Above the Trees

The seed for Family Photoloom was planted fifteen years ago, when our family took a five-week family history trip. With daughters age 8, 3 and 2 the time, we flew from our home in Hillsboro, Oregon to attend a family reunion in London, Ontario, and then drove south through 2000 miles of sweltering Midwest summer heat to Fort Worth, Texas before returning home. The following is Scott’s account of one day on that trip.

We had heard stories about the Huskey School – of how Peter Huskey lead a wagon train to Missouri and started the first subscription school in the area. We traveled from St Louis to Hillsboro, Missouri, where, after knocking on several doors, we finally found distant cousin Dave Huskey, who gave us directions to the school.

“It’s up the hill. Just follow the fence on up, and when you get to the clearing at the top you’ll want to follow the fence. It’ll lead you right to it.” That’s when our adventure really began.

Loaded down with cameras, a tape recorder, a gallon of water, grass clippers, and a diaper bag we set off. We climbed the hill slowly, carrying Grace and Olivia most of the way, and by the time we got to the top clearing, we were very excited to find the school. I put down the child I was holding and asked my family to stay there while I searched around the clearing for a fence to follow, but after much looking could not locate it.

Leaving my family, I returned down the hill, where Dave gave me more detailed directions and pointers about how to find the fence. (His account doesn’t reflect it, but it was no short walk down and up that hill, and Scott was gone nearly an hour. The girls and I spent the time singing in a swath of Black-eyed Susans. ~ Renee)

When I returned back up the hill, we made our way to a back corner of the clearing that I had not explored completely. We found the fence!!! We followed it, and we saw…a house?!? No, that wasn’t it. We stopped, disappointed. Only Leisha and I went ahead. And then we saw it - about 25 yards ahead was the school house.

With yells of joy, we gathered our family at the school house. Just at that moment, we heard Dave coming up behind us on his tractor. He helped us find the tombstones of my third great grand-uncle, John Huskey and his wife Nancy, and told us about the ‘Huskey Gold,’ which legend says is still buried on the Huskey farm in a cedar box. He even let us have a few boards from the Huskey School as reminder of our trip.

We all loaded onto the tractor for a ride to the bottom of the hill, but when we arrived, we discovered that we had left our boards at the school house. Having come this far, I was not going to let our ‘mementos’ get away from us. It was getting dark, so I ran as much as I could, all the time swinging my arms wildly to swat away the huge thirsty horse flies, one or two of which escorted me all the way. At the top of the hill I grabbed our boards and said a quick prayer of thanks before jogging back down the hill with my fly escorts.

It was nearly dark when I neared the bottom of the hill, and I was greeted by beautiful fireflies celebrating my arrival. I jogged into Dave’s parking area with the boards held high above my head in triumph. I discovered that I was soaked! I had sweat clear through my clothes – even the money in my wallet was wet. There is the dark of the driveway, we shared our adventure and exchanged genealogy information with Dave and his family. Then with warm goodbyes, we packed up our car and headed back to St Louis. We topped off our evening with an alcohol sponge bath and a check for ticks (one had almost burrowed into my knee), followed by a meal at the local fast food place. We will remember this day now and always as “Our Huskey Homestead Adventure.”

Make a resolution now - this is the year to get your photos organized, and your family engaged in the grand adventure of family history. Visit Photoloom.com to learn more.

As a child, much of my time in the weeks preceding Christmas was spent in my mother’s kitchen, turning the handle of a little nut mill, while Mom and her friend, Betty, made cookies with intriguing names like Joe Froggers, Thumbprints, and Swiss Chews.

As we worked, Mom would reminisce about the holiday kitchen of her childhood – where she learned from her own mother, among other things, how to make a perfect pie. As a result, many of my treasured images of my maternal grandmother (who died when I was only three) come not from hazy memory or aging photographs, but from stories told in my mother’s kitchen, evoked by the aroma of warm walnuts and thick chocolate.

Holiday kitchens are filled with family history – heirloom recipes and family stories fold together as readily as melted chocolate folds into beaten eggs and brown sugar. Spend some time with your ‘family chefs’ this season: take pictures, write down “secret recipes,” record recollections – and add another rich ingredient to your family history.

Today, it is my eight year-old turning the crank of the little nut mill, surrounded by the smells of Christmas. Sitting on our kitchen stool, she listens to me as I tell her about baking Swiss Chews with her Grammi; and gaining, I hope, a few sweet memories of her own.

SWISS CHEWS
From the kitchen of Clella Mae Hancock

12 oz. semisweet chocolate chips
2 eggs
1/2 teaspoon salt
1 cup brown sugar
2 teaspoons vanilla
2 cups walnuts, finely chopped

Melt chocolate over boiling water and let cool. Beat eggs and add sugar gradually, beating until thick. Fold in chocolate and remaining ingredients. Drop onto non-stick cookie sheet or parchment paper covered cookie sheet. Bake at 325 degrees for 10 minutes. Store in an airtight container. Makes 2 dozen.

Tips for gathering heirloom recipes:

1. Watch and learn—For those with relatives from the “pinch-and-dash” school of cooking, time spent together in the kitchen offers a unique opportunity to gather family recipes that may not otherwise be accurately recorded – Grandma might “forget” to write down that extra pinch of a special something on a recipe card, but she’s sure to remember to throw it in when she’s making a batch with you.
2. Ask questions—Find out as much as you can about the history of the recipe. Ask, Who first made this? Do you remember the first time you made it? Why is this a family favorite?
3. Record it all in your Family Photoloom account. Try to take a picture of the item, and then record the recipe in the "Picture Notes." The picture and recipe can then be indexed (attached) to Grandma by using the "Other" field in the Relationship Setter.
   

Holiday photo-cards are a great source of heirloom-worthy photo-history. They chronicle the growth of children (and the aging of parents!), new marriages, new babies, and sometimes even include pets and home exteriors. For many, the annual holiday photo may be the only image from that year that includes everyone in the family. If you have access to a scanner, take a few minutes to scan these special images when they arrive. Then be sure to upload them to your Family Photoloom account so you can tag each person and link everyone - including friends and pets - to your family history.

But then what? In years past, I struggled over what to do with all those photo-cards once they were scanned - along with the collection of beautiful handmade cards and family letters that arrive in our mailbox every holiday season. In my perfect world, they would be painstakingly scrapbooked and on display in a satin-lined album with gilded edges, but in the rush of the season, they were lucky to make it into the “keep for later” box.

Then a few Christmases ago, I received a festively decorated binder as a gift from my daughter Laura. Filled with plastic sheet protectors and brightly colored paper dividers denoting a decade of Christmases to come, it offered a perfect, effortless solution for preserving our holiday treasures.

To make your own "Holiday History Binder," all you need is a 3-ring notebook, some acid-free and archival safe plastic sheet protectors, and a little imagination.

Decorating can be as easy as slipping a special picture into the front of a view-binder, or as involved as making a fabric-covered album like the one Laura made for me. Either way, once complete, it takes only a few minutes to slide those special cards, photos, and letters into the sheet protectors, and your holiday history is preserved, ready to share and enjoy for generations to come.

The story is told of how when my Grandpa Hans Patrick first saw this picture of Ella Mae Hughes, he fell in love with her before they ever met, announcing, “This is the woman I am going to marry!”

Though this picture does not show it, Ella Mae had strikingly beautiful auburn hair; however, her beauty went much deeper: Ella Mae was an extraordinary person.

Those who knew her well tell me that Ella Mae had an extremely caring spirit and she looked out for everyone around her. As the second oldest child (and oldest daughter) in a family of nine children, she was like a second mother to her siblings. And though she experienced much laughter and happiness, she was never light-headed. Many have shared with me that being with her was like being in the presence of an angel. Ella Mae loved everyone; you can see it in her face, you can read it in her letters, you can hear it in the stories that people tell about her.

Ella Mae died when my father was only sixteen, tragically killed when the car she was riding in was hit by a drunk driver. In fitting tribute to this gentle woman who was beautiful in every way, Ella Mae’s tombstone reads, “To know her was to love her.”

Though I never had the chance to meet Ella Mae, I too have fallen in love with her. And as I learn more about her and connect her story with mine, I feel reunited with this grandmother I have not yet met; it brings great joy to my heart to be able to share her life and story with others through Family Photoloom.


“Family Threads” is a periodic column in Above the Trees. If you have a photograph and family story that you’d like to share with our readers, please contact us today! All submissions are subject to editing for space and content.

From the time he could turn the pedals of his first bicycle until his death nearly 75 years later, my father, Robert Hancock, traveled thousands of miles across the the highways and hills of the Pacific Northwest on the seat of his bicycle.

In the early years of World War II, Daddy delivered telegrams for Postal Telegraph (a competitor to Western Union) in Portland, Oregon, riding the bike shown in this picture. Portland is now known as very "green" city, but Daddy went green long before it was fashionable or easy, riding to work nearly every day of his life. When he retired, he routinely rode at least 25 miles a day, and was a frequent participant in the 200-mile Seattle-to-Portland Classic (STP), riding his last STP at the age of seventy-four. But although cycling kept him healthy and active, just a few short years after that last STP, Parkinson's Disease forced him onto a stationary bicycle, which he rode until just a month before he died, in September 2006 at the age of eighty.

I am currently writing a historical novel for young adults based on Dad's time with Postal Telegraph, under the working title "Bicycle Boy."

This has been a pivotal week for our family (and our family history) - my oldest daughter gave birth to her first child, making Scott and I grandparents for the first time, and in the 50-some hours since baby Kyah Renee (the middle name is for me!) arrived, I’ve spent a lot of time holding her and feeling very blessed. These have been blissful, thoughtful moments, and I feel the generations past so very near, looking over my shoulder with great love and affection.

I’ve also had some time to think on less weightier, but nevertheless critical issues – like what I’d like my grandkids to call me. Now, I realize that there’s a better than even chance that at some point, a child, (maybe even this one) may hang an unexpected moniker on me, like Gigi or Mima or Gramma Buttons, but until that time, I don’t want to just be “the nice lady with the long hair who’s always calling us on Skype and sending weird little presents…yeah, Mommy’s mom.” I need a Gramma Name.

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Family names – that is to say, the names that we call one another within our own families – are an important (and often overlooked) piece of family history. Some are passed from generation to generation. Others come about from childish mispronunciations, or have a special story attached to them. Often they reflect ethnicity, heritage, or culture: in our family, for example, my son-in-law is Armenian, and so Kyah, blessed to live in a trilingual home, will call her Armenian grandparents “Papik” and “Tatik.”

Which brings me to this week’s 15-Minute Family History Assignment:
As family historians, we take great pains to accurately record each individual’s name, but do we take time to record their family names? Was your father “Dad” or “Pop?” Did your brother have a nickname? Did you? What did you call your grandparents? My maternal grandparents weren’t only Lester Alfred and Edna Fern – to me, they were and will always be “Poppy” and “Ma.” Take a few minutes to record those special family names, as well as any stories that go with them.

Family Photoloom Bonus:
Nicknames and universal family names (as in, everyone calls him “Buster”) can be recorded in Picture Notes on the individual’s icon picture, or in an Individual Record as part of their name (e.g., Carl “Buster” Bridgmon).

Two-generation family names (parent/child) are easy to record in the Relationship View. Simply drag an individual into the relationship setter and click on any other individual for whom a relationship has been set. Then record the Family Name in the space provided at the top of the screen. For example, when I put my mother in the center of the Relationship Setter and click on her father, I can record that “Lester is a “Pop” to Clella Mae” in the relationship information that appears at the top of the page.

Grandparent and other multi-generational family names can be recorded in Picture Notes, or in an Individual Record.

P.S. I’m staying traditional for now, and going with “Grammi.”

Our family history added a whole new generation yesterday. From two very proud first-time grandparents...