My mom always said that she hated school. She was sent to Catholic School and didn’t care for the strictness of the nuns. Yet, my mom was the first one in her family to graduate and she went on to be a successful secretary, bookkeeper, and office manager. So, she must have have learned something…
Tag: California
A Fresh Start in Oakland: The House at 1935 E. 25th Street
I’ve written many times about how my great grandfather fled Hawaii when he was diagnosed with leprosy. They had a fresh start in Oakland, California, but what kind of a fresh start was it really? I found many details about the home they lived in when they first arrived. At the end of the article,…
Relationship Notes on Photographs Can Be Deceiving
A cousin shared some of her unknown photographs with me. One was taken around 1915-1920 and was labeled “My nephew Freddy with his first pair of short pants”. We almost missed identifying little Freddy because the real relationship with the person who owned the photograph was different than the note implied. In order to solve…
Ellen Figg, Navy WAVES: Recovering One Woman’s History
It pays to randomly search the internet for your relatives. No, not to spy on them. For genealogical purposes, of course! I do this periodically and sometimes come up with a gem. I uncovered a lost part of my grandfather cousin, Ellen Figg’s, story. She was a Navy WAVE! Who Was Ellen Figg? She born…
Mary (Riley) Jackson’s Genealogy Journey is Complete: The End of the Jackson Line
Mary L. (Riley) Jackson means very little to my family tree. She isn’t one of my ancestors. She is my great aunt. She married my great uncle, John Jackson, ca 1925. They divorced about 10 years later. I can go beyond her to the next generation easily. Yet, I feel compelled to research her. John’s…