Tag: NaBloPoMo

Family, The Write Stuff

Thank You, NaBloPoMo

Gailann
Mom and Aunt Marceille have a warm reunion on a cold day.
The Carter girls, home on the farm, c.1943

Thank you, NaBloPoMo for giving us our Daily Prompts.  WordPress.com also has one, but it usually entails more thinking than I’m willing to do today.  (Plus, I’m not crazy about today’s prompt:  Tell us about a thing you’ll never write about.  Um, no.  Then I’d be writing about it, right?)

From NaBloPoMo:  Are you interested in genealogy?  Do you have a family tree constructed?

Short answer:  No.  And no.

Long answer:  One of my father’s cousins was an genealogist.  He even wrote a book about it, but it was in “geneolo-eze” and I had a horrible time understanding it.  I’m not sure if I still have the book or threw it away.  Hopefully the latter.

My Uncle Rod also wrote a book about my grandfather.  (You may remember them both in word and picture from this post.)  In it, I discovered I could join the DAR, as one of my ancestors loaned his rifle to the Continental Army and followed it into the American Revolution.  I haven’t joined DAR.  Perhaps I will if I feel they’ve sufficiently atoned for not allowing Marion Anderson to sing at Constitution Hall.

I’m not sure about my mother’s side of the family.  I think her sister (Aunt Marceille, pictured above on the right) tried doing some research, but don’t know what became of it—or if she was even successful.  I think her family also dates back a few centuries in America, as she was a member of the DAR.  Or was she eligible by marriage?  Does DAR allow Daughters-in-Law of the American Revolution?   😀

My grandfather was a wonderful story-teller.  He always told of some incident from the past whenever the family gathered.  Unfortunately, being a kid and teen-ager, I didn’t listen very well.  I guess this means I need to do some research if I want to write a memoir of my parents.  I can think of worse pastimes.

Reading Stuff, The Write Stuff

Mothers and Vikings

Gailann

[Note:  This post is about the How to Train Your Dragon books, not the movie.  Although the names are recognizable, the stories are quite different.  I love both versions.]

"How to Seize a Dragon's Jewel" is the tenth Hiicup and Toothless book by Cressida Cowell.
How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel (hardcover version)

I finished reading How to Seize a Dragon’s Jewel last night.  It’s the tenth (and latest) book in Cressida Cowell’s “How to Train Your Dragon” series.  At the end of every book, adult Hiccup writes an epilog.  Its style is quite different from the rest of the book.  Being written in first person (the stories are told in third person), they are often profound—and quite poetic.

This epilog has a very old Hiccup reflecting that the story is really about mothers.  Hiccup’s mother,  who up until now, had appeared in only a couple of the books, proves to be a mighty warrior and Hero.  And Hiccup’s best friend, the orphaned Fishlegs, learns his mother loved him and had not abandoned him, but had died before she could be reunited with him.  [It’s such a beautiful but heartbreaking tale, I tear up thinking about it.]

Is this a sign I should write about my mother?  It’s something I’ve been thinking about.  She has an interesting story to be told.  Perhaps I should get busy telling it.

Family, Observations

Ahead of Her Time

Gailann

YOne silver spoon is engraved "MR." The other is engraved "MRS."esterday morning I set the alarm on my watch to 10:30 p.m.  When it went off last night, I’d forgotten what I’d set it for.  Short term memory?  Not so good.

Having not thought about today’s post, the possibility of forgetting to blog was very real.  Perhaps inspired by yesterday’s list of impressive relatives, I remembered thinking, as a young child, how fortunate I was to call these people family.  Which reminded me of a few other early childhood thoughts.

Having been born before “women’s lib,” I often wondered why single and married men were addressed as “Mister,” while single and married women were differentiated by “Miss” and “Mrs.” (When you think about it, “Mrs.” isn’t even a word.  “Missus” is just a phonetic representation of “Mrs.”  Seriously??)  [See Note 1]

I also knew that married men and women shared a last name, even though they were born with different surnames.  What was the most equitable way to resolve this dilemma?  The lawyer’s daughter in me (I was only 5 or 6 years old at the time) figured the county clerk’s office kept a record of marriages (which they do), and assigned the man’s last name to odd numbered couples and the woman’s to the even numbers.  Or vice versa.  Either was fair.

When I asked my mother the question, she seemed surprised and said, “You always take the man’s name.” I replied in horror, “That’s not fair!”  She seemed taken aback.  She  probably thought That’s my daughter, the trouble-maker.

I was indeed the black sheep of the family.  My mother was the oldest of four, my father the oldest of two, and my brother the oldest of two.   At dinner one evening, I told them no one understood me because none of them were “not the oldest.”  Mom said “That doesn’t make any difference.”  Ha!  Later research would prove her wrong.

[Note 1:  Etymology tells me “Mrs.” is the abbreviation for “mistress,” yet “mistress” has been defined as “kept woman of a married man”since the 15th century.]

Memes (Sunday 7), The Write Stuff

Sunday Seven: Roots

Gailann

How appropriate.  The theme for NaBloPoMo this month is Roots, so here’s a sneak peak of mine.

Seven People I’m Proud to Call Relatives

My grandfather and uncle were two of my favorite people.
Grandpa and Uncle Rod: two of my favorite people
  1. Marjorie Overholt, mother.  The nicest, kindest person you’d ever hope to meet.
  2. Owen Overholt, father.  Imminently fair and honest, a lawyer who loved the law more than money.
  3. James Roderick Overholt, uncle.  Phi Beta Kappa, and adored by everyone who met him.
  4. Connie McCutchon, first cousin once removed.  Listed in Who’s Who, she shares a birthday with my mother, and another hero of mine, Abraham Lincoln.
  5. Sigel Overholt, grandfather.  He lived to be 101 years, 6 months.  The six months is important because his older sister (Connie’s mother) lived to be only 101 years, 3 months.
  6. Henry Carter, grandfather.  He could be ornery and difficult, but he was larger than life.
  7. Cassie Carter, grandmother.  If I’d had one, I’d have named my daughter after her.

Honorable mention:  Debra Overholt, “niece-in-law.”  She wasn’t a relative by blood, but she was family.  Intelligent, talented, loving and kind, she died much too soon.

More to come…