Much more like spring (Gladys)

Letter transcription:

MRS. R. S. YEGERLEHNER
KENTLAND
INDIANA
2-27-43

Dear Daddy – After the blizzard yesterday is rather warm and sunny today – much more like spring. Had the tires checked today. Have to have that done at regular intervals now and today was last day for this first period. Blanchard wouldn’t charge me for the service – said you had been good to them. I am expecting Floyd & Ruth tomorrow on their way home from Mutchler’s. They haven’t been here since Jan. 2 so will be able to see how much D. has grown. I have him sitting up in his buggy now. He got tired lying in his bed. Had peas & carrots & milk at 2 P.M. and has been pretty well satisfied till just now. Pauline Hiestand gave me a picture of Joe Robert. I will send when I send more of D. J. R. is 15 months old and Pauline can’t get his bottle away from him. He is so big. They had his curls cut off and it makes him look very boyish. I went to class meeting at Mullen’s last night. The first one I had attended since Christmas but I think I need to get out once in a while. The boys go to the show once in a while but not often. Mark went to see Arabian Nights last Fri. It is nice enough for him to skate today. John of course is listening to the Opera and I am too because he has it tuned in here in the living room. It is so nice I may take D. out for a little airing. The schools here are having a measles epidemic but so far they haven’t closed. Eleven are out of the 3^rd grade. If either J. or M. get to feeling bad I am going to shut them up in one room and keep D. as far away as possible. So far they both are feeling fine, so will hope they escape. Will write a long letter tomorrow and get in all the fine points of home life. We are all well and finances are OK but the uniform money hasn’t come.

Love Mother

©2014 copyright owned and/or written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2014/01/17/much-more-like-spring-gladys/

Book of Me – Prompt 20: The Feeling of Home

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The Book of Me – Written by You is a weekly blog prompt created by Julie Goucher of the blog Angler’s Rest. This is a fifteen month writing project to highlight my life so that I will have something to leave behind for my descendants. Week twenty’s prompt is – The Feeling of Home.

Home means different things to different people, so this week we are going to explore what it means to us:

What does it feel like?
How do you recognize it?
What makes it home? People? Place? Time?

________________________________________

For me, I have two homes: the geographical location where I was born and grew up, and where I live now.

Former movie theatre (Image via Google)

The first, where I was born, is Massachusetts and the surrounding New England states. No one in my family lives there now so I do not have a family house to return to for a visit. Where one comes from shapes many aspects of one’s psychology. I still think of myself as a New Englander. The landscape and the attitudes of the people from a place stay with you when you move away. There is a sense of familiarity when you return and it is not necessarily something you can put into words. When I returned to New England last summer, I did experience the feeling of coming home. It was my first visit in over 15 years. Many things had changed physically. The downtown area of my city has been remodeled extensively since I lived there. The movie theatre where my husband and I went on our first date is no longer a movie theatre, but the building still stands. My graduating high school class purchased a stone monument to adorn the front walk of the campus. The stone endures but is now covered by overgrown shrubs and flowers. Time moves on but the connection remains.

Graduating class gift

My second and present home is where I live with my family: my husband and my children. I do not think it would matter where we lived specifically as long as we were together. On the surface, I think of home as the place where I can put my feet up and relax at the end of the day, and where I keep my stuff. But for me, the expression “Home is where the heart is” says it all. And that goes for both my homes.

©2014 copyright owned and written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2014/01/17/book-of-me-pro…eeling-of-home/

Forty-Sixth Anniversary

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Forty-Sixth Anniversary

Friday evening last the members of the Clay County Bar, residents in this city, were royally entertained by Mrs. George A. Knight, at her residence with a 6 o’clock dinner, the occasion being a grand surprise to her husband on his forty-sixth birthday. Covers were laid for twenty-five and the dinner served in four courses. After justice had been done to the feast, the guests were entertained in a social way by Miss Grace Knight rendering excellent music, and in recitals of legal reminiscences by the fraternity. All the guests expressed themselves as having enjoyed the evening pleasantly and departed wishing Mr. and Mrs. Knight many more anniversaries. Those present were Messrs. S. D. Coffey, W. W. Carter, S. W. Curtis, C. E. Matson, P. T. Luther, J. M. Crompton, W. M. Ridpath, J. Q, Cornell, W. B. Schwartz, J. A. McNutt, Geo. A. Byrd, Jno. B. Hussey, E. S. Holliday, Joe Van Ayer, J. Croasdale, J. W. Stewart, H. Teter, W. P. Blair, E. H. Hussey, D. W. Brattin and Jacob Herr.

“Forty-Sixth Anniversary,” The Democrat (Brazil, Indiana), 13 May 1886, p.1, col. 4; digital image, Newspaper Archive (http://www.newspaperarchive.com : 12 January 2014).

Hotter Than Blue Blazes (Roscoe)

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: February 26, 1943 envelope

: February 26, 1943, p. 1

: February 26, 1943, p. 2

: February 26, 1943, p. 3

Letter transcription:

Feb. 26, 1943
Lt. (jg) Yegerlehner
Navy 224
% Fleet P.O.
San Francisco Calif

Dear Mother,

To begin with don’t forget to inform Mark that I remembered about his birthday and also you he should have the dollar I sent him some time ago. It really seems like ages ago – guess it’s because of the moving around.

Lately all I’ve been wearing is a pair of pants and shoes because of the hot rainy weather. Rains every night and gets hotter than blue blazes in the day time.

I haven’t written anyone but

[page 2] you since leaving Noumea because of stamp shortage. I brought about 2 doz. along but they all stuck together and so again stamps are scarce. We thought we had a rugged time where we were before at first but we were living in the lap of old Lady luxury and didn’t realize it.

The conditions in general here are good – Food OK but mostly out of cans. All out of cans I should say and we eat out of plates on our laps bathe in the ocean – write only in day time on our knees because boards are a thing only in past memories.

[page 3] I haven’t shaved for four days but I do brush my teeth and all in all feel fine and happy but I don’t care for this type of camping but in time thing will get better.

Don’t be too disappointed if the mail isn’t too regular but I’ll still try to do the best I can. Dr. W & Dr P are all alone as far as I know but I wouldn’t trade with them even at that.

Well, have work to do
So solong
Love Daddy

P.S. I’ve written every day the last 3 days

©2014 copyright owned and/or written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2014/01/16/hotter-than-blue-blazes-roscoe/

The Professional vs. the Bully

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[Editorial note: I generally do not focus on issues within the genealogy community but use this blog to share my family’s history and writings. A situation occurred this week that I really felt I needed to address, or in other words, vent.]

A simple request to transfer two memorials on Find A Grave turned into something more. I going to assume that anyone reading my blog will be familiar with the website Find A Grave. But in a nutshell, Find A Grave is an all volunteer cemetery transcription database. People from all over the world submit cemetery transcriptions. Others will volunteer to take photographs. Overall my experience with Find A Grave has been a fabulous one. I have even transcribed a few cemeteries myself. I currently manage between 2,500-3,000 graves. If you are the first person to upload information about a gravesite, you are the default manager for the deceased person’s profile. Should someone come along who is a close relative, they can ask you to transfer the memorial to their care. Find A Grave has pretty strict guidelines about who is considered a close relative. Some members are equally as strict. Others, like myself, are pretty lax. I didn’t transcribe a bunch of graves of people I don’t know just so that I can horde them. I do it so the information will be available online so that their families can find them. My general policy is I will transfer any grave that is not my direct relative or one of my “pet” families (These are generally branches of my family that I have been actively researching).

So earlier this week, I was contacted about transferring two memorials. I declined to do so, explaining that I was a direct descendant. This fact made the other contributor and me distant cousins. Ordinarily, this would have been great. We all love to find distant family. However, the tone of the response immediately set up my hackles. Would I send him a GEDCOM of all the information I had on this family that I was willing to share? He also took it upon himself to explain what a GEDCOM was. (As a rule, I do not look kindly upon people who talk down to me – so mistake number one on his part). He had plainly read my profile and my policy about transferring memorials. Did he miss the part about being a professional genealogist? I replied that I was currently preparing articles on this branch of the family for publication and I could not share anything at this time.

Now, in the past I have been quite generous with my sharing amongst relatives (and the gentlemen did count as a relative). I used to have a free tree posted on Worldconnect with oodles of sources and transcriptions. Many of my friends will tell you how many countless hours I have spent climbing their trees. I am a very generous person when it comes to genealogy. It is my passion and I don’t care who I am researching. Just give me a puzzle to solve and I am on the trail. Something happened on the way to becoming a professional genealogist…I realized that some people don’t follow the genealogical proof standards; they don’t care and they don’t care who knows it. Some people feel that anything posted on the internet is free for them to take without writing a proper citation or asking permission to take it. Some people have no understanding of the concepts of intellectual property, copyright and fair use. Now I admit that I have not always been so diligent but never to the extent that I would tell someone “I do not share your concern for protecting your work.” This gentleman actually wrote that in his last email to me. I am quoting him directly. And this ladies and gentlemen of the jury is why I took down my free tree from Worldconnect last year, and why my tree at Ancestry remains private and accessible to only the closest of friends and family.

The worse part about this whole exchange is that the gentlemen made no apologies for his mindset AND he tried to BULLY me into sharing my tree over the course of three separate emails. When I told him I wouldn’t share, he gloated about combing through 31 other public Ancestry trees to find out the information anyway. The sad thing for me is that because of the free tree that I had posted for years and my willingness to share with distant cousins, I no longer control aspects of my research. The people who know how to cite sources correctly have given me credit (and I always get a warm fuzzy feeling seeing my name in a citation), but once that information gets saved from one tree to another and so on, the original source is lost. I can get over the loss of my intellectual property but how many possible connections have I lost with distant cousins as a result?

For me, this experience was about the fact that I felt bullied. I was berated for not sharing. Sometimes when people keep pushing, your natural tendencies revolt. I generally share my work on a case by case situation. I felt the gentlemen thought he was entitled to my work, and that made me uncomfortable. I wish there was a way to solve this conundrum. But I really don’t have any answers for this one. As for my personal research, my Ancestry tree will remain off limits indefinitely.

©2014 copyright owned and written by Deborah Sweeney
Post originally found at: https://genealogylady.net/2014/01/16/the-professional-vs-the-bully/

A blaze

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A $600.00 Blaze

A story and a half tenement house belonged to W. B. Schwartz on Shattuck street in the East end was destroyed by fire at two o’clock on Monday morning. Loss $700.00, insured for $600.00. The building was occupied by Mr. Schwartz and Mr. Fudge a as lodging place.

“A $600.00 Blaze,” The Brazil Register (Brazil, Indiana), 19 November 1885, p. 1, col. 3; digital image, Newspaper Archive (http://newspaperarchive.com : accessed 12 January 2014).

Yet another winter storm (Gladys)

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Letter transcription:

MRS. R. S. YEGERLEHNER
KENTLAND
INDIANA
2-26-43

Dear Daddy – Today is Mark’s big day – 10 years old. I gave him a dollar and his new finger-tip over coat. – John gave him 25¢ for stamp & Mother gave him a pr of mittens she knitted. I will bake a cake for him this morning. He wrote you a v-mail last night thanking you again for the dollar you sent and gave his grades. John also wrote. It is cold today and a small blizzard is on. The air is full of snow. Not much on the ground yet. Hope this finishes off winter weather. The tulips are up and I didn’t get them covered so they might get nipped. I told you in yesterdays I think the tax will be around 200⁰⁰ but the rate is higher this yr and exemptions lower. However I won’t have to pay it now and have enough bonds to cover it and last half of ’41. Didn’t get my (our) Jan bond bought so will have to get two before the end of this month (by tomorrow). So far have 14 – $25 and 6 – $50’s. Couldn’t rent a safety box – they are all taken. I think Ruth & Floyd will be here sometime Sunday. They are at Ruth M’s now. The papers just came but haven’t had time to read them – I hear the stork is going to fly over the Bartlett’s – don’t know when but probably be a few months yet. Soon be time to bathe David. He slept from his 6 P.M. bottle til 7:15 this morning. The pictures we took of he & Jimmy Ed were fair – will send them in next bunch of pictures. The storm has let up some but the wind still blows.

Love Mother

A partnership dissolved

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W. B. Schwartz and John E. R. Ewing have dissolved their partnership in the law practice owing to Ewing’s intention to go West and grow up with the country. Mr. Schwartz, however, will always be found prompt to attend to all legal business in the same office over Hauck & Son’s store.

“City and Vicinity,” The Democrat (Brazil, Indiana), 16 July 1885, p. 1, col. 3; digital image, Newspaper Archive (http://newspaperarchive.com : accessed 12 January 2014).