52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

          While I am very fortunate to have many, many direct ancestors who came to this American continent in the late 1600’s and early 1700’s, I don’t have many stories to tell about their migration, mainly because it was so long ago.There are some stories, but they are fuzzy to say the least. My 5th great grandfather Christopher Sauer arrived at the port of Philadelphia with his parents at the age of 3 in 1724 from Germany. And another 5th great grandfather, Rudolph Harley, was born at sea in July 1719, on a ship bound for America with his parents. Incredible!   So for this week’s topic I thought I would write a little about my great aunt Edythe, who I had just researched more in-depth just a few weeks ago. She was born in Philadelphia, PA, in December 1887, and her parents were also born in this country, her father in Pennsylvania, and her mother in Ohio.   So you can imagine how surprised I was when I got a hint on Ancestry for a naturaliza...

I’m addicted to letters, particularly the letters my dad wrote from overseas to our mom (before any of us were born) during WWII. He wrote so many, well over 100, each with many pages. I transcribed and scanned them all a few years ago, and shared them with family too. I was so addicted I felt a deep loss when there were no more letters to read. In many ways no letters was a good thing, because he made it home safely in December 1945, as part of the surge with Operation Magic Carpet and Operation Santa Claus to return as many soldiers as possible by Christmas from overseas after the war ended. The slogan was: HOME ALIVE BY ’45. My mom saved all his letters, but once he returned home there were no more letters. He was home! However I was left with what felt like an immense hole, like reading a book where the last few pages were missing. The last communication he sent was a telegram (can you believe that it was among his letters?) from Nagoya (Japan) on Nov 13, 1945 saying “E...

          Instead of writing about an ancestor this week, I thought why not make it about me this time. And, as if that isn’t enough of a surprise in itself, I will tell you about a surprise that happened to me over 50 years ago.   My husband and I were married in northern NJ in the early 1970’s in the little town that I grew up in. I never envisioned living anywhere else. However, we were only married about 8 months when he told me that the small business he was working for was needing financial help, and they had found a group of investors in the upper midwest. One requirement of getting this loan was that they would need to move the manufacturing to Fargo, ND. That meant that we would be moving as well. Our Wedding Day After that bombshell, the first thing I did was get out a US map and actually look at where Fargo, ND was. I knew North Dakota was out there “somewhere” but I had no idea which side of Minnesota it was on. Turned out it was border...

While I was considering what direction to take this topic “overlooked,” the answer jumped out at me while looking at part of my family tree. I noticed that there was information missing for my mom’s maternal aunts and uncles. I knew them all, and spent many Thanksgivings with them and their spouses while I was growing up. They were an interesting bunch! I knew they had all passed away, but looking at my tree, I noticed I had never filled in their dates of death. I certainly didn’t mean to overlook them, and I guess I thought I would get to them sometime, but I never had. Once again, I sure wish I had asked them some questions about their lives, because now there is no one to answer them. My mom had 5 aunts and uncles on her mom’s side that lived into adulthood.   Her mom Florence (b 1889) was the second oldest. The first born was Edith (she later started spelling her name Edythe), John Raymond “Bud”, Helen, Clifford, and the youngest Melvin   (b 1903). In between Cliff an...