My sister-in-law Susie lost her beloved father a few months ago. She asked me to share some thoughts about him. So I combined info from his obituary with the pictures and notes she gave me, and this is what I came up with. I hope you like it, Susie. I’m so sorry for your loss.
Images of our ancestors bring so much life to a person previously only known through census records and cemeteries. But for many we simply don’t have the coveted photograph. Our imagination does the heavy lifting. I don’t know about you, but I tend to conjure up all farmers about the same! Sad really. You’d think that I would be pleased by the descriptions offered in some documents, most specifically the World War I Draft Registration Cards (DRC).
After my last blog, Linda gave me some food for thought. So we’re getting away from actual documents this time, and looking at patronymics. Not to be confused with patronising, which is something the British are REALLY good at. (British forces arrive in somebody else’s country: “Oh, you don’t have a flag? Oh dear. That’s a shame. You can’t have a country without a flag. Very sorry. Look, we’ll plant ours. Now your country belongs to us”)
My paternal grandmother, Sara Peterson Wallin, came from a Swedish family of six girls and two boys, all long dead now. Several of her siblings have stories which intrigue me—particularly the story of Aunt Therese.
In March 2011 I had no interest in genealogy. For 73 years the knowledge that I was adopted as an infant satisfied my need to know my origins. My adoptive parents were a loving, nurturing couple who always made it evident that I was an important part of their family. From before I knew what ‘adopted’ meant, I knew that was what I was. Under the care of my adoptive parents I grew up, went to college, married and raised a family. My education opened the door to a rewarding career that provided adequate income, interesting work and travel. Who needs more? Not I.
“Betty and I had a big fight today. She started it, so I’m going to let her cool her heels for 3 or 4 days. I can get 4-to-1 odds off of anybody in the house that she’ll call up and apologize within 72 hours. Boy, is she going to eat dirt then!”
My dad, Robert Milo Wallin, would have turned 90 this coming week. He’s been gone 20 years now—I had only 38 years with him on this earth… His sense of humor was one of my favorite things about him.
When I was a teenager, my Aunty A (whose real name was Annie Jane, but she’d never admit to it – and whose husband, I understand, didn’t tell her for months that he’d registered their baby daughter’s name as something other than they had agreed – fancy calling your child, in all innocence, by a name that isn’t hers….) told me she was 39. Since she was six years older than her sister, my mother – and since my mother was 24 when I was born, I didn’t even need to count on my fingers to work this one out. It has been a long-standing fact in the family ever since, that Aunty A is STILL 39. Officially. Oh yes.
It was about noon on a typical Houston summer day (Hot!) The kids and I were home, deciding it was just too hot to go to the grocery store – popcorn for lunch would be just fine! We were all startled when the doorbell rang, not because no body ever came over, but because it rarely worked.
This is the story of my grandma Wallin’s oldest sister, Anna Marie Peterson Genoways (1887-1928). She was a schoolteacher, like I used to be; and she found love later in life, like I did.