52 Ancestors Week 39: Should Be a Movie

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 39's theme is "Should Be a Movie." Good movies have good stories at their heart. What ancestor has a story that you think should be a movie?

"All Roads Lead to Haver Hill. I think I said it right...."

This week's prompt is a bit of a no-brainer for me. I have a ton of ancestors whose lives could potentially be a Lifetime original movie or even one made by a director of several blockbusters. I wonder if the Russo brothers will accept a script if I give it to them. I'd even take James Gunn! No way would I take Frances Ford Coppola. Dude doesn't even pronounce "Coppola" the right way! That's way too pretentious for me. 

Coming soon....

I've said it before and I'll say it again. The life of my 3x great-grandfather REALLY should be a movie. Mostly because movies about Italian immigrants moving from Italy to America has been done to death at this point. And while we're on the subject. No. Your last name didn't get changed at Ellis Island as seen in "The Godfather Part II". (Thanks, Jennifer!)

My French-Canadian side has some interesting stories that could be made into movies as well. Perhaps this story could be part one of the "All Roads Lead to Haverhill" trilogy. Directed by the Russo brothers, of course. They know how to handle long arcs!

If you're new to the blog, you'll soon find that I have mentioned Jeremiah Felker on countless occasions. I may even mention him more as time goes by and there's a very good reason for that. Let's begin.

Our story opens on January 7th, 1838 in the town of Raymond, New Hampshire. Martha Smart nurses her newborn son, Jeremiah, as her father watches on. Jeremiah Smart grumbles a bit. He knows that his grandson was born out of wedlock and plans to sue the father, Elias, for custody of the child. Martha reluctantly accepts the plan and names the child after her father.

The movie follows Jeremiah as his mother marries twice in his lifetime. During her marriage to Jonathan West, the south started shooting cannons and America gets plunged into a civil war! Jeremiah's older half-brother, George, answered the call to duty and served the Union army until he is killed in action in 1862. Two years later and after his marriage to Elizabeth Fellows, Jeremiah enlists in the service and serves with the 1st New Hampshire Heavy Artillery. 

After the war, life settled down and he raised his family in Haverhill, Massachusetts. His son, Wilfred, married a young woman named Gertrude Stevens on September 12th, 1891. The marriage was not all sunshine and rainbows, though. Wilfred had an affair with a woman named Anna Pierce WHILE his wife was pregnant with my great-grandfather! The union produced a child named George on February 2nd, 1893. My great-grandfather, Austin, was born just a few months earlier in September of 1892.

Austin and Henrietta in November of 1963.

Austin's life soon became complicated. His parents engaged in a brutal custody battle in 1899. Neither parent won and young Austin was sent to spend his formative years living with his aging grandparents. He spent several years with them before marrying Henrietta Legault, a daughter of two French-Canadian immigrants on November 29th, 1913 at the age of twenty-one. At the age of seventy-five, he probably felt fortunate to witness the happy occasion. 

On January 14th, 1918, he passed away at the age of eighty due to arteriosclerosis. His wife was the informant and she told him to put Joseph Felker in as her husband's father. Joseph was his grandfather on his paternal side. Why she did that is unknown. Perhaps Jeremiah didn't know his father as he died in the 1840s. Perhaps he heard stories and none of them were particularly good. I'm not sure and the only people who could know are long gone.

This is where part one of the "All Roads Lead to Haverhill" trilogy would end.  Part two picks up with Henrietta and she relates the tales of her parents to her daughter, Natalie before she marries Robert Hamel of Newburyport. Part three is where the Italy stuff would be and I would definitely avoid the Godfather references....no matter how tempting it would be. That movie would likely end with my parents getting married.

I think starting the trilogy with Jeremiah makes the most sense to me because his story is sort of the linchpin that got my story going. Think about it. Without him, Austin wouldn't have been living with him in Haverhill. He wouldn't have met Henrietta and there would be a chain of events that cause me to fade from existence like Marty McFly! Great Scott! This is heavy.

Of course like any movie, there should be source material to draw inspiration from. This would be why several movies based on comics and novels do so well. Perhaps one day I'll do just that and write three books about how "All Roads Lead to Haverhill". A guy can dream, right?

See ya next time!

Images of Google Earth are property of Google Earth.

52 Ancestors Week 38: On the Map

 From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 38's theme is "On the Map." Location is key for our research. What is a discovery you've made using a map? Any ancestors found a town? What about a family who lived in a town with a strange or funny name?

Wow. You can really tell the difference between Campania and Calabria on this banner!

I really liked maps when I was a kid. Just out of sheer boredom I would draw maps of the United States. Most of the time they were never to scale. Nevada would be gigantic and the New England states would be a little off in terms of size. Keep in mind I was like eight years old and did not have a steady hand. I've talked about this in a blog I wrote last year. I've even created maps of alien worlds for my webcomic. Sufficed it to say, I really enjoyed cartography and I still do! Then came the Internet!

Every once in a while I'll check out Google Earth and see what I could find half way around the world. Far away places always fascinated me. It wasn't because I wanted to get away or anything. No, it was more curiosity. When I started doing genealogy again, I put my love of maps to good use by finding and locating the towns where my Italian ancestors were born. These would be the towns of San Pietro a Maida for my grandfather and his parents and Gesualdo for my great-grandparents, Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione.

Gesualdo and surrounding communities.

A year ago I wrote a blog about how to use Google Earth to walk around your ancestral town from the comfort of your own home. Passports aren't required. Check the blog out here! This year, I decided to do things a little differently!

We're going to be taking a closer look at the surrounding towns because nine times out of ten, you will have connections to the surrounding communities, especially if your family came from Italy.

During your research, you might find an atto di matrimonio or marriage act which may or may not say if someone is from another town. Usually the bride is married in her hometown and the groom's family is within walking distance of her town. This is known in genealogy circles as "courting distance" and it can be applied to just about any situation. Not just Italy. For example, if you have an ancestor who was born in say Boston in the 1600s, he or she may have issues courting someone in New York City. It's a lot easier to do it nowadays, sure. But, in the 1600s, you are going to be riding that horse a LONG time! She'd better be worth it.

Giuseppe Carrabs and Clementina Forgione

Back to Gesualdo. When I found Giuseppe and Clementina's atto di matrimonio, it stated that the groom's father, Vincenzo Carrabs, was from "this commune" meaning Gesualdo. His mother, Maria Giovanna Capobianco, was stated to be from nearby Frigento. If you look at the map, you'll see that it's a town a little over four kilometres away from Gesualdo. That's well within courting distance!

Using this information, you can then look up Maria's family in Frigento and for the most part her tree is firmly in that town except for a couple people who came from nearby Rocca San Felice.

For Clementina things get a little interesting. She was born in Gesualdo. Her father, Felice Forgione, was also born there. However, her mother, Maria Luigia Penta, has ties to another town not too far from Gesualdo. That town is called Grottaminarda and it's a little over ten kilometres away. This isn't too bad, right? The courting distances all make sense. The happy couples meet, fall in love and have large (Really large.) families.

It's not uncommon for people from various nearby towns to marry one another. From the Grottaminarda Pentas I then found ties to nearby Mirabella Eclano. The same situation is likely to occur elsewhere in the world. This is just one example. That isn't to say endogamus relationships won't occur. They might. You never know unless you do the research. Based on one marriage document, though, you could hold the key to finding connections to not just one Italian town. It's just easier for me to say "I have ancestors from Gesualdo" and that's true since Giuseppe and Clementina were born there.

San Pietro a Maida and surrounding towns.

From Campania we head down south to Calabria. I will be the first to admit that I am not sure if I have connections to the towns surrounding San Pietro a Maida. I might! I'm just not sure. My great-grandparents, Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco were born in San Pietro and so were their parents. Vincenzo's tree seems to be in San Pietro for centuries and so does Maria's. However, there's still a lot more that needs to be discovered.

Vincenzo Ferraiolo and Maria Tedesco

DNA matches for my great-aunt point to people who have families in the surrounding communities of Maida and Jacurso. That's a bit of a smoking gun isn't it? Sadly, my tree for her isn't complete and I don't know for sure if I have connections to those towns. I might. It's definitely possible when you consider my grandma Ollie's tree!

My 2x great-grandmother, Domenica Gullo, is currently a brick wall and for all I know she could have ties to the town of Curinga. That's another town near San Pietro. Anything is possible and what I need to do is find a smoking gun that says this person is from Maida or some other nearby town. To do that, I would need an atto di matrimonio or some other document. Perhaps I will find it some day!

For now, I'll still say that I have family from San Pietro and Gesualdo because that's true. Everyone came together to those towns and I would honestly love to visit them. Just remember that there's always more than meets the eye when it comes to family being from one town. Chances are very good that you'll have surrounding communities in your tree as well as long as they are within courting distance.

Look at a map and put the town your ancestors are from in the center. Then look at the surrounding towns. You might find a connection or two in those places. So, always keep that in mind when you're doing research! The family may not all come from San Pietro or Gesualdo as you thought. Family could be everywhere!

See ya next time!

Images of Google Earth are property of Google Earth.

52 Ancestors Week 37: Back to School

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 37's theme is "Back to School." Any stories of schools days in your family? (I'm thankful for the collection of my dad's grade cards through 8th grade.) What about teachers or principals in the family?

Back to life. Back to reality....

Back to life. Back to reality. If you have that Soul II Soul song stuck in your head, I am not sorry. It's a good song and my mom used to sing it the day I went back to school. I was never sure if she was happy or sad to see me go back after a long summer of doing nothing but reading comics, hanging out with friends and playing video games. I'm sure it was the latter. I'll keep telling myself that! I'm sure I got into my fair share of trouble! And to that I will always plead the fifth!

I think I know where I got my ears from....

When it comes to school, my mother and my grandfather went to Newburyport High School in Newburyport, Mass. The school is located on High Street and she would point it out every time we would head across the river to the marina where our boat was docked.

As far as I know, Robert Hamel was a great student. His father, Alfred was a jack of all trades since he had a Fix-it shop in the city. I mentioned before how Alfred's father, Eugene was a teacher in Amesbury. I still haven't been able to figure out what he taught or where. I hope I get a chance to find the answer, some day.

 My grandfather was a good student and it was right out of high school that he enlisted into the army Air Corps along with many of his classmates. Robert even had an aptitude for fixing things. Heh. I wonder where he picked that up! Either way, he ended up serving with distinction!

Sadly, I haven't got much more to go on on my grandfather's high school career. The picture above actually came from my uncle's archive. His yearbook has yet to be scanned and put on Ancestry. My grandfather never really talked to me about his high school years and I thought that was odd since I flipped through my grandmother's 1935 yearbook! We have the physical copy of it and it's also on Ancestry.

All isn't entirely lost of course! My mother's yearbook is on Ancestry's archive along with my father's and Grandma Ollie's! It's so surreal seeing your parents in high school. I'm pretty sure that's how the idea for the Back to the Future franchise came about!

I'm constantly using her
quote against her. =)

I really like the blurbs under my mother's entry. She was a medical technologist. Makes sense because she eventually went to medical school and worked for years at Merrimack Medical Lab as a supervisor. My mom was also involved with "Quill and Scroll" and other activities like chorus. Yeah, she can sing. Just too bad her son can't sing for his supper. Heh....Sigh....

When I first saw her yearbook many years ago, the "Ratty sneaker high command" bit got my attention. I kind of want to know what that was all about. But, she won't tell me. =)

Yearbooks are a great way to find out more about your ancestors' past and what school was like. It must have been interesting for both my mother and my grandfather since my mother went to school during the turbulent 1960s and my grandfather went to school just before the US entered the second world war. Joking aside, you know a lot of historic moments were happening all around them during the time they went to school.

Think about it. In the 1930s, America was in the midst of a Great Depression. Many people didn't go to high school. Many took on jobs working for their family as soon as they were able to. It was hard work. What's really amazing is how both grandmothers stuck with high school AND graduated!

Then came the 1960s when my mother was in high school. That decade saw rampant social upheaval on all fronts and many of the reforms we now have came about during that time period. It's amazing to think about and hear stories from the 1930s or 1960s. I'm not saying my mother was a hippie or anything. But, it's still interesting to think about when you look at yearbook photos. Putting everything into historical context can really paint a picture of what school was like for your ancestors.

Historic moments were even happening when I went to high school in the 1990s. I think it's part of the Chinese curse. "May you live in interesting times". But, maybe given the context of everything we should take my mom's quote in her yearbook to heart. "Well, that's life." Ain't that the truth!

See ya next time!

WikiTree Livecast 5 September 2020: Italy Project

52 Ancestors Week 36: Labor

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 36's theme is "Labor." How did your ancestors make a living? Have you found an unusual occupation in your family tree? Don't forget about the often unsung labor of female ancestors.

This week's header took five minutes to make. Not exactly labor intensive.

Hard work pays off. It doesn't matter if you're building a house or editing a video for millions of people on the Internet. Hard work ALWAYS pays off in the end. Of course for the latter it does help if you have a ton of subscribers, social media accounts, a Patreon or even an online store. Making money on the Internet is not for the faint of heart. Then again making money in the past before the invention of the Internet wasn't easy, either! 

Many people in my family tree have been laborers from my great-grandfather, Vincenzo Ferraiolo who was a laborer in Haverhill to my great-grandfather, Alfred Francis Hamel who had his own fix-it shop in Newburyport. Every one of my direct ancestors seemed to have this drive to do hard work and to make a better life for themselves and their families. I've discussed the reasons why in other blogs. However, it wasn't always just the ancestors who worked hard. In fact, many collateral relatives did their fair share of labor.

Rocco, his wife Caterina, James (son of Pasquale), Dolores and Pasquale

Meet Rocco Carrabis.  He's the guy on the far left in this picture with the bushy Mario-style mustache. Rocco was my 2nd great-uncle and was the brother of my great-grandfather, Giuseppe. Their brother, Pasquale, is on the far right. 

Like his brothers, he was born in the town of Gesualdo in the Campania region of Italy. Everything I know about the man came from stories I've heard from my grandma Ollie, my father and my cousins who all descend from him. There's actually a lot to cover. So, let's get started!

One of the things Rocco was most known for was building all of the homes on Windsor Street in Melrose, Massachusetts. His eleven children and grandchildren all lived in those houses. Can you imagine how long it must have taken him to build those houses from scratch?! Keep in mind that these were in the days before sections of houses were built off-site and later connected to the foundation like LEGOs.  My father and his father built the house I grew up in and that alone took a couple years to finish. Working on the houses must have taken a lot of time, dedication and hard work!

That isn't to say he was all business. Apparently, he was known to make Italian ices for the grandchildren and visit his family up in Haverhill. From what my father and several cousins remember, Rocco spoke fractured English. He would almost always speak in Italian. With that in mind, I often wondered who worked with him. Clearly someone had to have known Italian in order to help him build houses!

Rocco's wife and fam

A light bulb immediately went off in my head. His sons must have helped him build the houses! And he had many sons. His oldest, James, most likely helped the old man with everything. Rocco had a large family. So, it's entirely possible that he enlisted the aid of pretty much everyone in the household.

Not only was Rocco an accomplished carpenter and architect. He also made his own wine. I've had some experience with people making their own homemade red wine before. The little vino was a little strong! From what relatives have told me, that was definitely the case with Rocco.

I've gotten mixed accounts related to who he was as a person. Some say he was very tough. Some say he was very nice. It's hard to get a read on his personality because everyone in the family seems to have their own take on the matter. I think for sanity's sake I'll go by what my father remembers of him. My father has said he was tough but he was always good to his family. Family meant a lot to him. It had to have since he built everyone's houses! You don't build people you hate houses! It just doesn't work! Unless you have some seriously evil plan cooking.

Rocco lived a nice, long life and passed away a year after I was born. Growing up, I heard all kinds of stories about how hard of a worker he was and apparently he told great stories about Italy, too. That's always a good thing and I wish I could have met him. But, there's always my cousins who descend from him who could tell me stories! 

So, it seems like everyone in my family knew the value of hard work and they weren't just ancestors. I think that's pretty cool to think about. The best part is that the houses Rocco built are still standing today so the families that live there now can appreciate his work. That's very cool to think about, too! See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 35: Unforgettable

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 35's theme is "Unforgettable." Family history is about remembering. Who or what in your family is unforgettable? What have you discovered in your research surprised you that it was forgotten? What are you doing to make sure your discoveries aren't forgotten?

I wonder if the symbolism for this header is too on the nose. ;)

It's an interesting coincidence that this prompt came up today because this morning my mother showed me a treasure trove of photos my grandfather sent her back in the mid 2000s. I quickly went to work scanning them all because that is the best way to make sure that the pictures aren't forgotten. Makes sense, right? You want to preserve all of the pictures you have ever gotten. Even in digital form.

Today, I figured I'd take everyone through a step by step process of what I do after I scan a picture. Are you ready? Here goes!

1. Scan the photo.

The Felker clan circa the 1930s.

Okay. That one is obvious. You scan a photo and make sure you have it aligned perfectly. I can't tell you how many times I've had a crooked image in a scanner. This happened a lot to me when  I was a comic reviewer and I needed to make sure that the comic I was scanning was aligned with a little arrow in my scanner. It's honestly easier to get the images digitally from Comixology or even ComicVine. But, you can't argue with the results a GOOD scanner will give you. Look at this picture of the Felker clan! Pretty snazzy, huh?

2. Open the photo in your favorite paint program and check things out.

The next thing you'll want to do is open the photo in your favorite paint program. Some people use the default program that came with Windows or Mac. Some people use Adobe software. I use the program I use to make my Starbolts webcomic. The program is called paint.net and it's completely free to use. I highly recommend it if you're on a budget!

Once the picture is open, feel free to edit any and all imperfections you can. These could range from nicks on the picture to even ink spots. Somehow a lot of my family's really old photos like the one I shared today have ink spots. It's so weird. But, they can be easily removed.

Removing them can be a little tricky. What I like to do is select a color near the imperfection using the color select tool and fill it all in. Then I select the area I edited and blur it a little so that it looks neat.

If the picture is too dark or bright, you can simply play with the contrast tools and edit as you see fit.

3. Posting online.

Once the photograph is edited, you can do many things. Save it to an external hard drive or post it online. Either way, it will help make certain that this picture is never lost if your main hard drive crashes. It's always a good idea to change out the hard drive every few years, anyway. Save everything to a flash drive and you're good.

What if you want to share it with the world? Well, that's where several websites come into play. I post the pictures on the major genealogy websites like Ancestry, geni, Familysearch, MyHeritage and WikiTree. Ancestry, Familysearch and Myheritage all give you an option of labeling the photos. WikiTree adds in an option to link the photo to a person's profile. Like this one: Here's Austin Felker's profile on Wikitree: https://www.wikitree.com/wiki/Felker-441

If you click on one of the photos on WikiTree, you'll see more information on the photo including who all has been tagged. There's also an option to list who is who when you update a photo. You can also post it in the site's genealogist to genealogist forum.

Speaking of labeling things, that brings me to....

4. Labeling.

If you're fortunate to know who is who in the photograph, then the best thing to do is to make a copy of our scan here and then label everyone for your own records. Use the typing option on your paint program and just type in who is who if it's a large group like the Felker clan picture is. I would use red to make it stand out better.

5. Other methods of preservation

You don't have to do all of this with just photos of course. Printing out valuable documents is always an option. I've got a few folders full of documents from both sides of the family carefully tucked away in a safe box. As a comic collector, I know how important it is to keep things in "near mint" condition. So, I keep things in boxes where I know they'll be dry and away from the elements. Just make sure you have the space for everything!!

You also have the option of preserving a physical copy of a photo by creating a duplicate. To accomplish this, you can scan and edit the photo and print it on glossy paper. The photo would be just like it's brand new. I haven't exactly tried it, yet. But, there's no reason why it can't work. You would just need to make sure you have ink.

I've actually done this with a few classic comic book covers so it looked like I had really old comics on my set for my webseries. Naturally, I used Amazing Fantasy #15, the first appearance of Spider-Man. =) Because I TOTALLY have a mint copy of a 60k comic from 1962. Totally! (Yeah, right.)

These are just a few ways to make certain your photos and other genealogical information is not forgotten. I also have many trees on many websites to make sure it isn't lost. WikiTree's main gimmick is to be a repository for everyone's' trees and to make sure it's never lost. Same deal with Geni and FamilySearch. The websites aren't going away and posting information online is incredibly beneficial.  So, if you have a tree online I suggest you share it. If not? Make one. It's a great way to preserve information. And hey....it makes for great cousin bait!

See ya next time!

52 Ancestors Week 34: Chosen Family

From Amy Johnson Crow: Week 34's theme is "Chosen Family." Family isn't always related by blood. Adoptions, step-children, foster children, and special friends of the family can be just as much "family" as those who share DNA. (I think I was 10 before I realized that my Uncle Bob and Aunt Mabel weren't actually related to us.) This is the week to highlight one of their stories.

Family can be whatever you'd like it to be. For many people family could be a group of friends who you share a connection with. Blood doesn't always make one a family and it's especially true in my case. Over the years, my brother and I have had many people who we've called "aunts" or "uncles" in our lives even though they weren't related to us. Usually they were friends of our parents. Ironically, one such friend has the last name "Coppola" and my 2x great-grandmother was a Coppola. Funny how that worked out, right?  And to this day I'm still very good friends with their kids who are around the same age as me. Still not related!! That Coppola family came from Sicily and mine did not. "Coppola" is a VERY common last name, guys! Not as common as Tedesco!

My brother and Aunt Mimi!

While most of our "aunts" and "uncles" were of Italian descent, one couple took care of my brother and I when we were very young and were always there to talk to us or tell a story as we got older. Their names were Peter and Mary Matorian and were of Armenian descent.

Peter and Mary lived around the corner from my father's dental practice and very close to the junior high I attended in the early '90s. But, I'm getting ahead of myself. How did my family meet the couple? Well....

My parents were friends with their niece, Judy. Her aunt Mary was taking care of Judy's young sons, Brian and Kevin. My mother was pregnant with my brother at the time and the couple offered to babysit him as well after he was born. My parents both had full-time jobs in the medical field and agreed to have the couple look after Jim. I came along two years later and the rest, as they say, is history!

Aunt Mimi (She liked to be called that.) and Uncle Pete were both born in the early 1900s and came from really big Armenian families. She loved to cook a variety of Arabic and Greek dishes for Jim and I and It's honestly amazing that we never filled out our clothing if you know what I mean. Growing up she made the following dishes:

No two grape-leaves recipe are the same!

* Grape-leaves
* Kibbie
* Kaftka
* star shaped cookies that were essentially 99% LARD. (You can feel the heart attack coming can't you?)

Here's the thing about the grape leaves. They were so good and basically melted in your mouth. You take ground lamb. Put parsley and rice into the mix. Wrap them up in grape leaves and serve. Pure. Bliss.

The Matorians had a grape plant or two in their yard and I think the freshness of the leaves is what made the grape-leaves so good. Ever since they both passed away, my brother and I have tried and failed to find a place which had grape-leaves like how she made them. One place came close! SO CLOSE!

Nothing will ever compare to her grape-leaves. We were spoiled rotten. I'll be the first to admit it right here on the Internet. We had the best grape-leaves in the world and we were spoiled!

While Aunt Mimi was a great chef and amazing person to talk family history with, uncle Pete was always willing to take my brother and I everywhere we wanted to go. It didn't matter because he'd always call it "The cleaners". He called it that because his wallet would be cleaned out. Get it? HAHAHA! He enjoyed taking us for a ride in his very old green Ford....which had no seat-belts. Gotta love child safety in the '80s!!

Pete's family had a farm in town and he'd often tell Jim and I the history of Salem, New Hampshire. Unedited. He had books about the town's history and was always happy to talk about it with anyone who'd listen. His family's farm (Which is still technically in operation) would take goods up the main through-way in Salem to cities as far away as Lawrence. Naturally, I would often ask questions and he'd go into great detail about everything! Meanwhile Uncle Pete would have something he liked to call "A lousy Uncle Pete sandwich". You take wonder bread, a slice of ham and another piece of wonder bread and there's your lousy Uncle Pete sandwich.

Aunt Mimi and Uncle Pete did do a lot of stuff for us like cooking and taking us wherever we wanted to go. They were always good to talk to. As Jim and I got older, we still visited them on a semi regular basis. In fact, I would walk from the school to their house after cross country practice. It was close by and once I got there, I'd call and tell my parents where I was.  And by the time my mother came to pick me up, I'd have a box of grape-leaves to take home for dinner!! =)

Uncle Pete in the 1920 US census!

This was just a snippet of the kind of people they were. Aunt Mimi and Uncle Pete were always warm, caring, funny and great people in general. They both passed away while I was in college in the late '90s and early 2000 respectively. Once I got into genealogy, one of the first things I did was look for them in the US census. I found quite a bit about Uncle Pete and a little about Aunt Mimi. I still need to find more. I haven't even made profiles for them on WikiTree. Yet. I promise I will get around to it!

There's a lot more I can say and I think this blog is at a decent length already. To this day, I am grateful to Aunt Mimi and Uncle Pete for not just looking after my brother and I. But, for being essentially a second set of grandparents who watched us grow up.  They saw us graduate high school in the '90s and I like to think that they're still watching over us. You never know. Through them, I got an appreciation of great food, local history and even cheesy daytime soap operas. Aunt Mimi was always quick to tell me who the "stinker" was!

In the end, they were just two of the wonderful people in our lives and I miss them even twenty years since their passing. They were warm, caring and great people. Nothing else can really be said.

See ya next time!