52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2026 Week 2 - A Record That Adds Color

 The prompt this week is "A Record That Adds Color". I knew as soon as a saw it that I am meant to blog this week, because I just this week came across a newspaper article. While small, it adds color to the story.

This week I have been researching my grandfather's first cousin, Angelo D'Ercole. He was married at least three times, so I have been spending time getting to know his first wife this week. Angelo married Nellie Sambasile in Omaha, Nebraska 6 Jan 1945. A local Italian language newspaper announced the marriage and included the fact that "an excellent lunch in honor of the newlyweds was served at the Fontenelle Hotel." 

Liete Nozze Ellie Sambasile e Angelo D'Ercole Wedding Announcement Jan 29, 1945 The American Citizen (Omaha, Nebraska) Newspapers.com

I didn't pay much attention to that line until the next day when I found Nellie in the local city directory. The line about Nellie lists her parents living at the same address. What caught my eye was the information following their names that listed her father's employment; Charles Sambasile is listed as a pastry man at the Hotel Fontenelle! That little tidbit got me thinking about what it meant for Nellie's wedding lunch. I'm sure it was very excellent. Her father was listed in the 1930 census at a hotel cook, possibly also at the Fontenelle. I'm sure his coworkers took extra care in preparing and serving the lunch and making it a nice experience for the newlyweds. 

I then spent a little time learning about the Hotel Fontenelle. The Fontenenlle was an upscale hotel that opened in 1915. Through the years it hosted many celebrities from dignitaries including Harry Truman and John F Kennedy to sports personalities including Babe Ruth and Lou Gehrig. The distinctive feature of the 18-story building was the tall castle-like spires at the top. The hotel transferred ownership several times until it closed permanently in 1971. Sadly, the hotel was demolished in 1983.

Image from Wikipedia

You can learn more about the history of Hotel Fontenelle on Wikipedia or at this site. 

 
HAPPY 2026!

I took a break from this blog and to a lesser extent, from researching my family history. In recent weeks I've started researching again and now it's time to get back to blogging about it. At this time I am concentrating on my PETRINI family line. Some of the affiliated surnames are ORSI, D'ERCOLE, and GALLACCI. As you've probably guessed, the family originated in Italy and migrated to the US in the early 20th century. Most of my research now is on the branch that settled in Omaha, Nebraska.

I hope to blog here more regularly about my discoveries. I will be using Amy Crow Johnson's "52 Weeks" prompts if they spark something in me, but I am not committing to using every prompt. I am also not confining myself to using ONLY those prompt. For now, let's just see where this goes. 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2024 Week 3 - Favorite Photo

 The prompt for Week 3 of the 2024 52 Ancestors challenge is “Favorite Photo”. This is a re-run. The prompt has appeared in previous years of this challenge. You can see my previous entries here and here. But I have lots of photos and many are among my ‘favorites’, so this prompt never gets old.

This year I am sharing a photo of Mary Julia Parker. I don’t know the story behind the photo. I don’t even know who Mary Julia is. But this is one of my favorite photos anyway!

I’m assuming that Mary Julia as a friend of my grandmother’s when she was a young woman. There is no indication of the date or place where the photo was taken. I found the photo among my grandmother’s things, along with other photos. One of the photos is of my grandmother in a similar dress style in the same location. She is standing next to the water fountain and you can see the Camel billboard in the background. There is another photo of Grandma wearing the same dress that she has dated 1920. This photo was probably taken about the same time, before my grandmother married in 1923. My guess is that the location of the photo is St. Louis where my grandma lived at the time.

I’ve tried to find out who Mary Julia was, but I’ve had no luck at all tracking her down.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: 2024 Week 2 - Origins

It’s week 2 of the 2024 52 Ancestors challenge. The prompt this week is “Origins”. Today I want to talk about the origins of the DeBee branch of my family. How did the DeBees came to be in America? 

Sylvanus Henry DeBee was my mother-in-law’s grandfather. The story she told is that DeBee is a French surname and that Sylvanus came to the United States from France. She also explained that original spelling was DeBoe or DuBois. The story is that Sylvanus changed the spelling when he came to America.

Is this a true story? There is probably at least a grain of truth to this story. DeBee probably does have French origins. After a couple of decades of genealogy research, I have not found an ancestor that came over from France. It definitely was NOT my mother-in-law’s grandfather, Sylvanus H. DeBee. His death certificate states that Sylvanus was born in Warren County, Pennsylvania. Census information corroborates this

It’s possible that his father, Lewis/Louis (Henry?) Debee was the original French ancestor, but that is not clear. Louis’s birth place is listed as France on the death certificates of his daughter Lucy. Pennsylvania is listed as the birthplace on the death certificates of his sons. The 1880 and 1900 censuses both state that the father of Sylvanus DeBee was born in France. My mother-in-law believed her grandfather was French. Was this because that is what her father told her?

Yet the 1910 census states that the father of Sylvanus was born in Canada (Fr). It’s possible that Louis was French Canadian by birth. It’s also possible that Louis was the first in the DeBee line to come to the United States. But it’s not clear whether he came way of Canada. Did he come from France, or was he descended from someone who came to Canada from France.

At this point, I can only conclude that the Debee family likely does have origins in France. I can’t confirm the original spelling of the name. I also can’t confirm who the first ancestor to come over from France was, or whether they stopped off in Canada. That leaves me a lot to research!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 1 - Family Lore

 It’s time for another year of 52 Ancestors. This year I plan to ‘think different’ about the challenge. In past years I’ve started out strong and then fizzled out after a few weeks. It seems that once I miss a week or two, I lose my momentum and just give up. One of the reasons that I give up is that sometimes I am not comfortable sharing what I want to write about. It feels too private to include on a public blog, because living people appear in the post. Sometimes there is sensitive information that could hurt people still living. So this year, I am going to try to write from each week’s prompt, but I may not be sharing online. I will keep my entries in Scrivener so that I can print them out at the end of the year. I will only blog the entries I am comfortable sharing.

The first prompt for 2024 is “Family Lore”. Family lore is part of the body of knowledge about the family. This is information that has been passed down through the generations. These stories that may or may not be true. Part of our Petrini family lore includes stories about my great-aunt China.

China was the daughter of Umberto Petrini and Eufrosina Pineschi. She was born about 1899 in Capannori, Italy. According to ‘family lore’ Ida was born China, pronounced ‘kee-na’. She went by Ida once the family came to the United States in 1907. I’ve not been able to find her birth record from Capannori, so I cannot verify her birth name. Every record I’ve found for her in the U.S. gives her name as Ida, pronounced ‘ee-duh’.

Ida married to Daniel Orsolini sometime between 1920 and 1928. She died at a young age. According to ‘family lore’ Ida died in New Orleans after being poisoned by her husband. Her family believed that Danieal was jealous about her affair with Rudolf Valentino. Yes, THAT Rudolph Valentino, the famous Italian-born star of silent films!

Rudolph Valentino See page for author, Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

 

 

 

Is any of this true? I don’t know, but I’m doubtful that much of it is true. I was told that Ida and Valentino were from the same area of Italy. However, Ida came over from Tuscany, a province in northern Italy. Rudolph Valentino was born in Apulia, in southern Italy. Also, Valentino died in 1926, two years before the death of Ida in 1928. If her husband poisoned her because he was jealous, he nursed that grudge for a long time!

I also know that Ida did NOT die in New Orleans. I found a certificate for her death in Cook County, Illinois on 5 Jul 1928. The cause of death is listed as ‘Bilateral Pleurisy With Effusion’. There was a coroner’s certificate of death and an autopsy was held. It’s possible that the death was considered suspicious, leading the family to believe Ida was poisoned.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 10 - Translation

 It’s Week 10 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt this week is “Translation”.
Most of the ancestors on father’s side of the family tree came spoke German. Most of my mother’s ancestors spoke Italian. Now throw in a little Dutch, a little Latin, and a little Slavic. I’ve gotten very good at asking for translation help! I’ve even gotten pretty good at translating a basic vital record from German or Italian to English! The hardest part isn’t translating one language into another; it is reading the handwriting!
But sometimes it is even harder to interpret a document that is written in English, my native language. Words written 100 years ago didn’t mean then what they mean today. And sometimes those words are obscure. One example is figuring out what people did for a living. Sometimes it is are. Many of my ancestors listed their occupation as ‘farmer’ or ‘laborer’. Other times it is not so easy. What is a ‘roller tender’. The death certificate of my great-uncle Harry Kolk lists his occupation as ‘roller tender’ in a flour mill. Googling has taught me that flour can be made by a rolling process, where the grain is crushed between rollers. And apparently someone had to tend to those rollers to make sure everything was proceeding as it should.
Many of my Ohio ancestors were involved in the pottery industry.

• The death certificate for William Anthony Brown lists his occupation as ‘Batterout’ for a china company.
• The 1920 census lists Eddie DeBee as a ‘Mold Runner’ in a pottery factory.
• James A DeBee was listed as a “Batter Out’ and later as a ‘Jiggerman’ in various censuses.
• Louis H DeBee was also a ‘Jiggerman’.
• I feel like I’m reading a foreign language. I need a ‘Pottery-to-English’ dictionary similar to the ‘German-to-English’ dictionary I used in high school!

Luckily for me—I found one! Or at least a good substitute. The Pottery Jobs Index. This is actually a site about pottery in England, but I’m assuming the job titles were the same in Ohio.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 9 - Gone Too Soon

It’s time for 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks. This week the prompt is “Gone Too Soon”. That brings to mind my cousin Maureen.

Maureen Elizabeth Malloy was born April 27, 1950 in Evergreen Park, Illinois. She was the second child of Clarence Malloy and Ruth Petrini. Maureen shared her middle name with her mother.

Maureen was a happy baby. She had sparkly eyes and dark curly hair. She brought joy to her parents, her grandparents, and her aunts. Sadly, just before her first birthday, Maureen became ill with what was probably a common cold. Within days Maureen was hospitalized with pneumonia. Sadly, Maureen passed away the day after her first birthday.

Maureen had an older sister at the time of her death. She had three additional siblings as well as many cousins. None of us ever got to meet Maureen because she was ‘gone too soon’.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 8 - I Can Identify

It’s another week of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt this week is “I Can Identify”.

Several years ago my cousin’s daughter sent me scans of some photos from her grandmother’s (my aunt) collection, along with some notes she had made.The collection had been handed down from Tecla Kolk, her father’s cousin. Many of the photos are unidentified.This is a photo from the collection. 

The baby is unidentified, but Tecla said it was a ‘boy cousin’. My cousin’s notes indicated that the photo is on black cardstock and appears to be of the same vintage as a photo of Tecla taken 1898-1899. Tecla had five male cousins, including my grandfather William and his brother, Harry.

• Harry - born Sep 1895
• Arthur - born Apr 1898
• William - born Nov 1898
• Paul - born Feb 1902
• Albert - born Jun 1904

If this photo was really taken 1898-1899, it cannot be either Paul or Albert as they were not yet born. This baby appears to be about a year old, and certainly no older than 2. Harry would have been 3-4 years old at the time, so he this cannot be Harry. That leaves only Arthur or William as possibilities.

I have no photos of Arthur, but I do have a photo of my grandfather. This is a photo of William with his older brother Harry, taken when William was 8 months old. 

If I compare the photos, I can say that the face shape, particularly the jaw line, is very similar. The nose on both babies is also almost identical. The eyes are not the same, but with a baby that age, it is hard to say. It could be sleepy eyes in the unidentified baby. I do see both my sister and my grandson in the unidentified baby.

I can’t say that I have 100% identified the baby in the first photo, but I believe it is my grandfather, William Kolk. I can say that the baby is definitely a Kolk.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 7 - Outcast

 It’s week 7 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge and the prompt is “Outcast”. This week I am going to tell you a sad story of Nellie Weiss. It contains some difficult information. It happened over 100 years ago, so I think it is okay to tell the story.

I came across Nellie in my research for my Weiss line. I’ve not been able to prove that she is part of my line, and suspect that she is not. Nellie’s father was William Weiss. It get’s complicated because my Weiss line is one of two that migrated to the area in the mid-1880s. Both men were named Henry Weiss, and both has sons named William. Sorting this out gets difficult sometimes. Anyway, back to Nellie.

 

When Nellie was 17 years old, she was sent away to a reform school. She had become difficult to control, sneaking out at night and leading a life of ‘waywardness. So she was effectively cast out.

What is sad to me is that Nellie was obviously acting out. Nellie’s father was in prison because Nellie was his victim of incest. Nellie needed help, and today she would get counseling. Unfortunately that was not the case in 1915. Instead she had a probation officer who sent her off to reform school. To be fair, the probation officer did seem caring, and was trying to help Nellie. Unfortunately, she was limited by the ‘help’ available at the time.

 

I do not know what happened to Nellie. I hope she was able to get the help she needed and live a happy life. I’ve been unable to find any mention of Nellie after the court case. You can read the full story here.

 

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 6 - Social Media

 It's already Week 6 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge! This week the prompt is ‘Social Media’.

Many years ago I was helping to clean out our church library. I came across a stack of old newspapers from the small town where the church was located. The papers spanned the 1950s. One thing that struck me was how ‘chatty’ they were. Stories about who visited who, and what child suffered a dog bite or fell off the swings and needed stitches. There were stories about people traveling to St. Louis for the day, about 30 miles away. Now many people routinely make the trip daily for work or play. Definitely not newsworthy today!

This discovery of mine was before I got involved on Facebook. It didn’t take too long for me to realize those ‘social’ articles were the equivalent of a Facebook post today. So this week I am sharing a newspaper clipping. It tells of my great-uncle John Janco visiting my great-grandfather Paul Janco’s farm in Michigan.

Michigan Newspapers, 1817-2009, MyHeritage.com [online database], Michigan Newspapers, 1817-2009
MyHeritage.com [online database]

I created a simulated Facebook post to show how that news might be shared today. I guess sometimes we are more like our ancestors than we realize!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 5 - Oops!

 

It’s week 5 of the 52 Ancestors challenge. The prompt this week is “Oops!”

If you’ve been involved in genealogy for any length of time, you’ve made a mistake. We all have. Sometimes this are little mistakes like misspelling a name. Sometimes they are big mistakes like adopting and following the wrong John Smith. Today I’m going to talk about one of my mistakes.

 

I have an Aunt Sis. Sis was not her given name, but it is the name she has been called by since she was a tiny tot. This is probably because she was the second girl in the family—the little sister.

 

I inherited my grandmother’s photo album many years ago. I was delighted to find a photo of the most adorable little girl. She was about 3 or 4 years old and had long blonde curls, sparkling eyes, and a beautiful smile. I didn’t recognize here, so I was lucky that that back of the photo had been labeled. “Sissy”! I’d wondered a bit about the blonde curls, since Aunt Sis has dark hair. But she may have colored her hair as an adult. Besides, I had shimmering blonde hair as a child, but it has been dark for years.

 

A few years ago my mom and I were visiting Aunt Sis, and I took along the photo album. The women had a great time reminiscing. The told me lots of family stories and identified several of the people that I didn’t know. Then I pointed out the picture of Aunt Sis and asked how old she was at the time it was taken. They set me straight immediately. That was NOT my Aunt Sis. That was Sissy, the daughter of their father’s cousin. OOPS!

 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 4 - Education

The prompt for week 3 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge is “Education”. There are a lot of ways I could have gone with this prompt. I could have talked about schools I’ve attended or career choices. I’ve decided to talk about a particular educator from my family tree—Lucile Hixon Striebel.

Lucile was born Leila Lucile Hixon in Michigan City, Indiana on November 26, 1896. She was the daughter of Julian Frank Hixon and Ella A. Herrold. Lucile was unusual for women of her time. After receiving her high school diploma, she went on to study education at Olivet College in Olivet, Michigan. She graduated with an A.B. degree in June 1918.
Lucile married Louis Daniel Striebel in Michigan City on June 27, 1922. At the time of her marriage, Lucile was teaching high school in Riverside, Illinois.
Lucile also held teaching certificates in the states of Michigan and Indiana. She taught into her 70s. In February of 1966 Lucile received a letter from the superintendent of the New Buffalo, Michigan school system. He wrote to remind her of the board’s policy: the retirement age was 65. The board felt that the policy should be implemented that year. However, in July she received a letter from the superintendent welcoming her back. She also received a probationary contract. She turned 70 in November of that year! Her Indiana teaching certificate was renewed for 5 years in 1970.

Lucile died in 1990 at the age of 93. She is buried next to her husband in Greenwood Cemetery in Michigan City.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 3 - Out Of Place

It’s week 3 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt this week is “Out of Place”.

My father was born and raised in Alton, Illinois. His family had lived in Alton and the surrounding areas since the mid-1800s, when his ancestors immigrated from Germany. Except for a brief period of time when he lived with my mother’s family after their marriage, my father spent his entire life in Alton.

Public domain, via Wikimedia Commons

My mother was born and raised in St. Louis, Missouri. She did not leave St. Louis until about 2 years after her marriage, when she moved with my father to Alton. Her father’s family had immigrated from Italy to St. Louis in the early 1900s. Her grandfather, Umberto Petrini, had come to the United States first, arriving in 1904. The rest of the family followed him in 1908.

A few years ago I was researching his wife’s sister, Fravolina Orsi. Imagine my surprise when I found her living with Umberto and his family—in Alton, Illinois! This find was in the 1910 Alton City Directory.

The family wasn’t in Alton for long. By 1912, Fravolina has married in St. Louis. Umberto is found in the 1916 St. Louis City Directory. There may be earlier listings that are him, but I’ve not yet confirmed that. They were there only a short while. They couldn’t have guessed that 40 years later, their descendants would call Alton ‘home’!
 

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 2: Favorite Photo

It’s Week 2 of the 52 Ancestors in 2023 challenge and the prompt is “Favorite Photo”. It’s always hard for me to choose a favorite anything, but especially a favorite photo. There are so many good ones to choose from! So instead of a favorite photo, I am choosing one that I like a lot.

This is a photo of my mother on a trip she and my father took a few months after they married. Obviously it isn’t a perfect picture. The colors are faded and the photo is blurry. I can hardly make out my mother’s face, and this is after editing. I can see that it was a windy day from the movement of the skirt. But what makes this photo special is the story behind it.

I’m not sure where my mother took the film to get it developed. I don’t know if she could just drop it off at the corner drug store or if she had to take it to a special photo shop. What I do know is that she had to go back multiple times to get the photo printed. The first time she went in, she excitedly opened the pack of photos. She couldn't wait to relive the special moments of the trip. Imagine her surprise—and irritation—when she realized one photo had not been printed. She went back to point out their mistake, and that’s when things got really interesting. It turned out that not printing the photo was not an oversight! The person she talked to explained that they would not print the photo because it was obscene! She was very unhappy. She did eventually get them to print the photo, but I think it took three visits to the shop. This is a great example of how things change through the generations!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks: Week 1 - I'd Like To Meet

 t’s a new year—2023! That means it’s time to try the 52 Ancestors challenge once again. Last year I made it farther than I ever have made it before—to week 22! I’m not feeling good about getting any further, but as they say: “nothing ventured, nothing gained”. So start I will!

This week the cue is “I’d like to meet”. The person I would mot like to meet is my great-grandmother, Mara Miller Janco. The Janco line is one of my brick walls, and there are so many questions I hope that Mara could answer for me. One question I have is about the correct spelling of ‘Janco’. Is it ‘Jancso’? Or is it ‘Jansgo’? I’ve written about this dilemma before, here. Logic says that I would be better off to as that question of my great-grandfather, Paul Janco. But I’ve been told many times that Paul was a curmudgeonly old man. It is unlikely that I would get my answers from him!

 

I would also ask Mara about is her birth surname, Miller. Was it really Miller? My grandmother assumed Mara’s father was English because ‘Miller is an English name’. But they lived in a region that was part of Austria-Hungary at the time. It later was part of Yugoslavia. I have to wonder if Mara’s father was German or Austrian, with a spelling of ‘Müller’. I’ve written about that here. I’d also like for Mara to tell me her family history as far back as she knows it.

 

Beyond the names, there are other things I’d like to hear from Mara. She had a daughter who died as a young child. Her foot became infected after stepping on the thorn of a locust tree. There were no antibiotics at the time. I’d like Mara to share her memories of the child.I’d also like to hear stories of my grandmother when she was a young girl. Mara died within a few years of her arrival in the United States. I wonder what was it felt like to come over on a ship with three children? Did she have any second thoughts once she got here? Mara had a hard life. Based on stories I’ve heard about her husband. I suspect that he was abusive at some level, though possibly no more than other men of that time. It must have been very difficult for Mara in a place where she did not know the language or people. I'd like to hear her story.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 22: Conflict

It's Week 22 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt for this week is ‘Conflict’. I could write about multiple conflicts I know of in my family, but I’m going to reach way back for this one. This is an excerpt from the will of my 4x great-grandmother, Catharine Peterson.

“As to my daughter Mary Lippincott and my Grand daughter Catharine Weiss, my will is that neither of them are to have any of my property or any of the proceeds arising therefrom.”

Catharine Weiss was my great-grandmother. I do not know why she was written out of her grandmother’s will. From this abstract, it is clear that Catharine Weiss and her aunt, Mary Lippincott, were the only ones left out of the will. 

 But why? I have no answers, but it seems logical to me that there must have been some kind of conflict here. Was Grandma Peterson unhappy with the marriages of her daughter and her granddaughter? Did they leave the family church to join another denomination after they married? Catherine Weiss moved all the way from New Jersey to Illinois a few years after her marriage. Did Grandma feel abandoned and want to punish Catharine? I have no answers right now. I haven’t done a lot of research past Catharine Weiss, so it’s possible I will find an answer at some point. It’s also possible that there was no conflict. Maybe Grandma thought that Catharine and Mary were well provided for. Maybe she thought that her other children and grandchildren needed her help more. It’s possible — but I don’t think that is what happened.

I know it i little silly, but I feel a little abandoned by Grandma Peterson. It feels like she also wrote me out along with over 150 (and counting) other descendants! Catharine and Henry Weiss had 11 children and at least 22 grandchildren. Only 5 of the grandchildren were born while Catharine Peteson was living, but it appears that she wanted nothing to do them. This makes me sad. I wish I knew why. I’m sure there is an interesting story there, and I hope that some day I find it!

Note: These documents were found in 2009. Sadly, I was not as good about noting where I found information as I am now. I don’t remember where I found these images. I know that the excerpt of the will is from Ancestry. I’m not sure where I found the printed extract, I think I found it much earlier on HeritageQuest.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 19: Food and Drink

 I missed a week of posting for the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. I was out of town making memories at my son's college graduation. Today I was on Facebook telling a family story to my cousin's daughter, and I knew it was the perfect story for Week 19. The prompt for the week was 'Food and Drink'.

These photos are of a cake that my Aunt Evelyn and my mom made from scratch — their first ever! Evelyn had just turned 18 and my mom was not quite 21. They were so proud of the cake that they took pictures! But just as they were ready to enjoy it, there was a knock at the door. Some relatives had come to visit. Evelyn and Margaret did NOT want to share that cake! So they quickly hid it behind the sofa! I'm not sure how long the relatives stayed, but the cake was forgotten. When Evelyn and Margaret remembered the cake, it was a few days later. I was told it was as hard as a rock. So no one knows if it tasted good....but it was pretty!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 20: Textile

It's Week 20 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt for this week is ‘Textile'. This is an easy one for me. I immediately thought of a dishtowel I have in my collection, handed down to me from my grandmother.

This dishtowel was hand-woven by her mother, Mara Miller Janco. Mara died at a young age, when my grandmother was only 11 years old. It is the only thing I have from that great-grandmother. If there were photos of her, they have been long lost.

I do not know if Mara made this towel after she came to the United States in 1911, or if she made it while she was still in Europe. She'd been in the U.S. less than 2 years when she died. It seems likely she made it while still in Europe and brought it along to her new home.

I also do not know what my grandmother meant by 'hand-woven'. Did Mara use a loom to weave the cloth? Or did she literally do the entire thing by hand. I don't know enough about weaving to speculate, but it seems likely to me that she used a loom. Either way, I am lucky to have this artifact and grateful to my Grandmother for choosing me to keep this legacy.

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 18: Social

It's Week 18 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt for this week is ‘Social'.

 One thing that has always amazed me when reading old newspapers is what was considered newsworthy. Not just engagements and weddings, but showers and house warmings. Not just births, but also christenings and parties afterwards. Here is an example from a 1934 newspaper.

Shirk reunion and birhtday party 03 Apr 1934, Tue The Pomona Progress Bulletin (Pomona, California) Newspapers.com

 I'm not only surprised by the fact that these events are considered newswothry by the entire community. I'm also surprised by the amount of detail included. As in this article, often everyone in attendance is listed, along with the place of residence. It isn't unusual to see a listing of who traveled furthest to get to a family reunion. In shower announcements, the food served and the decorations are reported in detail. Wedding announce not only give detailed descriptions of the bride's outfit, but also the attendants. 

Forrest-Westfall Wedding 25 Jun 1954, Fri The Edwardsville Intelligencer (Edwardsville, Illinois) Newspapers.com

Look at the detail in this one wedding announcement. The outfits, the flowers the decorations, and the names of the guests. This was the 1950s version of Facebook!

52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 17: Document

It's Week 17 of the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge. The prompt for this week is ‘Document'. I decided to blog about a document that I found with my grandmother’s important papers—a petition for naturalization filled out by her youngest brother.

One thing that my family and I find interesting about this petition is the explanation for the name change. The little brother was born ‘Adam’ but used the name Albert or Al once he settled in the U.S. His explanation?
“Adam does not appeal to my sense of hearing.”

I don’t know if Albert ever filed this petition, or if he ever naturalized. This petition is not complete. I found a copy of his Declaration of Intention. It was completed and stamped in the Cook County Circuit Court in Chicago. The date is January 23, 1925. Albert would have been about 19 years old at the time.

Even though the petition is not complete, it does contain some valuable information. Once section lists places and dates of residence in the U.S. since his arrival.

The last residence listed is Richmond, Illinois from Jan 1926 to ‘present’. This tells me that Albert filled out the petition sometime after Jan 1926. He apparently intended to file the petition in the Circuit Court of Woodstock in McHenry County, Illinois. Now I have some hints to guide me in my search for Albert’s naturalization.

Albert died of tuberculosis on April 3, 1936 at a sanatorium in Ottawa, Illinois.