Blast from the past

[susandennis]

The snail mail package, was indeed, a shocking surprise. It was the history of my maternal grandfather's family! My second cousin's wife (grandpa's brother's son's wife) has been big into genealogy forever. Turns out between her side of her family and her husband's (my Mom's cousin) side of her family, she amassed file cabinets that take up 500 square feet of space.

So her daughter had them all digitized.

And today I got a book about Grandpa's father's branch plus a thumb drive with all the documents and photos.




I'm really not that interested, in general, in genealogy. It's fun to conjure on what things were like when my grandma was a girl but that's about the extent of it. However... this package is just full of fascinating stuff. Pictures I'd never seen. Others I hadn't seen in forever and a day.

I spent about an hour just going through one folder. Finding a letter my Mom wrote to her cousin (they were very tight growing up) in 1984. And details I didn't know. I always thought Grandma was born in 1900 but, turns out, she was born 3 years earlier.

My Mom lost her first husband and her brother both in 1944 in World War II. I had known that but not the exact timing.

Many more hours of perusal yet to come. What a treat. My hand written (fountain pen - my Mom raised me right) thank you notes are written addressed, and stamped waiting for the mail tomorrow.

This journal will be full of old family shit in the weeks to come but for now...



On the left is my Mom's brother, Billy. Then their cousin Johnny (whose wife did all the work and whose daughter organized and digitized) and then cousin David (who was Johnny's brother and Mom's best friend) and Mom. I'm thinking this was probably 1930sh.

[Edit: found more info. Photo is 1931. And that's not David, not Johnny next to Billy. Johnny is the little runt that Mom is protecting. I should have known that since David was the oldest. Doh. BTW, that little runt grew up to be a prominent eye surgeon in Dallas.]

Comments

[meowmensteen]

Cousin David does not look like he was enjoying the photo shoot.

[susandennis]

yeah, not his best day, i guess

[seekerval.livejournal.com]

What an amazing surprise to arrive out of the proverbial blue! Here's wishing you many hours of fun and illumination with your perusing.

[siglinde99.livejournal.com]

What a lovely gift. I have family histories of a sort done for my mom’s side of the family and for the most recent parts of my dad’s side (mostly the story of my great-grandparents and great-uncles and their families). They aren’t nearly as well done, but I enjoyed reading them.

[mrdreamjeans.livejournal.com]

How thoughtful of them to send this unexpected treasure trove to you!

[awakenyourfaith.livejournal.com]

Amazing!

[idahoswede.livejournal.com]

I love old family photos, even when I don't personally know the family. Everyone has a history, some more interesting than others, but it is all good.

[zoefruitcake.livejournal.com]

Great stuff, I'd love someone to do all that for me but sadly it is mostly me doing it for other people including paying for the use of Ancestry that they all use for free

[maju01.livejournal.com]

What an awesome surprise gift!

[meathiel]

Wow - that is really brilliant. I admire some people's dedication to do things like this ...

So - your family is German?

[susandennis]

Very German. Both sides. One grandfather (born in German community in US) did not speak English until he started school. This was the Eisenlohr grandfather. The other grandfather (Schubert) was born and raised in Germany and moved to US when he was in his 20s.

[fauxklore]

What a treasure! I have so many questions about my family and I wish anybody else was interested.

[susandennis]

You would lose your mind if this was your family. There are even audio files of family members remembering. It's just the most amazing thing.

[kindmemory.livejournal.com]

My sister's first name is Martha, our last name is the one beginning with H., which I don't want to make Googleable, so I won't spell it out, but that is weirld. None of us have the Eis. name. This is just weird, if you caught my drift on the names.

[letmesaythis.livejournal.com]

My maternal great grandfather murdered someone over a rent increase so, um, yeah. Interesting stuff, genealogy.

It's cool to see your stuff and I hope you shared plenty more.