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- May 22, 1942 Letter
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- May 22, 1942 Envelope back
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- May 22, 1942 Envelope front
Since I started my blog last week, I have been waking up every morning with my mind brimming over with ideas about what to write. There are so many fascinating stories about my family that I have been collecting for years. I have this overwhelming urge to tell them all at once. The logical part of my brain keeps telling me to be patient. The stories will all come out eventually. Another part of my brain keeps flitting about. There are so many things to do in order to organize and to preserve my family’s history. There are all the photographs that need to be sorted through, all the letters that need to be read, more hints to follow on Ancestry, binders of correspondence and research to cull and reorganize, update my Facebook page, and now, write a blog. I think I am getting overwhelmed just re-reading that last sentence. Focus Deborah! I want to shout at myself. So as I take a moment to breathe, I focus on: why am I writing a blog? Two of my goals in writing a daily blog are to 1) get into the habit of writing every day and 2) share the letters that my grandparents wrote.
One of the things that I enjoy about reading articles and history websites is that it seems like historians are always finding new treasures to explore and analyze. My grandparents had five grandchildren. From the five grandchildren, there are now ten great grandchildren. Soon some of those great grandchildren will begin to get married and have their own kids. Since I was the daughter of my grandparent’s youngest son, my children aren’t anywhere near that point in their lives. I did not know my Yegerlehner cousins very well when I was growing up. We lived in different states, a thousand miles apart. I only ever saw them at one or two Christmases or briefly during summer vacation when I was little and then later, at my grandparents’ home in Florida. This part of my family has been slowly drifting away from each other for the last twenty years, if not longer. In the mid 1990s, I made contact with two of my cousins. We exchanged letters for awhile to catch up on who was married, who had kids, etc. Then my cousin Becky died in 1998. She was 38 with two young sons. And the drift resumed.
Eventually the descendants of Roscoe and Gladys (Foster) Yegerlehner will drift apart so much that we won’t really know that we exist anymore. Some future descendant from one of my cousin’s branches will be searching around for information about his or her ancestors, and what will they find? (I must note that if any descendant of mine fails to discover anything about our family tree, it won’t be because I didn’t try!) For years, my father read biographies on every United States president. He once quipped that he would never forgive Martha Washington for burning all the letters that she and George wrote. What would historians be saying today about our country’s history without the letters written between John Adams and his wife Abigail? I use the Adams letters as an example as I would never presume to say that my grandparents were as historically important. My grandparents were everyday people, living in extraordinary times. Their letters make up one tiny piece of a much larger puzzle.
With this blog, I will share parts of myself so my children will know what was going on inside my head, all those many times they were orphaned by the family’s history; I write my blog to connect with distant family members; I write my blog to share fascinating stories from my family tree; AND I write my blog to share how two ordinary people lived through an extraordinary period in our country’s and our world’s history.
Letter Transcription:
Fri.
Dear Mother,
The address I gave wasn’t right but in case any comes then it will be forwarded. From now on address me as
RSYegerlehner Lt. jg MCV (S) Unit A
Unit A Dispensary
N.T.O.
Norfolk Va.
There isn’t much to write as yet but more will follow we hope. I think I would like it swell if you could be here but will see about that later-
Daddy
©2012, copyrighted & written by Deborah Sweeney
Genealogy Lady 
I just found your blog and am fascinated by your story so far. I’ve been doing my family research for only a year and have learned so much. You are so lucky to have these letters. I can’t wait to read more, a few each day, until I catch up.
I hope you stick with it! I have posted over three hundred letters at this point. I have been working on the family history for twenty years and I am still learning new things and tricks about genealogy. It is such an awesome obsession. 🙂
It really is! I am loving it and looking forward to learning more. Thanks, also, for following my blog.
You are welcome. I always try to find new blogs to follow because I might learn something new and I remember trying to find people to follow me in the beginning. 🙂
I can totally relate to that first paragraph as well. I go to bed thinking what’s my next story to tell? I wake up ready to post it. I always have several drafted and add details as I find them. It does help me organize all the information. I’m going back to the beginning of your blog so I don’t miss any details. It’s wonderful.
You’ve hit on many of the reasons I’ve decided to blog. Although I don’thave children myself, I want my nieces and nephews to know the stories I know. I also find it helps me to see holes in my research I hadn’t noticed before. Besides, I just love your blog! Especially since WordPress will finally let me log in! When I wrote about the generous and wonderful people in the genealogical community, you were included in that community! Thank you for your ongoing support!
I am glad you can sign in and I am equally glad you are enjoying my blog. I look forward to reading yours, too.
Thank you ladies! I think that I have decided for now that I will focus my blog on the letters. That way my blog will have a consistent theme and focus. I will continue to share other artifacts and photographs on my Facebook page.
Deborah, your words today reminded me of how I felt that same exact way when I made the decision to start blogging about my family history research. It is, indeed, invigorating. Utilize that scheduling capability of your blog’s host and write at whatever pace best suits you–that way, you best capture your ideas and records and keep the flow going, while not giving your readers the sense of drinking from the fire hydrant! 🙂
You may find that utilizing your blog as an organizing medium, itself, will help with focus. A huge rush of material coming at you can be sorted out and scheduled, bit by bit, to be journaled by blog entry. That way, you convert huge mounds of material into bite-sized, do-able pieces. Your blog becomes your silent accountability partner, waiting to receive the next installment, parsing out posts at your bidding. I found blogging to actually be a calming and steadying force to keep me on track.
Jacqi what excellent advice! I never thought of using the blog as an organizing medium, I can completely see the usefulness of it.
Reblogged this on olivaisah.
I completely understand about trying to focus. And oh yes, there is so much to do. I do not have as many lovely historic artifacts as you do and I still feel overwhelmed. I do have a huge box of pictures I managed to get from my great-aunt before she passed, and her few documents… oh yeah and I need to finish finding more von Hassel’s… but those Carters keep calling me…
LOL