This weekend I will be joining my mother, her brother and members of three of the seven branches of my maternal grandfather’s siblings for a family picnic near Boise Idaho. Sometime in the 40s or 50s three of my grandfather’s six siblings moved from Kansas to this area so I only knew them by name. […]
Discerning Fake News – Family History Style
The thing that interests me most about family history is the gap between the things we think we know about our families and the realities. – Jeremy Hardy In a recent post about a circa 1907 family reunion on the Rightmeier homestead in Jewell County, Kansas, I mentioned a great great uncle, August, we had lost […]
Perseverance over Adversity – The Long View
Through hard work, perseverance and a faith in God, you can live your dreams. – Ben Carson On an extended weekend to attend my 45th high school reunion in Rooks County, Kansas, we added a day in order to visit Jewell County. This is the land to which my mother’s father’s family immigrated from northern […]
Circles and Intersections – Part III
Circles. In order to share this circle, I need to provide a bit of my family’s German history. Specifically my maternal grandfather’s. It all centers around a small village in the northern District of Lippe Germany: Varenholtz. When we visited Varenholtz in 1998, we found a landmark never mentioned in any of the oral (where most […]