing. Yes, books do require research, even if you’re writing about a contemporary topic, but certainly if the novel is set somewhere in the past, or if you’re writing non-fiction. In actual fact, however, I see that some of my recent posts included discussion of research, so I’ve gone back and edited their categories to include it.
My research of late, however, is of a different kind: genealogy. I finished research for Documenting America: Civil War Edition in June. Before that I had research for Preserve The Revelation, which I finished around April, while I was writing it. Both of those involved pleasant research—research that was fulfilling.
But I never completely give up on my genealogy research. I’m always looking for that elusive ancestor. Several posts ago I wrote something about this: how I never could get information about my maternal grandfather; about how I thought I had finally found him. I still haven’t gone the route of seeking confirmation through DNA testing. That’s something I will eventually do. Meanwhile, I’m 99.99% certain that the man I found is indeed my grandfather.
Found, not in the sense of him being alive, but in the sense of learning who he was, where he was, and confirming what little family lore I had. That has involved research. Since I’m not in a position of traveling, my research has been on the internet.
As I mentioned many years ago, research has tentacles. You research one thing and find it or learn it, but that only leads you to look at two other things. Then research and find those two things, and suddenly your research to-do list have five more things on them. Except, since it’s all a matter of looking for reliable sources on the internet, and steering away from unreliable sources, the research tends to go so fast you don’t even mess with a to-do list. You just move the mouse and click.
As I said, my current research has mostly to do with my grandfather. Born in 1882 (based on my research; some sources say 1881, some 1883; the most reliable say 1882), I’m finding tons about him. One of his sons, a half-brother to my mother, had written a family history based on interviews with his dad (my grandfather). One interesting item was that he had been in the militia in Canada before going on active duty in WW1. This family history, however, said that he was called up with the militia to take part in a peace-keeping action due to a violent strike, this taking place on Vancouver Island. The town he mentioned was Ladysmith.
Could this be true? If grandfather told it to his son, you’d think it would be true, end of story. Confirmation is nice, however, so I decided to look for history about this peace-keeping action. Who knows but that his name may show up in some official record. I usually start with Wikipedia. Much maligned, I find it is mostly reliable. Like any source, confirmation is always advisable. I looked for such things as “Ladysmith-strike” and “Canada strikes 1913”, and found nothing. I did find a page for Ladysmith, however, that included this entry:
Ladysmith has been notable in the history of the labour movement with significant unrest and violence during the major strikes of the 1913–1914 era. During this time militia were dispatched to put down unrest and protect property.
That’s sort of confirmation, but it was given in Wikipedia without any source citation. I decided to look for newspapers. Several large databases of digitized newspapers exist. They are all behind paywalls, and I have no access to them. I find, however, that some of the databases give a snippet of text with them. I hoped for that for a 1913 newspaper on Vancouver Island. I remembered I had already found one newspaper, the full edition as picture and text, at archive.org. I found it while searching for grandfather’s third marriage, which I found in a newspaper out of Victoria BC. Might more of it be on-line?
I went to my browsing history, found the paper I’d already seen, and brought it up. Following links at archive.org, I discovered that many editions of the newspaper on-line, including all issues between 1912 and 1918. Bingo! I searched through 1913, and found the stories about the labor strike (International Mine Workers, representing the coal laborers), the violence associated with it, unsuccessful police attempts to quell it, and finally calling up the militia in early August 1913—exactly the time given in my uncle’s family history.
I have much more to read in these newspapers, including going back to 1911 for some items. This will take much more time than I have right now. Hopefully these newspapers will still be there when I retire.
But I had another success. I wanted to find out more about grandfather’s first wife, the one who divorced him before he married (maybe married, that is) my grandmother in St. Lucia during the war. After many mouse movement, many clicks, and following my intuition, I found information on her birth, found her in the census, found a marriage index for her and grandfather’s wedding, found evidence that they were indeed divorced during the war (just as grandmother told me), and even found a record of her death, in Taft, California, in 1938.
I discussed this with my half-sister, who seemed surprised that I had been able to find that much. I told her “I just moves and points the mouse and the magic happens.” Sometimes I think that’s true. To some extent, it might be my ability to reason things out, anticipate the most likely outcome, and focus on that till I find success.
For whatever the reason, I’m glad for it.
Yes, this last week I had an unexpected change in plans.
Is any change in plans expected? Maybe some are, but I suspect most aren’t. Some are bad; some are good. Some result in a little change; some in a major change. This one, that began last Monday and extended through the rest of the week, was a doozey. A major change in direction for my extra-curricular activities, so to speak.
On Monday I received an e-mail from 23andMe, the DNA company, saying that I had new DNA relatives posted. Great; I get that e-mail from them every month. As new people have their DNA checked, 23andMe figures out who’s related to who, aggregates them month by month, and notifies you when you have new ones. I have new ones almost every month, but few are close relatives. Most are distant cousins, and we share 0.05% or less of our DNA. No way to tell how we are related, and not really worth taking time to try to figure it out.
But this month I had a guy added with the last name Penson. That’s significant because I’m related to another man (and his daughter) on there in a significant way. He was predicted to be my third cousin, and he was related to me and my half-sister, but not to some other cousins who are related to my through my grandmother’s mother. That meant this guy and I had to be related either through my mother’s father or her paternal grandfather. If this man and I are third cousins, that means we share great-great-grandparents as common ancestors. That’s close enough to pursue, so I asked for sharing with them. His daughter gave me what information she had for his great-grandparents. She had all of them, eight names for me to pursue, none of them a family name I recognized.
I need to back up. I haven’t know for sure who my mother’s dad was. My grandmother told me his name, way back in 1977-ish, but with her it was always difficult to know if she was telling the truth. Sorry if that’s a terrible thing to say about a grandmother, but it was so. She said he was married before, but had divorced his wife, and they were married. However, the marriage was annulled when her husband was found to be a bigamist. She described it as an honest mistake, him thinking his divorce was final when it really wasn’t. That’s how things stood for 40 years. I knew his name, which included only a diminutive for his first name. When I started to seriously research genealogy around 1998, and in the years since then, I would from time to time spend a little time looking for him. I thought once I found him, but couldn’t place the man of the right name and age in St. Lucia in 1917, which I was pretty sure was where he had to be for him to have a relationship with my grandmother and for my mom to be conceived.
Back now to 23andMe. So on Monday I’m notified I have new DNA relatives. Among them was this man named Penson, who was predicted to be my 3rd cousin. The significance was Penson was one of the names given to me as great-grandparents of the other man. That told me I should be looking for a connection between Penson and Foreman, the name my grandmother said was her husband’s name (though she had never taken his name). An internet search turned it up almost immediately. A man of the right diminutive and last name was in a family where his mother’s name was Penson. Bingo!
I believe it was Tuesday that I found that. As I searched more for this man, I discovered he was Canadian (as I was told he was), and that he served in the military during World War 1—also as I had been told. I just needed to put him in St. Lucia during that war. Further searching showed that Canadian WW1 records are scanned and on-line. I searched, found the guy, and saw he was in St. Lucia from November 1915 to August 1918—exactly when he needed to be there.
From that point the week was filled with confirmations, finding genealogy website that showed him with families before and after the war, and trying to find people of those names on Facebook. From various websites I was able to confirm much information those websites had, and even expand greatly on them. By Friday I was pretty sure who some half-first cousins were, and made contact on them on Facebook. With two of them I’ve had some messaging conversations. At this point I don’t want to give any names, even of the long dead. That may come in another post.
So, my forty year quest to know who my grandfather was is now over. Well, not quite over. I’m hoping some first cousins will be willing to take DNA tests to confirm the relationship. All the pieces have fallen into place, confirming what my grandmother told me. But so long as there’s a scientific way to prove it, why not? That will be the next step.
So, this week, I hope to return to normal off-work activities, such as writing, reading, stock trading, upkeep around the house. The saga isn’t over, but may have to go on the back burner for a bit.
My wife and I, along with her mother, just made a four-day trip to Meade, Kansas, for the funeral of Faye Pohl, aunt of Lynda and sister of Esther. As a result, I didn’t get a post written for today. I’ll be back at it Friday.