Prompt 28 - Parents

This is an uncomfortable subject for me and still one of great joy. My father Henry Rawlings was a child molester. It wasn’t until I was in my early 30’s before we talked about him openly. He died in 1968, but my sisters and I continued to keep the secret. I was the only one that had any hint from Henry that he had been molesting the others. I was the youngest and he actually told me at one point that he would teach me about men and women as he had with the others. I was so confused. The school had sent a book home when I was in 5^th grade that most of the kids had speculated had information about sex. My parents never had “the talk” with me. Henry had begun touching and fondling me at the age of 8. I was not subjected to much contact because Henry was diagnosed with cancer when I was 12. I finally began talking to my therapist about the molestation when I was in my late 20’s. I joined a therapy group for incest survivors. After several months with this group, I decided to talk to my mother to see if she had any suspicion of what was happening in our home. As I expected she did not know anything. She was forced to begin supporting the family when I was 6 years old. My sisters and I had worked so hard at keeping my father’s secret that I was the only one that suspected I was not the only victim. One sister did not want to talk about it, but it has brought my oldest sister and I closer by dropping the veil of the secret. I am even closer to my brother.

My mother was born Margaret Helen Hughes, but she hated the name Margaret. She adopted the nickname Peg and there were many people that never knew that it was not her given name. She was born in Ohio and grew up there. When she was a teenager she would swim across the Ohio River to the West Virginia side and back. She continued this until the day she came face-to-face with her father upon her return to the Ohio side. That put an end to her river swimming.

My parents met on a party boat on the Ohio River. These trips usually occurred on Saturday nights with a live band. Henry was 26 years old and my mother Peg was only 14. I heard my father once tell a cousin that he knew they were meant to be together and so he waited through her short marriage to another man when she was 17. By the time she was 22 my mother was divorced and had a 3-year old daughter (my sister Barbara). Peg and Henry married in 1947 and added 3 more children to the family.

After my father died in 1968 a very dear friend of my mother’s invited her to meet his brother. My mother fell in love very quickly. She and I even moved about 30 north to be closer to Fred. Fred had been married once and had been divorced for several years. Their courtship lasted 4 years. My siblings and I had become very attached to Fred and kept cheering them on. In 1972 during my Christmas break from college, I helped them get prepared and then attended a very lovely wedding of my mother Peg to her new love Fred.  When I refer to my “dad” I am talking about Fred. He is the only grandfather that my son and his cousins have known. He is now great-grandfather to my grandchildren.

Fred and my nephew Joe before the wedding 

Fred's mother, my new grandmother Ferol

The wedding party
Cal Fulgham, Fred, Peg, Cal's wife Janet

My parents Fred and Peg at the beginning of their 32 year marriage

In 2013 my dad Fred with my sister Barb, her husband Sam, Fred's granddaughter Melissa, Melissa's husband Les and Fred's great-granddaughters Sydney and Samantha

Prompt 16 - Message In A Bottle

I worked with a woman who did find a message in a bottle once. It was from a person who lived in Australia and they had launched their message during a cruise. My acquaintance had found the bottle while walking on the beach in Florida. She wrote to the author of the message and they were able to meet in person. It is something that I have thought about and considered what I would put into such a message.

I think I would give a very short description of my life and provide my address, both physical and email. I would love to be able to launch my message in the Ohio River where it passes my hometown of Wellsville, Ohio. I would hope that my message would be found by someone that would read it and respond in kind. What I would hope for is to begin a dialog by mail or email that would last for many years. 

Prompt 17: Toys and Games

The earliest toy I remember having is a rubber doll whose arms and legs did not even move. It had a squeaker in it and was very similar to toys that my dog plays with. It was fine for a little girl to cuddle and it kept me company at night. I do actually have memories young enough to have still been sleeping in a crib. For someone that describes themselves as not being a “girlie girl” I loved dolls. I had a Tiny Tears doll that would drink from a bottle, cry tears and blow bubbles with a bubble pipe. Later I moved on to Barbie and Tressie dolls. I gave my dolls away to the daughters of one of my mother’s friends. I am sorry that I did so and wish I still had my dolls to pass along to my granddaughter.

My early playmates were my brother and sisters. Later I would play with neighborhood children, some of whom were my cousins. We did not play board games very often. When we did we usually played Monopoly or card games like Fish, Old Maid and War.

The fun part of being a grandmother is having children who will allow me to play with them. I have a new set of games that are ready for visits.

Marta with Christmas loot 1956

Prompt 9: Halloween

The events I remember on Halloween when I was a child were the two nights that we would trick-or-treat in Wellsville Ohio. That’s right I said two nights. We don’t know how that came into existence but we children made the best of each night. There was a citywide costume contest each year but I only attended that once. For those two nights of trick-or-treat we would pass the word to each other where the best candy could be found and who was passing out apples. One house you had to be sure to visit and the other house you had to bypass.

The earliest costume I can remember was a nurse’s uniform that my mother made for me. I was 5 years old and my big brother accompanied me. He was dressed as a hillbilly wearing my father’s old work overalls and carrying a moonshine jug. In later years I would take my mother’s friends’ children out for trick-or-treat. The most memorable night was the one when I ran into a rural mailbox face-first while accompanying my young charges. I was wearing two black eyes the next day and didn’t have a decent story to go with them.

We went by the rules that if there was no porch light on that meant that the house was to be bypassed. It was possible the owner did not celebrate Halloween, or they simply didn’t want to be bothered or they had run out of candy.

There were some who did take advantage of Halloween in a negative fashion by going out to steal bags from smaller children. We kept an eye out for those ruffians and tried to protect each other from them. You could always tell the serious trick-or-treators were the ones with a pillow case instead of a shopping bag to collect the candy.

Over the last 30 years I have missed Halloween. My house was set 300 feet from the street down a very dark driveway. It was the perfect atmosphere for Halloween, but no one seemed to want to risk the trip.

My son Sean getting his make-up for Halloween

Prompt 7 - Grandparents

I thought I knew a lot about my grandparents before I started doing my genealogical research. Since starting I have learned quite a bit, but I have also added to that knowledge through a Facebook group that contains memories of those of us that grew up in the village of Wellsville Ohio. I’ve learned more about the history of the village from others that grew there and because of it I realized how it was that my grandparents came to live in that area.

 

Joseph Hughes, dating in 1923

My paternal grandmother Mary Gillespie emigrated from Ireland at the age of three with her mother, her twin sister Rose and her brother Lawrence. Her uncles Thomas and James had come to this country several years previously to earn money as coal miners. They had purchased farm property. When my great-grandmother and her children arrived there was a farm in place. I don’t know if my grandmother’s brother Lawrence went to work in the mines straightaway or if he worked the farm for a couple of years first. But I do remember my grandmother telling me stories of her mother clearing rocks from the fields in her apron. I do know from stories my grandmother told that their home was near the railroad and I have since been able to find maps that showed they are holding and where the railroad ran. My grandmother got to know the schedule of the trains that went by, so she would be out hanging up laundry or doing other types of womanly work around the farm when the locomotive my grandfather was driving went by. She would wave to him because she thought he had beautiful curly hair. I learned later from my cousin that he would write notes to my grandmother and wrap them around rocks and toss them out of the cab of the locomotive as he’d go by and now way they were able to keep in touch with each other. I don’t know how they actually did meet in person but they did and were married in 1912. My grandfather had grown up on a farm in southwestern Ohio and I don’t know what it was exactly that drew him to Eastern Ohio, but it was most likely the railroad. After all young man needs to work a few years before he reaches the status of being an engineer on the locomotive.

 

Katharyn Muessig, dating in 1923

My maternal grandmother was born in Brooklyn and led a rather sheltered life as a young woman. Fortunately for her parents did send her to secretarial school so that she was able to earn a living, but of course was never allowed to move out of her parents’ home. Her sisters left home simply because one of them had gotten married and another sister had gone into the convent. My grandfather was born in Wheeling West Virginia and his father became very active in establishing the Operative Potters Union in Eastern Ohio. My grandmother knew both of my grandfather’s sisters Catherine and Eva. They had decided their brother was old enough that he should be married after all he was in his 30s. They played matchmaker and introduced their brother to their friend Katharyn and the two married in 1924.

Joseph H. and Mary Rawlings wedding picture 1911

Prompt 6: Journals and Diaries

During stressful times of my life, I do keep a journal. I use them to be able to handle my feelings. I kept a journal while my sister Zoe was terminally ill. It was a time of conflicting feelings. Writing helped me to at least get my feeling on paper. There were many nights that I was able to sleep only after writing in my journal.

I keep all of my journals. Sometimes I do go back and read them, especially if things are rough. I am not keeping a journal right now, but I probably will if I find myself under stress again. I don’t think I would ever destroy them. They are not something that you write intending for other people to read. If my son reads them after I pass away, he may find them to be of value or they may be junk. I will leave that to him to handle in the future.

I handwrite my journals in pen (gel pen is easier when one has arthritis in their hands) and just use small size spiral-bound notebooks. They aren’t pretty, but they help me get through the days and weeks.

Prompt 5 - Your Childhood Home

When I think about my childhood home, there is not a specific building that comes to mind but there is a village that is a very big part of my memories. Wellsville, Ohio is approximately 50 miles west of Pittsburgh, PA. The village is on the Ohio River. The location is due in part to the railroad. When trains where still pulled by steam locomotives, they needed a refill of water every 50 miles. My grandfather Joseph Henry Rawlings had moved from the southwestern corner of Ohio to Wellsville to work on the railroad. He became an engineer on the steam locomotives. Having a fairly well paid profession my grandfather was able to buy a house for the family in 1912. That house was my grandmother’s home until she went to assisted living in 1983.

Wellsville, Ohio still feels like home, even though I moved away when I was 13. During the last couple of years a group was formed on Facebook for residents of Wellsville and former residents to “get together” and remember our childhoods. Since the group was formed I have learned more about the history of the village than I learned when I lived in Wellsville.

The first residence I remember was a 3^rd floor apartment. My parents would put my playpen on the roof outside the kitchen so that my mother could watch me through the window. They would put the family parakeets outside with me in their cage. When I was 4 we moved into a house next door to my grandmother’s house. I never realized then that we were living next door to my father’s boyhood home. Eventually my parents bought a house. It had been converted to a duplex, so the first thing we needed to do was to convert it back into a single family house. We lived there for 5 years. When my father passed away, my mother sold the house and we moved away from Wellsville.

Even though I have not lived in Wellsville since 1968, it will always be home to me.

Grandma Mary with me behind her house

Marta on the roof with the parakeets

Sisters Barb & Zoe next door to Grandma Mary's house

Christmas in the only house my parents bought

Zoe & Marta playing in the snow

Prompt 4: Favorite Season(s)

I would have to name spring and fall as my favorite seasons. They are both fairly mild and in my opinion the most colorful seasons. During the spring I mark the passage of time as the buds develop on the trees and then the blossoms begin to open. In the fall there is also a lot of color change. The leaves of the oak and maple trees change to such wonderful colors. It is the main reason that I have fond memories of my wedding even though the marriage ended in divorce. It was October and the trees were at their peak color in Ohio. My cousin and I carried bouquets of fall-color flowers. I also loved the marquee at the hotel where the wedding dinner was held. It was rather humorous not only in its wording, but also in the fact that my now ex-husband hated all music produced after 1950!

Prompt 3: Your Physical Self

I have battled my weight for most of my life. Right now I have maintained this approximate weight for 14 years. I would describe myself as “dumpy”. The medical establishment may even call me morbidly obese based on my Body Mass Index.

I am not a “girlie” girl. I am just me. I prefer jeans and t-shirts to any other clothes. I think the last time I wore a dress was at my nephew’s wedding in 2000. I have tried wearing make-up at various times, but it itches. I wear lipstick when I leave the house now. That is I wear lipstick, if I remember to put it on.

I know most people are uncomfortable with their bodies, but I keep thinking that I deserve to be uncomfortable more than most. I started having pain in my legs when I was 8, started developing breasts at the same age, have had surgery 16 times so far, suffer from chronic pain, was diagnosed with hydrocephalus at 47 and have Psoriatic Arthritis. I try to do yoga to keep my body moving, but I would rather bird watch.

The Book of Me, Written By Me Prompt 15: Snow

I made a conscience decision to move away from snow in 1978. My then husband and I moved from Ohio to Georgia. I always joke that I moved here to get people to understand the spelling of my first name more easily since the Atlanta transit system name is the same as mine.

I was a summer baby so I probably did not see snow until the age of 5 months. I may have even noticed it, but just don’t have any memory of it that first year. I probably remember the next winter. I do remember a dark blue quilted snow suit, but my family could not afford boots for me so I remember my parents putting old bread bags over my shoes and then placing rubber bands around my ankles. I wasn’t doing a lot of walking so it didn’t make any difference. I do remember making a snowman with my brother and 2 sisters. Winters did not become clear in my memory until about the age of 5. By then we lived next door to my paternal grandmother and I rated a pair of snow boots. Most of our neighbors had coal furnaces so the snow did not remain white for long, but was quickly speckled black with soot. I thought for years that snow had an odor, but I think it may have been the smell of burning coal.

I vaguely remember someone riding a sleigh through town, but it was a very rare sight. What we did see and we members of the memory pages on Facebook discuss often was sled riding. I don’t think any of the streets were officially closed off for sledding, but I think people realized they would be very unpopular if they ruined our sledding hills by driving on them. There were injuries every year, but it was a given that some would suffer for our fun.

When I grew up I learned the work that Ohio winter brought. I was very happy to escape to Georgia. Now I get to see videos of the excitement of my grandchildren when we have rare snow or ice in Georgia. I don’t think they will suffer for not having the same winters I did as a child.

Prompt 11: Military

I did not have any personal experience with the military so I decided to interview my cousin Arlene d’Arbonne. Arlene was born at Ft. Benning, GA while her father was in the Army. We were rather close growing up.  She is about 18 months younger than me. Arlene was in Reserve Officer Training Corps while she was a student at Bowling Green University in Ohio. After graduating in 1978, Arlene was commissioned as a 2^nd Lieutenant in the U.S. Army. She not only served, she became an Army wife.

Arlene and her husband Greg now live in New Hampshire. Greg is retired from the Army, but recently donned his dress uniform again when their daughter Jess was married.  Jess was born at Ft. Bragg and grew up with her dad in the Army, so her desire for him to be in uniform for her big day is understandable. When I think about my cousin’s family there is always a link to the Army even though neither of Arlene and Greg’s children Jess and Paul are in the Army.

We spent part of a morning talking about her Army experience. http://youtu.be/7cVX089gB_A

Prompt 2: Your Birth

I was born on Sunday, August 15, 1954 at City Hospital, East Liverpool, Ohio. My mother’s obstetrician was Dr. Gladys McGarry. My mother always told me that her labor with me was very easy and very quick. Afterwards she requested something to eat, preferably a steak!

I was born with a nearly full head of black hair that I never lost. That hair was a trait that ran in the family. When my father brought my siblings to visit, which in those days meant standing on the sidewalk while my mother held me up to the window, my brother Ralph turn his back in anger because I was not the brother he had been promised.

I was the youngest of four children. At the time of my birth my 2 webbed toes on my left foot and my “outtie” belly button were only things that were remarkable about me.  That is until I came home from the first day of kindergarten and announced that I was a genius which is something that my sister Zoe would never let me live down.

A birth announcement sent to my mother's Aunt Bea

Prompt 1: Who Are You?

"The Book of Me, Written By You" is a GeneaBloggers project created by Julie Goucher of the Anglers Rest blog. The concept: a series of blogging and writing prompts that help family historians capture their own memories and write about themselves.

• Middle-aged woman
• Mother
• Sister
• Daughter
• Niece
• Cousin
• Grandmother
• Caregiver
• Systems Analyst
• Student
• Wife (ex-)
• Family memory recorder
• #1 troubleshooter of computer problems (retired)
• Friend
• Dog lover
• Bird watcher
• Me

Oh yeah, a klutz!!

Prompt 12: The Year You Were Born

This week’s prompt is The year you were born
What happened:
    •    Historical
    •    Films
    •    Music
    •    Books
    •    Television

****If the events of 1954 that I copies are showing as white lines, I will fix them Monday morning. I have not used this blog for several months and I don't know why it is so wonky!

Television always played a big part in my life. My mother admitted she would use it to babysit me when there was a working television in the house. Much of the historical events of 1954 seemed to revolve around television which was still in its younger years. It was difficult to choose which events to list here, so I tried to stay with the ones that dealt with television, popular entertainment and the development of computers which became very important in my life.

Jan 1 – KSLA TV channel 12 in Shreveport, LA (CBS) begins broadcasting

Jan 1 – Rose & Cotton Bowl are 1^st sport colorcasts

Jan 4 – Elvis Presley records a 10 minute demo in Nashville

Jan 7– Georgetown – IBM experiment the first public demonstration of machine translation system is held in New York at the head office of IBM

Jan 12 -Queen Elizabeth II opens NZ parliament

Jan 17 -Jacques Cousteau’s first network telecast airs on”Omnibus” (CBS)

Jan 26 - groundbreaking begins on Disneyland

Feb 1 – first TV soap opera ”Secret Storm” premieres

Feb 2 – Bevo Francis from Wellsville, Ohio (my hometown), Rio Grande College, scores 113 points in basketball game

Feb 14 – Sen. John Kennedy appears on “Meet the Press”

Mar 1 - US explodes 15 megaton hydrogen bomb a Bikini atoll

Mar 15 – “CBS Morning Show” premieres with Walter Cronkite and Jack Paar

Apr 1 – first Army helicopter Battalion forms, Ft. Bragg, NC

Apr 1 - earthquake/tsunami ravage Aleutians, 200 killed

Apr 1 - US Air Force Academy forms

Apr 6 – TV dinner was first put on sale by Swanson & Sons

Apr 23 – Hammerin’ Hank Aaron hits first of his 755 homers

May 24 – IBM announces vacuum to “electronic” brain that could perform 10 million operations an hour Jun 12 – Bill Haley’s “Rock Around The Clock”, is originally released

Jun 14 – Pres. Eisenhower signs order adding words “under God” to the pledge (which explains why I always knew the pledge of allegiance with those two words)

Jun 19 – Tasmanian Devil debuts in “Devil May Hare” by Warner Bros.

Jul 12 - Pres. Eisenhower put forth a plan for an interstate highway system (where would we be without them?)

Jul 30 – Elvis Presley joins Memphis Federation of Musicians Local 71

Aug 15 – WCHS TV channel 8 in Charleston-Huntington, West Virginia (ABC) begins

Aug 15 – I was born at City Hospital, East Liverpool, Ohio

Aug 31 – Census Bureau forms

Sep 20 – first FORTRAN computer program is run

Sep 27 – Steve Allen’s “Tonight Show” premieres

Oct 3 – “Father Knows Best” premieres

Oct 18 – Texas instruments Inc. announces the first transistor radio

Oct 22 – West Germany joins North Atlantic Treaty Organization

Oct 23 – Britain, England, France & USSR agreed to end occupation of Germany

Oct 26 - Walt Disney’s first television program, “Disneyland” premieres on ABC

Nov 7 – US spy plane shot down north of Japan

Nov 22 - Humane Society forms

Dec 10 – Albert Schweitzer receives Nobel Peace Prize (28 years later I become a mother)

Dec 23 - first human kidney transplant is performed by Dr. Joseph E Murray at Peter Bent Brigham Hospital in Boston, Massachusetts

Dec 26 - “The Shadow” airs for the last time on radio

J.R.R. Tolkien’s Lord of the Rings books were published. The second James Bond novel “Live and Let Die” was also published. The book was very different from the movie. And the most important to me the book “Horton Hears A Who” by Dr. Seuss was published. It was an excellent year for literature.

The films of this year were also very memorable. Two of Alfred Hitchcock’s best-known movies were released “Rear Window” and “Dial M For Murder”. Dial M was originally filmed in 3-D but because Hitchcock was a very meticulous director the movie ran past its deadline. 3-D was passé by the time the movie was ready to be released, so it was released in normal format. The other well-known movies of that year include “Seven Samurai”, “On The Waterfront”, “White Christmas”, “20,000 Leagues Under The Sea” and “The Creature From The Black Lagoon”.

The most important television show to me was “Capt. Kangaroo” but it didn’t start until 1955. I can remember being in my jumper chair watching TV for hours at a time. The drooling one in the picture below is me.

Finally, a visit to Rock Springs Park

I took a little time off because of my Psoriatic Arthritis. In my case it appears to be genetic since Grandma, my mother, my sister Barb and my son Sean have or had Psoriasis. It makes me a little worried about my grandson. I went a little off the subject of genealogy, not much since genetics is important to genealogy.

Back in September I did a blog entry about my grandmother not being allowed at the age of 21. I also mentioned that she finally found a man to date and eventually marry when 2 of her friends decided to fix her up with their brother. I found pictures they took during a summer date in 1922 to the very amusement park where my grandmother would listen to the music and wish that she would be permitted to go to the dances. I was able to identify the amusement park from a blog that is written about the history of the park. I also belong to a Facebook group for people who grew up in or currently reside in Wellsville, Ohio. I also belong to a history group about East Liverpool, Ohio. I never lived there, but it was an important shopping destination when I was a child. That Facebook group led me to the blog about Rock Springs Park in Chester, West Virginia (across the river from East Liverpool). People offer old photographs that illustrate the memories they write about. By the time I was born the streetcars and trolleys that connected East Liverpool, Wellsville, Toronto and Steubenville, Ohio as well as running to Chester, West Virginia where long gone. I did get to see these earlier forms of public transit in the pictures offered by other members of the group.

I have been preparing to move soon and checked my computer for the scanned pictures from one of my Grandmother’s photo albums. As I was checking I rediscovered pictures of my grandparents during their dating days. And in the photos is what I now recognize as trolley tracks. If it had not been for the “memory” groups on Facebook I would not have seen the street cars and trolleys that had been common in my home town and the surrounding area. It appears from the pictures taken that day Joseph and Katharyn used the trolley to visit Rock Springs Park and paddle around the lake in a canoe. Grandma may not have gone to the dances when she was 21, but she did spend time at the park with the man she would marry in 1924.

I did not realize how valuable these Facebooks groups would be to my genealogical research until the days I saw this photograph of my Grandmother standing on the end of the Newell Bridge complete with trolley tracks.

The "bare" walls

I was writing a blog entry about an Easter celebration and it reminded me of another holiday meal. My parents bought a house in 1964. Like anyone moving into an existing house, we had work to do first. The house had previously been converted into a duplex so we started turning it back into a single-family house. This included removing all of the wallpaper. It could be fun if the paper was steamed just so we could strip a section from floor to ceiling in one shot. The house was old enough that even the ceilings were covered in wallpaper. That was really fun when we got a strip going.

After we had the new stove installed and a china cabinet built into the wall between the kitchen and dining room, we moved in. The upstairs walls were finished shortly after we moved in but the downstairs walls were still bare. The bare walls were old fashioned plaster and lath and looked like they would stand for a couple of hundred years. After our first Sunday dinner in the dining room under the crystal chandelier, my brother Ralph climbed a step ladder and wrote the menu for our dinner on the wall between the living room and dining room.  That was the beginning of a tradition that would continue for over 2 years. Everyone that came through our doors would autograph the walls. My sister Zoe was a talented artist and she decided that we needed something to perk up the living room décor. Using a step ladder she sketched a harbor scene. I think she modeled it on a picture from Maine.

Not to be outdone by Zoe, my brother Ralph did his magnificent drawling on the ceiling! His master piece was suggestive of the works of Salvador Dali, Picasso, Grant Wood and Grandma Moses. A cubist, surreal and primitive work in pencil on plaster, it featured melted watches and teacups on a bare landscape populated only by cubist nudes wielding pitchforks. It is signed “Ralph Raphael Rawlings” and is the only piece known to be produced by this artist.

We enjoyed our autographed walls and I was actually sad when my father announced that he had hired someone to put up new wallpaper. I just wonder if all of those autographs are still hidden under wallpaper and there is the chance that they could see daylight again if the wallpaper were removed. I don’t know when I will be in Wellsville again, but visiting that house is now on my bucket list. Especially since I remember those walls so well and don’t seem to have any pictures of them!

Grandma could not date when she was 21

What I know of my maternal grandmother's childhood I have had to glean from genealogical research. She was born in Brooklyn, New York. By 1909 her family had moved to Chester, West Virginia. From the few stories I managed to get about my maternal grandmother’s childhood I know that she took piano lessons and learned things like embroidery. She never learned to cook. It seemed so strange with a woman born in 1889. Her family spoke German at home and they carried Roman Catholic missals to Mass on Sunday that were in German and Latin.

When she was about 18, she and her sister Genevieve had pictures taken that almost looked like what were called “glamour shots” a few years ago. There is also a strip of pictures of her in various attitudes and manners of dress. Her family had moved from Brooklyn to Chester, West Virginia and I wonder if there was a shortage of marriage-aged men. She was (in 1919) 30 by then and her parents may have been a little desperate.  Fortunately her parents did send her to a secretarial school, so she did have skills with which to obtain a job. She still lived at home with her parents of course.

In Chester, WV there was an amusement park called Rock Springs Park.  I never got a chance to visit there even though the park was still open when I was a child. When my grandmother was 21, the Park had dances and my grandmother lived close enough to be able to hear the music. She was not permitted to attend them. With her parents being so strict I wondered how she ever did get married.

I asked my Aunt Katharyn (daughter of Katharyn) if she knew. It turns out that my grandfather did not marry for quite some time too. His father passed away when Joseph was 21. He remained with his mother and sisters to help support them. His mother passed away in 1922 and his youngest sister Beatrice had married in 1923. Catherine and Eva were both employed so they decided it was time to get their brother married.  They were friends with Katharyn and decided to fix their friend and their brother up together. It apparently worked since Katharyn and Joseph married in 1924 when Katharyn was 35 and Joseph was 32. My mother was born in 1925. Joseph Jr. followed in 1929 and my Aunt Katharyn was born in 1933. My mother and Uncle Joe have both passed. Katharyn is healthy and very active. She and her husband Bill square dance and ballroom dance. (Love ya, Aunt Kay!)

I learned everything I needed to know from Captain Kangaroo

I grew up in front of the television. Even though my face is not visible in the picture, I assure you it is me. I recognize the drool (LOL!). I actually have memories of being in front of the TV in that jump-chair. Captain Kangaroo debuted in October 1955 and I had made my debut 14 months earlier. I was so fortunate that my mother learned I would be quiet if I was parked in front of the tube. I so remember every gag they used on Captain Kangaroo. The theme music did not stop until Captain Kangaroo hung up his keys. He would often play with it by lifting the keys and feigning the movement to hang them again. It was always good for a laugh. I can’t remember what the Captain had to say to Mr. Moose to start the ping-pong balls dropping, but I laughed each time.

 What did I actually learn from the Captain? I could recite the Pledge of Allegiance at the age of 3. By the time I started kindergarten I knew all of my colors and could count to 10. The alphabet was a snap!  I also learned “The Magic Words” please and thank you. I did think the TV was interactive and so I thought my shouting “Grandfather” actually woke up the Captain’s old clock. I used to watch Romper Room too, but that teacher lady never saw me through her stupid magic mirror. For that reason I refuse to give her credit for teaching me the alphabet.

For Christmas 1956 I received a Captain Kangaroo hat and keys. Even though the music stopped when the keys were hung up, the hat had to be hung up first. So it was that the Captain’s hat and key were packaged as toys and I wanted them! I wore them every day that I remembered where I had left them the day before. (I was a little slower in learning to put things away as the Captain tried valiantly to teach me.) I absorbed as much as I could from my television leader with the large pockets. When I got home from school on my first day of kindergarten, I announced to my family that I was a genius and had no need to finish kindergarten. To my surprise my mother put me in the station wagon that delivered me to McDonald Elementary School the next morning. (My sister Zoe never let me forget my announcement. I swear she would tell total strangers just to embarrass me.)

My family was deeply in love with television. I was permitted to stay up late on Friday nights to watch “The Twilight Zone” and “Alfred Hitchcock Presents” and my brother would spend Saturday nights watching the monster movie shows.  I desperately wanted a color television by the mid-1960s. The first time I ever watched anything in color was “Johnny Quest” and it was at my godmother’s home on a very badly tuned set. Everything seemed to be in purple and green. I still thought it was the most magical thing I had seen.

The day that cable television was installed in our home, my father went to Western Auto and bought a color television, which was so he could watch “Bonanza” in color.  The cable television of 1966 was very different from what we have now.  We lived in the Ohio River Valley, so the only stations that could be received by a fixed-position antenna were Steubenville and Wheeling and when the weather was good, we might be lucky enough to get Pittsburgh. With our cable connection our world expanded to include Youngstown and Cleveland! Now I even had National Educational Television!  I am just sorry that it was too soon for Sesame Street.  That was my son’s domain or as he pronounced it “Sesester Street”.

What my son also had that I did not were 200 channel cable television and video tapes. He had his favorite TV shows which he did watch very faithfully and video tapes that he would watch until he and I, could recite them line-by-line. He could read by the time he went to school. He didn’t realize it, but I sure did. The picture of him with the TV was taken when we were on vacation. There weren’t any vacations from television.

My son is now a father and his children will never know a world without game systems, cell phones, tablets, home computers and the Internet. My granddaughter has taught me most of what I know about using my iPhone.

Every generation has an invention or program that they feel they can “own”. I suppose my mother’s may have been the radio programs and Works Project Administration and her mother’s may have been the Tennessee Valley Authority and the rural electrification program. I feel like I am a part of the space race generation. With the leaps and bounds that technology has taken since the beginning of the 20^th century, I can’t even imagine what my grandchildren will feel is the major contribution of their generation or what their children may invent.

Sister Rose Augustine

Sister Rose is my grand-aunt Genevieve Muessig. I never met her, but I wish I had. My grandmother’s family was devoutly Catholic. So I supposed it was not a surprise that one daughter would enter the convent. My grandmother Katharyn and her sister Genevieve were only 2 years apart in age. I imagine they were close since they were the only girls in the family until Josephine was born in 1897. Katharyn and Genevieve made their First Communion together around 1902. I think their Communion dresses look a lot like bridal gowns.

I look at pictures of Genevieve with her round eyeglasses and she appears to be very introspective and a little sad. I wonder what she was thinking. I wanted to uncover the story behind the pictures I had seen of her. I managed to find the motherhouse of the Sisters of St. Dominic where Sister Rose had spent her last years. I was fortunate that the nun I corresponded with knew my grand-aunt. Sister Margaret Clines sent me a bio with the bonus of her own memories of “Rosie”.

I had imagined that being a nun was a lot of praying and scrubbing floors. I don’t know where that comes from since I was educated by the Sisters of Saint Ursula in grades 1 through 7. I discovered that Sister Rose had a career as an art teacher. In her bio she is remembered as “a very talented artist and used her skill as an expression of her great love of nature and the outdoors”. I wish I had known her during this time.

1926 Sister Rose and

Katharyn (my grandmother)

According to the documentation I received, Genevieve Elisabeth Muessig entered the convent in 1914 at the age of 22. She received her Holy Habit later that same year. After 2 years of training, Sister Rose Augustine was assigned to a parish in Brooklyn. She worked as an educator in several New York parishes over the next 55 years. She retired to the Queen of the Rosary Motherhouse in Amityville, NY and was living there when she suffered a stroke. She was a resident of their infirmary until her passing in 1979. “Rosie” is buried on the grounds of the Motherhouse which is very fitting for a woman that dedicated her life to God and the Sisters of St. Dominic.

1948 My sister Barb with 

Sister Rose Augustine

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I am very proud that the folks at Ancestry.com felt that I deserved the title of "Ancestry.com Ace". I get early announcement of the offers like the free census access and the Time Machine. Then I get to pass that information along to my friends (I do not exclude non-friends, I think of you as potential friends). So I announce these goodies in my blog and on Facebook.

I have been using Ancestry.com since 1995 when I suddenly had to retire. I knew that I must have something to occupy my mind. I had been interested in researching my family for years. I wasn't even sure what my paternal grandfather's name was. I knew it was Joseph H. Rawlings because I had been to his grave many times. But I did not know what the 'H' stood for, where he was born and how he chose to work on the railroad. It was silly that I didn't ask my grandmother since I lived in the same town as she did until I was 13.

The Internet was really in the process of finding its legs. I was on America Online for years. I remember getting my first 9600 bps modem. I was thrilled! A fast connection! Things have changed dramatically in 17 years. Everyone in my neighborhood who has the Internet has a truly fast connection and there are many ISPs to choose from.

In 1995 I signed up for every trial memberships with everyone that offered access to genealogical information and documents. At that time I felt that Ancestry.com was the best, so I stuck with them. I still check out anyone new that I hear from. I recently learned of Familysearch.org which is operated by the LDS Church. It is very comprehensive and best of all it is free.

I learn from my genealogy research and it helps to keep me sane by giving me something to look forward to working on and I can create projects for myself. I was a systems analyst for over 20 years and this was how I functioned. I love hearing how people got themselves hooked on this hobby that keeps me sane.