Here’s the March 2nd prompt for the month of Fearless Females posts!
March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?
I’m very excited to share this photo. I was contacted by another Love relative this week. His grandmother Belle is the one to the right of my great-great grandma Jennie there in the middle. I love this picture because it’s helped me to identify her in other photos! I’m going to get a batch together to send to him this afternoon. I might have to go through my box and scan some before I send. The other woman in the picture is their other sister Agnes. So if I lost you for a moment there from left to right this photo shows: Agnes Love-Wambough, Jennie Love-Thorward, and Belle Love-Leonard. What a great lineup!
I chose this photo because I love to see new pictures that I’ve never seen before. I just can’t express how grateful and appreciative I am that I have found some great contacts and friends through researching my genealogy. This website has opened doors for me that I never would have been able to open otherwise. So thank you to everyone who has contacted me through here and most especially to Grace Leonard who has put the word out and sent my website to so many of her contacts too! Another special thanks to the sender of this picture Rick Mcgaw!
I’m participating in Women’s History Month writing prompts during the month of March! I love writing prompts because they give you a subject to write about that you might not have thought of yourself. These prompts were thought of by Lisa Alzo of The Accidental Genealogist.
March 1st: Do you have a favorite female ancestor? One you are drawn to or want to learn more about? Write down some key facts you have already learned or what you would like to learn and outline your goals and potential sources you plan to check.
I think I do a very good job of hiding my undercover preference for my Great-Grandmother Llewellyn Thorward-Moore. Okay, so I don’t hide my obvious preference well. It doesn’t matter. I couldn’t tell you why I feel so connected to her. It might be because I never got to know her, but everyone around me has such warm memories of her. Even when I receive emails from long lost cousins, they tell me all the great memories they have of Llewellyn. I also have learned a lot about her through her records and pictures.
I’ve learned so much about her that I don’t think I could really pin down anything that I’d want to learn. Through her notes, correspondence, photos, and other’s memories I’ve learned more about her then I can ever imagine. Most special to me was seeing genealogy notes. She had obviously been trying to figure out her own family tree from what I can tell. I have her wedding gift registry which gives me the names, addresses, and gifts received for her 1926 wedding to William L Moore. There are little notes about all the milestones from my Grandpa’s early years. Llewellyn left a perfect trail for me to follow in researching her life. I just wish I could say the same about her grandfather! ha.
Really my future goals for researching Llewellyn is just to continue to pour through her journal and documents to get a glimpse into what her life was like. I also hope to continue to hear stories about her from my father and his sisters. They have great stories about growing up with her and William!
Week 7: Toys. What was your favorite childhood toy? Is it still being made in some form today?
It goes against everything in me to only choose one thing. I have no idea why I’m like that, but I am. So I’ll just make a brief mention of the other toys I loved. My Little Pony. There I said it. I had more My Little Ponies than I did Barbies. I had Barbies too though, and my Momma made their clothes. How awesome was she? I also loved, loved, loved C.U.T.I.E. figurines. If you do a google image search you can find them but I have a link that does better. There was another toy I loved, they were little clear, plastic princesses I think but no one remembers their names. It reminds me of when I was trying to remember the name of a cartoon I watched as a kid. All I could remember was the little girl in the yellow dress flies out the window with a koala bear. My momma was stuck on David the Gnome. She sure loved David the Gnome. HA. It was called Noozles by the way.
Back onto the subject, I’m here to talk about my number one love. They were called Little People and they were made by Fisher Price. I loved these things. I loved them to death. I even talked about them way back in Childhood Car memories week. This one is made out of wood, and it was bought off eBay probably around 10 years ago. I don’t know what happened to my Little People. Most likely they were given to a family friend who had little girls, much like my Barbie collection. The set I had were plastic. If you want to read about the complete history of these (I’m the only one right? haha), there’s a great write up of their evolution here: link. On that page, the ones I’m familiar with are at the bottom of the History page. I had a million of them though and I had all kinds of accessories. It was my most played with toy and it’s the one I associate with my childhood.
My favorite thing to do was make families, and have them go about their day to day. I’d pick up the kids with the school bus and I’d drop them off all over the house on the “bus route”. It’s probably why I’ve switched to The Sims 2 as I got older. Same concept, just on a computer!
Sadly, Little People are no longer how I remember them. A quick trip to the Fisher Price website will show you how they’ve changed. Visiting the website made me want to go out to the shed and dig out the school bus and house (also from that eBay purchase) I know are in there somewhere. It could be fun to compare them right?
Little People today. Picture from Fisher Price website
52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is a weekly series thought up by Amy Coffin and hosted by GeneaBloggers. It encourages genealogy bloggers to share their own memories and history, so that we don’t forget that one day, our own stories will be important to future generations.
Week 6: Radio and Television. What was your favorite radio or television show from your childhood? What was the program about and who was in it?
I must preface this post by saying I was in no way raised by the television. It’s going to look like it briefly but I promise I wasn’t. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Every featured show is there for a reason that I’ll explain. There were plenty more but they weren’t as important as the ones that I am actually featuring.
Saved by the Bell: Saved by the Bell is probably a staple of every child of the 80s and 90s childhood. I remember watching it every Saturday morning through it’s entire run and then even moving onto Saved by the Bell: The New Class. This is probably the first show that I loved enough to watch it every week. It was definitely one of many shows that was played on Saturday mornings but this one was the staple. The others came and went (California Dreams, City Guys, One World) but this one was perfection.
It dealt with real teen issues and is still played today and I still watch it if I catch it on! Zach Morris, played by Mark Paul Gosselar, was cute and charismatic. He was a schemer you just couldn’t help but love. Just like the television audience, Zach’s friends and family couldn’t help but laugh at his antics. Yet Zach definitely had a heart and knew when he was in the wrong. I think my favorite episode was when he was writing a report and made friends with the Indian chief who passed away. Out of all the episodes, that’s the one that still sticks with me. Probably because of the genealogist I didn’t know was in me yet!
Little House on the Prairie: I have a confession to make with this one. I used to watch this one in syndication when I was home sick from school. I wasn’t supposed to watch TV if I was sick but I did anyway. If Mom is reading this now, she’s probably laughing because I doubt I pulled the wool over her eyes! What little girl hasn’t seen this show and loved it? I remember reading at least the first book, but I don’t think I ever made it through the others. The show is what hooked me, and I didn’t know at the time it was a true story!
I think the casting of Melissa Gilbert was perfect. They’ve tried to remake the series again and again but nothing quite measures up. The show was a perfect mix of wholesomeness and history. Looking back, I think this show too was part of the road to my genealogy future. I’ve always been fascinated by the time period this takes place in. I also loved the length of the show and how you saw everyone grow and mature, even Nellie Olson!
Road to Avonlea: This is one of the lesser known shows but it rounds out my top 3. I actually got the DVDs from eBay because I love the show that much. I think I’m still missing the last two seasons but I’ll get them eventually. This was shown on the Disney Channel. It’s a Sullivan Entertainment production, based on Prince Edwards Island in Canada. It’s actually a somewhat continuation of the Anne of Green Gables story. Unofficially of course. The show itself is an original out of Canada and Disney bought distribution rights to it I’m guessing. If you have a little girl that loves the Anne books, this is definitely going to be a hit!
Once again, I was interested in history before I realized what a huge part it would play in my life. The thing I loved about this show was the family dynamic. I didn’t grow up around my cousins and aunts and uncle. So this show was really as close to an extended family as I was getting. I just loved to how Felicity was a brat to begin with but by the end of the show, she was mature and the star! Sarah was a free spirit who had lived a privileged, lonely life only to have it crumble down around her. They started out as foes and turned into the best of friends. Alec and Janet King were Felicity’s parents and Sarah’s Uncle and Aunt. They gave her the family and stability that she needed at the time in her life that she moved to PEI.
Also thrown into the mix, you get little snippets of Anne Shirley! Rachel Lynde is a constant presence and probably as much of a foe to Sarah as she was to Anne! Later you see a softer side when Marilla Cuthbert and Rachel take in orphans Davey and Dora Keith.
Punky Brewster: I’m not going to lie. I’ve always been a bit eccentric. I didn’t realize until recently how much, but it all started with Punky. It’s because of Punky I’m not ashamed of my crazy socks! Don’t get me wrong, they’re always matched, but they are never boring!
Punky is about an orphan who ends up living with Henry. A widower who is a bit of a grump. He can’t resist Punky for long though! Punky is definitely unique with her own style.
Full House: I saved the other kahuna for last! It’s definitely not last place in my heart though. This is another show that I grew with. I remember Michelle Tanner (Olsen Twins, respectively) as a baby all the way through the end of the show. This was a show I never missed!
There’s not much I can say about Full House that everyone else doesn’t already know. It dealt with family issues, school issues, sibling issues, everything! In fact, life imitated art more than once in our house! Once after being entirely fed up with having to share my room with my older sister, I too “moved out” into a less habitable part of the house like DJ. I even played a Full House trick on my Dad when me and my best friend accidentally broke something. We sent him on errands to try and buy time for us to fix the problem! In the end, just like the show, you’ve got to fess up and take your punishment.
52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is a weekly series by Amy Coffin and hosted by GeneaBloggers. It’s purpose is to promote writing your own history down to be preserved for future generations.
52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History: Week 4
Describe the house in which you grew up. Was it big or small? What made it unique? Is it still there today?
Now this could get emotional! This week my task it to talk about my childhood home… or homes as I remember it. I’m very fortunate to have not moved very often in my life. I’m hoping that trend continues, but only after I move to a nice, quiet town where I want to spend the rest of my days. I know I’m a little young to be thinking about the rest of my days, but as the town around me grows, I can’t help but realize city life is not for me.
My family tells me we lived in a small trailer when I was born, but moved to the bigger one I do remember later. I’ll have to trust them on this because I was only a few months old at the time and my memory ain’t what it used to be if you get my drift. We lived in this trailer from my early baby years until I was in Kindergarten. I remember the circumstances around the end of our time there so clearly.
I remember being in my class and it was very, very dark outside. I don’t know if my fear of storms roots from this day or if it’s always been there. It doesn’t matter, because that day when I got home, I think I already knew something bad happened. Our trailer was struck by lightning and burned to the ground.
Mattapany Rd house, 1987.
Those ruins are the first house I remember. In fact, I remember my sister getting stung by a swarm of bees that loved to hang out on that swing set. I remember when my parents got me a bike for my birthday and my Dad ran around the outside of the trailer trying to hide it from me. It’s not in frame but we had a tree line on the other side of the house. It was there that we built the tree house. It was there that we hung the zip line and tire swing. It was there my brother cracked his head open and I fell out of the tree house breaking my arm (first and only broken bone!) It was here my sister was riding her bike down the driveway and she flew over the handlebars and broke both arms.
Lots of childhood memories of this house.
If I believed in coincidences, I would call what happened next the biggest of my life. You see, as our house burned down, my parents were signing papers to purchase the property where we still live. We had to stay with friends until all the details were ironed out. It wasn’t long before we moved into the trailer where we lived for the rest of my childhood.
The differences were huge though. We had a bigger yard for one. We had a neighborhood with more kids around us (that I can remember anyway!). Most of all though, it was ours. Our previous trailer was just a rental. So this time everything in the place was ours. Literally because we had nothing left. We quickly filled the house with memories though.
I remember playing basketball, croquet, and football with my siblings and the other neighborhood kids. I remember being grounded and not being able to “leave the yard”. Gosh that was a horrible punishment! We had a virtual mecca of places to go! Other peoples houses, and the store down the street. Nowadays, that’d be out of the question of course. The road is way too busy for kids being about.
House #2 - Jun 2005.
Unfortunately, I don’t have many pictures of our houses. At least in their glory. 🙁 Not that I think the trailer was ever in its glory stage. It was our home though. Mom loved it because she was always in her kids business and they couldn’t get away with anything! Not that I would try any of that nonsense, right? haha. Our trailer definitely had many battle scars. There was the soy sauce stains on the ceiling (I was not apart of that food fight… that I remember). A hole in my parents bedroom door that my brother put there after roughhousing with his friends. Unfortunately for Mom’s bedroom door it was right next to the back door.
You’ll probably notice the arrow in the picture above. It would be that tree that would fall onto our trailer and force our hand on the next move.
The thing is, I’ve said numerous times I don’t believe in coincidences. Things happen for a reason and we may not always know what that reason is, but it’s our job to realize when it happens and take action. You see, for my whole life, my mother’s stepfather was on her case about building a house on our property. He was just worried about the trailer, and that we would have another tragedy like the Mattapany house. It was one year to the day of his death that the tree fell onto our house. It happened when Moms children were all grown, still at home, but grown. It happened when she was taking a break for the first time in her life. She’d decided to try and retire from work, at least retail work. My Dad had a more flexible, more generous job.
Our House - Jan 2011
This is the house as it stands today. We’ve finally realized Grandpa Wayne’s dream for us. It took a little pushing from him if you get my drift, but we did it. We’ve lost in our life, everyone has. We came out on the other end though, stronger then you can imagine. Now when we have these monster snowstorms, or powerful storms I just think about our little trailer. You could hear the wind blow in the old thing. I can’t hear a semi truck in this one! I know this is a house my parents will be enjoying for a long, long time. They now have a big kitchen, family room, and a guest room! Well, more when me and my sister finally go. It was always stressful to have visitors because there just wasn’t room. Last 4th of July, we had two of my Aunts and their husbands here and everyone had room.
Note: Yes, that is a large, blue M&M in front of our house. My Mom is eccentric, what can I say!
This post is a part of the 52 weeks of Personal History and Genealogy series hosted by GeneaBloggers and created by Amy Coffin.
