May Genealogy To-Do List

Research
* Send for any birth/marriage/death records still in the Scheier 2011 folder, from LDS.
* Write notes to two possible living Scheier relatives.
* Update family summary for Scheier family, to see what I now know and what I still need to learn about.

Organization
* This is the same item I’ve been *very* slowly chipping away at. Go through and enter every piece of information stored over the year in Research 2011 folder for husband’s side. Source in RootsMagic database. [In April I made it through about half of another folder. There is the rest of that folder and one more to go. I'm much better at gathering information than I am about organizing it and putting it away in its permanent home.]
* Go through the remaining piles from the middle inbox on my desk, and see what is lurking there to be put away, entered into the database, etc. Ditto the two boxes of treasures saved from the Great Attic Cleanout (my own attic). [Little additional progress has been made in April. I seem to be better at adding to the piles than at reducing them. Sigh.]
* Go through the Snow estate papers and compiled Minor genealogy found on the recent Connecticut State Library trip and integrate into datebase.
* Back up the blog. Putting this on my monthly to-do list reminds me, when I look at the post to see that it got published and this helps me remember to actually do the back up. Otherwise my memory doesn’t always work.

Education
* Learn more about finding living relatives and how to persuasively contact them.
* Watch one online video or webinar about genealogy. [In April I watched Megan Smolenyak present about finding living relatives and learned some new possibilities. I also participated in a two-week course via JewishGen that introduced their website and gave us some experience with some of the resources available there.]

April 30, 2012 | | Tags: | Comments Closed

Aunt Freda

Is it just me, or is there something about this year, in particular? It seems there are so many 100-year anniversaries of note this year – already, and it is only April. What was it about 1912 as a time in this country?

The news is always reporting about one or another anniversary. The sinking of the Titanic is a big one, getting a lot of coverage right now. And in my area, Boston, it is also the One Hundredth Anniversary of Fenway Park, home of our Boston Red Sox. It is also the one hundredth anniversary of the Bread and Roses Strike in Lawrence Massachusetts. Textile factory workers, many young immigrant women, went on strike for more than 2 months looking for higher wages in response to a new law shortening the work week. Massachusetts had passed a law limiting the work day to 8 hours. And the first cherry tree saplings which inspired the annual Washington DC Cherry Blossom Festival were presented by the City of Tokyo to the City of Washington one hundred years ago.

So what does all of this have to do with Aunt Freda?

Freda as a baby

In thinking about 1912, I went looking to see who in the family was born that year. It turns out, of the birth information I have, the closest relative in our family born in 1912 was my father-in-law’s younger sister, Freda Greenberg. She was born in January 1912, in Syracuse, New York. There is no family history that I have yet found that mentions who she might have been named after. My current favorite notion is that her father wanted her named after his mother, Feige. Sounds reasonable – not a shred of evidence.

Freda started school as a five year old, speaking only Yiddish and being left-handed. This was probably the Fall of 1917. The teacher tied her left hand behind her back — all the while speaking English to her. What an introduction to formal education!

Nevertheless, she must have liked school, and she was a good student. When she was about 12 years old, the family moved from Syracuse to Buffalo, New York, in about 1924. So she went to high school in Buffalo.

Freda's high school picture

We think she finished high school in 3 years. Her high school quote was: “And still they gazed and wonder grew that one small head could carry all she knew.” We know she had aspirations to more education, and she went on to college, even though it was the Great Depression.

Her brother, Iz, remembered this disruption during her college days: “When she was in college, we were subject at University of Buffalo to a tuberculosis check. You know, they gave everybody this tuberculosis check and they inject it, stuff under your skin and if you showed a positive reaction, then you were told to go and get x-rays, have your lungs x-rayed. Well some crazy x-ray specialist in Buffalo sent her a written report to the effect that he had never seen one so young with so much infection, TB infection in her lungs. Now you can imagine how horrified my parents were. And the family doctor read that report and said, “Look, she’s got to drop —” She was majoring in chemistry. She’s gotta drop out of college right away and, you know, rest in bed for months. Maybe we can forestall having to go to a sanitarium.” Well, we found out that night that the Arbeiter Ring, which had a great deal of strength in New York City among the garment workers, and TB was rampant among them and they worked in sweat shops and there was all sorts of lint flying around. The Arbeiter Ring had established a TB sanitarium in Liberty, New York, in the Catskills and he got the bright idea of sending my mother and my sister up to the Catskills for vacation. And in the meantime — somewhere near Liberty — and in the meantime they would make an appointment to have her examined at the TB sanitarium. I remember I drove up there, I drove them up. And I went to the sanitarium with my mother and my sister and there was — the doctor in charge of the sanitarium was extremely understanding and very nice and said, “Well, now, don’t, don’t get too upset, Mrs. Greenberg. I have had TB myself. That’s why I am in this work. I’m going to take your daughter away and give her some x-rays and so forth.” He came back in about a half an hour and said, “The guy was all wrong. She doesn’t have the slightest case of TB. What she has is some calcified spots on her lungs.” And he said, “Everybody over the age of 21 — practically anybody — cause we all come in contact with some TB germs, bacilli. And what happens in the normal body is that, as a defense, the lungs form calcified spots around there and that’s the end of it. That’s all she’s got.”

Freda, college graduation

There was no more family history about this possible disruption to her college days. In fact there is some thought that she managed to finish in 3 years rather than the usual 4. We do know that she graduated in June 1932. (I wrote some about this a couple of years ago – click here if you want to go back to the first post about education in this family.) She was just 20 years old. Freda had aspirations to medical school – she was the scientist in the family. But because it was the Great Depression (and perhaps because she was expected to help support her brother’s additional schooling) the family could not support her in this. No matter the reason, it was a bitter disappointment to her.

It seems likely that the family hoped/expected that she would go to work as soon as possible and help support the family. I was told by the registrar’s office at University of Buffalo that it was not uncommon for young adults to stay in school as long as they could due to the scarcity of jobs during this time. Her first job out of college was at DuPont in Buffalo. She had competed with a huge group of people for one of two jobs they had available. She worked in a lab testing the permeability of what was to become cellophane. We don’t know exactly how long she held this job, but it was a major feat that she got it.

April 23, 2012 | | Tags: , , , , | Comments Closed

Tax Time

Here’s how my April 15th went.

 

Visited grumpy son–bailed him out of relatively minor credit card debt.

Spoke to grumpy daughter-  Navy boyfriend has just left for 9 months in Qatar.

Finished the taxes–more or less.

Grumped a lot.

Had a glass of wine.

Wrote a big check.

 

A really big check.

 

Then wrote another one to the state of Connecticut.

Had another glass of wine.

Sat down to write the blog.

We’ll see how it goes.

 

Yes, I procrastinate filing my income tax, especially in years when I know it will cost me a bunch.

My first personal recollection of tax time is from my childhood.  Every year my dad would finish his taxes somewhere around midnight on April 15th, load the entire family into the car and drive to the main post office in Philadelphia to put the envelope in the mail.  It seemed like fun to us.  I have no idea why he didn’t go alone and leave my mother at home with my brother and I asleep, but he didn’t.  My brother and I looked forward to April 15th every year.

I did the same thing with my kids when we lived in New Haven.We would drive to the Brewery street post office where Uncle Sam himself would receive the envelope from one of us.  It did ease the pain and help us remember why we pay taxes.

There were temporary federal taxes at various times in U.S. history, but with the passage of the Sixteenth Amendment in February, 1913 the income tax became a permanent part of American life.

 

Later in 1913 Congress levied a one percent tax on net personal incomes above $3,000 with a six percent surtax on incomes of more than $500,000. On November 3, 1913, American citizens received information about the new national income tax including the fact that a married man living with his wife, with an income of $5,000 will pay $10 a year and if his income is $10,000 he will pay $60 a year. There were three pages of forms and one page of instructions.

 

 

What about my ancestors? Did they procrastinate?  Did they pay?  Did they cheat?  How did they feel about taxes?  How much did they pay?

Hmm… 1913… all of my grandparents were married adults by 1913, I wonder what they thought about this new tax. I can’t ask them, but I can look back at general reaction in 1913.

This from the Saturday Evening Post, May 13, 1913:

“The income-tax question is one that will not down. For the best of reasons this is true. Way down in the hearts of the masses of mankind there lurks a strong sense of justice, on which is founded the opinion that vast accumulations of wealth in the hands of individuals or corporations should help to support the Government under which they are acquired, by which they are protected and without which they would vanish.

And why not? Why tax the widow’s mite and the orphan’s bread, and not tax these accumulations? Why lay tribute on what we eat and wear, and leave untaxed millions in the hands of those who can never personally consume it, and with whom it is surplus?

If there ever was a time when the concentrated wealth of the land should bear its share of our enormous expenses of government it is now.

There is a necessity of an income tax now that did not exist when our Government was conducted economically. In all the history of the Government of the United States there never was such an era of prodigality as that on which we have fallen. The Prodigal Son in his most prodigal day was parsimonious when compared with some exhibitions of extravagance that have characterized our Government in recent times.”

And this from the Detroit Free Press:

“The conference committee has concluded to report the Senate’s amended provision of the income tax and the measure in that form will almost certainly go to the president and become law.  This is highly unfortunate, for of all possible forms of the income tax the graduated scale is the most vicious.

Under the system now to be the policy of the United States the more diligent and enterprising a man is the more he will be taxed.  If he is satisfied to make little he will be exempted from supporting his government.  If he tries to do better and increase his wealth, part of what he makes will be taken from him, and the more he makes the more will be taken.  It is a penalty on success and a premium on failure.”

My absolute favorite is a cartoon.

Our opinion on economic policy often depends on where we sit on the economic ladder.

My grandparents were close to the bottom of that ladder.  I am sure they paid no income tax in 1914 and I suspect they thought the whole thing was a grand idea.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

April 16, 2012 | | Tags: , | Comments Closed

The Great Depression – Canton, Ohio

I think my earliest memories of hearing about the Depression came from tidbits my mother shared when I was little. I don’t really remember her first reference to it – it may have been related to doing without something we couldn’t afford. My mother, as I have described briefly elsewhere, was a girl and teenager during most of The Depression (see this Wikipedia page for a general description of it). She was born in 1919 so was about 10-11 years old as it was beginning and her junior high and high school days were during the worst years.

The Denman family was living in Canton, Ohio during this time. Canton was a northern industrial city, although there was farm land nearby, dependent on such companies as Hoover and Republic Steel. My mother’s description of Canton was of many mills burning lots of coal, so that there was coal dust everywhere and you couldn’t open windows without enduring a layer of fine grit on everything.

The family had moved to Canton in 1925, first renting a house on one side of town, and then in 1928 buying a house in a new development across town on 22nd Street. There were about 8 houses when they moved in and my mother remembered playing with the other children, on a street with little enough traffic that they sledded down the big hill on the street.

Her description of the Depression: “We lived there for about six years [the house on 22nd Street] during the Wall Street Crash, the Bank Holiday, and first few years of

Mom and Uncle Dick, Canton 1931

depression. As the Depression deepened and the furnaces were allowed to cool in the steel mills, more and more people were out of work and there was real hunger in town. Some families lived in one room in the winter, hanging blankets in the windows and doorways to keep as much heat in that room as possible. Dad’s salary was cut in half and he could no longer afford the house payments so we lost our home and once more moved back across town – this time near the Junior High School my brother was still attending.” This picture shows my mother and her younger brother in the 22nd Street neighborhood. I don’t know why they had the small fire (although it was December).

To continue what my mother wrote about her memories of the Depression: “The whole country seemed to be in trouble. The big farm belt in the middle of the country was enduring the “dust bowl” years when the wind, and sun, seemed determined to completely remove all the topsoil from the land. The weather was hot and dry and families lost farms. These were the days of the “Okie”, when families and all of their possessions loaded into a broken down car to head for a city and hope of a job. They were the days in the big industrial states when plants shut down and unemployment was high and just kept getting higher. Young people without jobs could not marry. Without jobs they couldn’t rent rooms let alone apartments. Many of them left home to wander around the country looking for work because there simply wasn’t enough food at home to feed one more. “Riding the rods” was a phrase understood by a generation that stole rides in box cars on the trains or in some cases rode beneath the cars.”

“I remember one fall when one of my friends was happy because the shoemaker could put lower heels on a pair of her mother’s old shoes so she would have something to wear to school. Her aunt had an extra coat and her mother was making her a skirt out of another old coat. Another friend wore her spring coat all winter because there was not always money for food let alone a coat. There were times when Mother made cocoa and buttered toast for us and a couple of school friends in the afternoon when she suspected there wasn’t sufficient food at their house.” [I also remember my mother telling about a friend wearing cardboard in her shoes when the soles developed holes and her family couldn't afford another pair for her. This was very common it seems, and a way for a child to be able to continue to go to school since you had to have shoes to go to school.]

I never asked a lot of questions about my mother’s experiences growing up in the Depression, and am left with impressions that the family was among the luckier ones with a job that kept a roof over their heads and ways to get enough food. My grandpa Lyle’s family lived not too far away and farmed, so I suspect that some food came from their gardens. My grandparents probably also had a garden. I know my grandmother canned all sorts of fruits and vegatables when I was a little girl and I think she must have done so from her earliest married days and certainly during the Depression.

I recently finished reading Ted Gup’s book, A Secret Gift, which I had bought because it was described in the review as being about the Great Depression in Canton Ohio. I knew my mother had grown up in Canton during the Depression, so I had to have it. Once bought, it sat – as other books do – in my to-be-read pile for a year or more, but there was always something else more intriguing to be read first. When I got the copy of my mother’s high school yearbook, and decided to write about her high school days, Gup’s book percolated to the top of the pile and I began reading it. I had expected a description of what The Great Depression was like in Canton and got that plus much more. Of course there have been other books written about the Depression but this one struck home for several reasons. His descriptions, using transcriptions of original letters written at the time, show just how bad it was for many families. They also show how proud people often were, and how difficult it was to ask a stranger or organization for help. I was left with a better understanding of why so many who lived through the Great Depression didn’t talk much about it, wanting to move on and wanting to protect the next generation from its deprivations.

April 9, 2012 | | Tags: , , | Comments Closed

Genealogy Time Capsule

     Once again I am writing this blog surrounded by construction debris and piles of dust.  Having unearthed my computer from its protective cocoon of plastic wrap has allowed the dust to colonize yet another area of the house and will most likely soon render the computer inoperable. Lest you be thinking that I will soon be living in a house worthy of a photography session in House and Garden let me disabuse you of that notion.  This is more a “we have to do it or the whole think is going to collapse” sort of remodel.  When I attempted to stay home on Thursday having contracted whatever plague is going around I heard the workers under my bedroom window saying, “You think there’s an animal living in there?”  This was followed by the response, “Nah, I think Jack chased it out yesterday.”

All of this is a long-winded way of saying that I am still without access to most of my genealogy stuff. I am, however, occasionally able to read other genealogy blogs, although usually long after their original posting, and I saw that Bill West at West in New England had asked folks to write about what they would place in a genealogical time capsule.  This is a post I can write without any actual data, so I’m all over it.  It is also helpful to have missed the requested deadline and have read all the other actually thoughtful and interesting responses.

My first thought is that my time capsule is MINE and will be a twisted reflection of the oft-repeated phrase “history is written by the victors.”  My family history research has made it clear to me that all of my ancestors were liars.  They lied about everything, to my great frustration as a researcher, but who am I to mess with family tradition. So, my time capsule will contain pictures of me and my offspring, but only the best looking ones, with a little help from Photoshop. If it appears to my descendents that the body simply does not match the head, that’s their problem.

It would be nice to include a well-sourced, extremely accurate version of my family history to date.  Unfortunately, such a document does not exist.  What they will get is the poorly sourced, mostly accurate, and occasionally incomprehensible current version. “Hey descendents, if you think you’re so smart, you figure it out.”

I would have to include personal mementos of life in the late twentieth and early twenty-first century, including:

1.  One of each of the various pills that have been prescribed for me during my life, only to be withdrawn from the market after we learned that they actually kill people.  No wonder I’m dead.

2.  My favorite recipes. No wonder I’m dead.

3.  All of my exercise equipment.  Oh wait, there isn’t any.  No wonder I’m dead.

4.  My report card from the fourth grade.  My kids didn’t want it, now you’re stuck with it.

5.  All of the TV and internet ads of the 2012 presidential campaign.  Please tell me it doesn’t sound familiar.

6.  The story of my life.  It was fun, really, almost all of it.

 

Now, how to insure that my time capsule is found in a hundred years or so.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

First, be sure to bury it somewhere that will not be under water due to global warming.

Second, put it anywhere but inside this house.  I know this house is going to fall down no matter what we do, hopefully without us inside.

Lastly, provide a series of intricate and painfully difficult to decipher clues to find it.  Intricate, painfully difficult to decipher clues will make it appear that there is actually something valuable inside.  I have no doubt greed will survive the twenty first century.

It’s been fun thinking about my time capsule.  I know that the goal of family historians and time capsules is to preserve the past.  I think I have achieved the more common human result, reinventing the past.

 

Click on the photos to link to the websites of their creators.

 

 

April 2, 2012 | | Tags: , , | Comments Closed

© 2009-2013 The Genealogy Gals All Rights Reserved -- Copyright notice by Blog Copyright