Easter Greetings

A Joyful Easter!

A Joyful Easter postcard from Mor [Norwegian for "mother": Regina LERFALD LERFALD] to her daughter Rena LERFALD. C. 1911 - 1915. Original privately held by Troy Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Vancouver, Washington. 2013.

Half a Million Wiltshire Records Now Available Online

MOONRAKERS, QUAKERS AND CHOCOLATE MAKERS – HALF A MILLION HISTORIC WILTSHIRE RECORDS AVAILABLE ONLINE

Historic records from the South West now available on
Ancestry.co.uk

Ancestry.co.uk, the UK’s favourite family history website, has today launched online Wiltshire Church Records, 1538 – 1897 and Wiltshire Quaker Birth & Death records 1542 - 1897 a combined collection of more than half a million historic Anglican and Quaker marriage, birth and death records – offering unique insight into the history of many non-conformists in Wiltshire.

Spanning over 350 years, the records include more than 500,000 marriages from all 327 Wiltshire parishes, as well as more than 3,300 Wiltshire Quaker births and deaths.

Well-known as the home of ancient Neolithic site Stonehenge and for its wool-producing history, the county of Wiltshire was home to many members of the prominent Quaker family the Frys. Included in the collection are birth records for Cornelius and William Storrs Fry - brothers of chocolate dynasty founder Joseph Fry, whose chocolate company Fry, Vaughan & Co was famed for creating the first ever chocolate Easter egg in the UK.

The records are available to search by criteria including name, age and residence and in some cases detail addresses, occupations and parents’ names. Miriam Silverman, Senior Content Manager at Ancestry.co.uk said “These records are a fantastic resource for anyone interested in finding out more about their ancestors in Wiltshire – non-conformist or otherwise. The collection is also a significant addition to the Wiltshire records we currently have on Ancestry.co.uk, including almost 27,000 Wiltshire Extracted Parish Records.”

For more information, visit www.ancestry.co.uk. (Anyone with an Ancestry.com World Explorer membership can access and search all of Ancestry.com’s global sites including Ancestry.co.uk.)

Scanfest is Coming (Early)!

The March 2013 Scanfest will take place here at AnceStories this coming Sunday, March 24th, from 11 AM to 2 PM, Pacific Daylight Time. This is one week earlier than the normal schedule of the last Sunday of the month, due to Easter Sunday falling on that day.
 
What is Scanfest? It's a time when geneabloggers, family historians, and family archivists meet online here at this blog to chat while they scan their precious family document and photos. Why? Because, quite honestly, scanning is time-consuming and boring!

Scanfest is a great time to "meet" other genealogists, ask questions about scanning and preservation, and get the kick in the pants we all need on starting those massive scanning projects that just seem too overwhelming to begin.

To get started, you need to know the basics about scanning:

1. Don't use commercial glass cleaners (i.e. Windex) or paper towels to clean your scanner's glass plate. Use a soft, clean cloth, preferably microfiber. If you must use a liquid, use water sprayed directly onto the cloth  and make sure to let the plate dry thoroughly before placing photos or documents on it.

2. Wear cotton gloves (available at many art and/or photography supply shops) when handling photos and old documents.

3. Don't slide the photos around on the glass plate. Place them exactly where you want them. Photos should NEVER be scanned by a scanner that feeds the document through the machine, but ALWAYS on a flat-bed scanner.

4. Set your scanner to scan at no smaller than 300 dpi (dots per inch). Many experts recommend 600 dpi for photographs.

5. Photographs should ALWAYS be scanned and saved as .tif files. Use "Save As" to reformat the .tif file to a .jpg file for restoration and touchups, emailing, or uploading to an online photo album. ALWAYS retain the original scan as a .tif file.

6. Documents can be scanned as .pdf files or .tif files.

7. When you are done scanning your photos, don't put them back in those nasty "magnetic" photo albums. Place them in archival safe albums or boxes found at websites such as Archival Products or Archival Suppliers. Do NOT store any newsprint (articles, obituaries, etc.) with the photos. The acid from the newspaper will eventually destroy the photograph.

Now about the chatting part of Scanfest:

We will be using Blyve, a live blogging platform that you access right here at AnceStories. On Sunday at 11 AM, PDT, come right here to AnceStories and you'll see the Blyve live blog/forum in the top post. It's not really a "chat room," per se, it's more like a live forum and anyone visiting this site can read and see what is happening in the forum.

You will not need to download any software.

We look forward to having you participate with us!

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories No. 4: Christmas Cards

(Originally written in December 2007)

Christmas Cards

Did your family send them? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards?

During the last four weeks, I've been going through the letters my mom wrote her parents in Western Michigan from Alaska during the years 1966 - 1978, and have just started 1977. There are many December letters tucked inside Christmas cards during those years, although I don't specifically remember Mom sitting down with a stack of them to sign and mail off. It may be that she purchased just a few to mail to family and friends, or perhaps she was able to buy them by the box. I do know from what she wrote in those letters that it was hard to buy holiday cards of any kind in Southeast Alaska. My mother's greeting to her parents on Easter or Mother's or Father's Day, for instance, usually consisted of the weekly letter with best wishes for the family member(s) and an explanation that no store on the island sold greeting cards.

Once we moved to Eastern Washington in 1979, I do remember our family sending off greeting cards. Sometimes Dad would get a neighbor to take a nice group photo of our family with his camera and get some Christmas photo cards printed up. We would dress up for these photos, most of the time. Mom would tuck newsy notes or letters in with both the greeting cards and the photo cards.

I think cards were taped along the beams of our house in Alaska, which had a cathedral ceiling, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly. In our home in Eastern Washington, the cards were always--and still are--taped around the doorway and pass-through between the dining area and kitchen.

After I married, I started sending out Christmas cards to friends and family members, and after our children were born, I added photos and a Christmas letter. I haven't done a Christmas letter every year, but I did most years. They're fun to go back and read, because I always hit the highlights of the past 12 months. The past few years, with postage so expensive and with most people in my e-mail address book having color printers, I've just e-mailed my Christmas letter and scanned photos of our family, while mailing "hard copies" to family and friends without Internet access.

The cards we receive are placed in a green Christmas wooden basket on our coffee table in the living room. After Christmas is over, I go through and save the photos and Christmas letters. Most of the cards, unless unique or extra special, get their covers reused as gift tags for next year's Christmas, or passed on to non-profit organizations that recycle them.


This post is a part of the "Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories" meme created in 2007 by Thomas and Jasia. You, too, can write your own Christmas memories, either for your personal journal or blog. Visit Geneabloggers to participate and to read others' posts on these topics.

Happy Easter!

Cousin Adelia, Zumbrota, Minnesota to Rena Lerfald, Mandan, North Dakota. Postcard, postmarked 20 Mar 1913. Lerfald-Westaby Postcard Collection, digitized and privately held by Miriam Robbins Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Spokane, Washington. Original collection privately held by Troy W. Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Vancouver, Washington. 2011.

No Scanfest in April

I apologize for the last-minute notice, but there will be no Scanfest in April.

Originally, I was going to bump it from the last Sunday in April (the 24th), which happens to be Easter Sunday, to the third Sunday, the 17th. However, I just discovered late last night that the summer camp reunion I planned to attend this weekend will be held on Sunday and not Saturday, as I previously thought.

I briefly considered having Scanfest on Saturday, the 16th, but realized I need a day to rest up and recover from a long week of work...the first week of school after Spring Break!

The next Scanfest will be held Sunday, May 22nd from 11:00 AM to 2:00 PM, PDT. This is one week earlier than normal, due to the Memorial Day weekend. See you then!

P.S. If you're just dying to talk with your chat buddies before May, check out Geneabloggers Radio Friday evenings and Dae Powell's chats.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories No. 4: Christmas Cards

(Originally written in December 2007)

Christmas Cards

Did your family send them? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards?

During the last four weeks, I've been going through the letters my mom wrote her parents in Western Michigan from Alaska during the years 1966 - 1978, and have just started 1977. There are many December letters tucked inside Christmas cards during those years, although I don't specifically remember Mom sitting down with a stack of them to sign and mail off. It may be that she purchased just a few to mail to family and friends, or perhaps she was able to buy them by the box. I do know from what she wrote in those letters that it was hard to buy holiday cards of any kind in Southeast Alaska. My mother's greeting to her parents on Easter or Mother's or Father's Day, for instance, usually consisted of the weekly letter with best wishes for the family member(s) and an explanation that no store on the island sold greeting cards.

Once we moved to Eastern Washington in 1979, I do remember our family sending off greeting cards. Sometimes Dad would get a neighbor to take a nice group photo of our family with his camera and get some Christmas photo cards printed up. We would dress up for these photos, most of the time. Mom would tuck newsy notes or letters in with both the greeting cards and the photo cards.

I think cards were taped along the beams of our house in Alaska, which had a cathedral ceiling, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly. In our home in Eastern Washington, the cards were always--and still are--taped around the doorway and pass-through between the dining area and kitchen.

After my husband and I married, I started sending out Christmas cards to friends and family members, and after our children were born, I added photos and a Christmas letter. I haven't done a Christmas letter every year, but I did most years. They're fun to go back and read, because I always hit the highlights of the past 12 months. The past few years, with postage so expensive and with most people in my e-mail address book having color printers, I've just e-mailed my Christmas letter and scanned photos of our family, while mailing "hard copies" to family and friends without Internet access. This year has been so busy that I am probably going to forgo the cards altogether and just mail and e-mail the Christmas letters. I figure at the rate I'm going, people are going to be lucky to even hear from us!

The cards we receive are placed in a green Christmas wooden basket on our coffee table in the living room. After Christmas is over, I go through and save the photos and Christmas letters. Most of the cards, unless unique or extra special, get their covers reused as gift tags for next year's Christmas, or passed on to non-profit organizations that recycle them.


This post is a part of the "Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories" meme created in 2007 by Thomas and Jasia. You, too, can write your own Christmas memories, either for your personal journal or blog. Visit Geneabloggers to participate and to read others' posts on these topics.

Easter Greetings

Ole Lerfald, unknown location to Rena Lerfald, Glendive, Montana, postcard, undated, unstamped and unpostmarked. Lerfald-Westaby Postcard Collection, digitized and privately held by Miriam Robbins Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Spokane, Washington. Original collection privately held by Troy W. Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE,] Vancouver, Washington. 2010.

April 2010 Calendar of Events

The cuckoo comes in April,
He sings his song in May;
In the middle of June he changes his tune,
In July he flies away.




Holidays, History, and Heritage
April is...

National Volunteer Month (United States)
(See my post on being a volunteer back during Random Acts of Kindness Week.)

National Jewish-American Heritage Month (United States)

Sunset of March 29th - April 5th: Passover (Judaism)

April 2: Good Friday (Christianity)

April 4: Easter Sunday (Christianity)

April 5: Easter Monday (United Kingdom)

April 6: National Tartan Day (United States)

April 11 - 18: Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Remembrance Week (global/Judaism)

April 19: Patriot's Day (United States)

April 19: Dutch-American Friendship Day (Netherlands, United States)

April 25: ANZAC Day (Australia, New Zealand)

April 30: Valborn/Walpurgis Night (Sweden)

Do any of the above events feature in or affect your heritage, culture, or family history?




April Carnivals and Other Events:

Need help? Read my post, "How to Submit a Post to a Carnival", here.

Posted April 1 - the April 2010 Edition of the Graveyard Rabbits Carnival - Anonymous Graves

Posted April 3 - the 92nd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy - Dance!

Posted April 19 - the 2nd Edition of the Carnival of African-American Genealogy - Grandma's Hand

Posted April 29 - Shades of the Departed - The Civil War 

Posted April 29 - the 19th Edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture - Poetry







April 1 - Data Backup Day

Read the latest "Backup Day" post by Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers.




Genealogy Television Shows
(check your local listings for accurate local airing times and reruns)

The Generations Project
Monday Nights at 8 PM on BYU-TV
April 5, 12, 19, 26

Who Do You Think You Are?
Friday Nights at 8 PM on NBC
April 2 - Brooke Shields
April 9 - Sarah Jessica Parker (repeat)
April 16 - no episode
April 23 - Susan Sarandon
April 30 - Spike Lee




Scanfest: Sunday, April 25, 11 AM - 2 PM, PDT

Go here to learn how to join Scanfest and our group of chatting, scanning family archivists, historians, and bloggers!




Go here to add the above deadlines and dates to your Google Calendar, courtesy of Thomas MacEntee of Destination: Austin Family.


It is not Spring until you can plant your foot on twelve daisies.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories No. 4: Christmas Cards

(Originally written in December 2007)

Christmas Cards

Did your family send them? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards?

During the last four weeks, I've been going through the letters my mom wrote her parents in Western Michigan from Alaska during the years 1966 - 1978, and have just started 1977. There are many December letters tucked inside Christmas cards during those years, although I don't specifically remember Mom sitting down with a stack of them to sign and mail off. It may be that she purchased just a few to mail to family and friends, or perhaps she was able to buy them by the box. I do know from what she wrote in those letters that it was hard to buy holiday cards of any kind in Southeast Alaska. My mother's greeting to her parents on Easter or Mother's or Father's Day, for instance, usually consisted of the weekly letter with best wishes for the family member(s) and an explanation that no store on the island sold greeting cards.

Once we moved to Eastern Washington in 1979, I do remember our family sending off greeting cards. Sometimes Dad would get a neighbor to take a nice group photo of our family with his camera and get some Christmas photo cards printed up. We would dress up for these photos, most of the time. Mom would tuck newsy notes or letters in with both the greeting cards and the photo cards.

I think cards were taped along the beams of our house in Alaska, which had a cathedral ceiling, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly. In our home in Eastern Washington, the cards were always--and still are--taped around the doorway and pass-through between the dining area and kitchen.

After my husband and I married, I started sending out Christmas cards to friends and family members, and after our children were born, I added photos and a Christmas letter. I haven't done a Christmas letter every year, but I did most years. They're fun to go back and read, because I always hit the highlights of the past 12 months. The past few years, with postage so expensive and with most people in my e-mail address book having color printers, I've just e-mailed my Christmas letter and scanned photos of our family, while mailing "hard copies" to family and friends without Internet access. This year has been so busy that I am probably going to forgo the cards altogether and just mail and e-mail the Christmas letters. I figure at the rate I'm going, people are going to be lucky to even hear from us!

The cards we receive are placed in a green Christmas wooden basket on our coffee table in the living room. After Christmas is over, I go through and save the photos and Christmas letters. Most of the cards, unless unique or extra special, get their covers reused as gift tags for next year's Christmas, or passed on to non-profit organizations that recycle them.


This post is a part of the "Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories" meme created in 2007 by Thomas and Jasia. You, too, can write your own Christmas memories, either for your personal journal or blog. Visit Geneabloggers to participate and to read others' posts on these topics.

Click on the Image Above to Adopt a Needy Child or Senior in Your Community

It's Carnival Time!

This week, two carnivals were posted. The 12th Edition of the "Smile for the Camera" Carnival was published April 15th at the Shades of the Departed Blog, with the theme being "A Noble Life." There were 20 submissions honoring the noble lives of ancestors, and the theme for the 13th edition will be "All Creatures Great and Small."

The 70th edition (70! Can you believe it!) of the Carnival of Genealogy was published this morning at Creative Gene. "Uncle, Uncle!" was the theme, and 33 posts were submitted. "Local History" will be the theme for the 71st edition.

Tim Abbott reports that the 18th edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities will be postponed indefinitely while he recovers from a case of pneumonia. We wish you a speedy recovery, Tim!

Remember, there are three more carnival deadlines coming up in the next week or so: the 18th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy - Easter and Passover Traditions (April 20); the 3rd Edition of the Graveyard Rabbit Carnival - Cemetery Preservation (April 25); and the 4th Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival - Black Sheep Canadian Ancestors (April 26). Thomas should also be publishing the final installment of Bound for Mom - The World is Not Flat very shortly.

Enjoy the great reads!

Happy Easter

Best Easter Wishes postcard from Ole LERFALD to his sister Rena LERFALD. C. 1908 - 1920. Original privately held by Troy Midkiff, [ADDRESS FOR PRIVATE USE], Vancouver, Washington. 2009.

Fair be thy Easter, happy thy days,
Joy fill thy heart and hope's sweet rays.

April 2009 Calender of Events

April brings the primrose sweet,
Scatters daisies at our feet.

--from "The Garden Year" by Sara Coleridge

Holidays, History, and Heritage

April is...

National Volunteer Month (United States)
(See my post on being a volunteer back during Random Acts of Kindness Week.)

National Jewish-American Heritage Month (United States)

April 5: Palm Sunday (Christianity)

April 6: National Tartan Day (United States)

Sunset of April 8th - April 15th: Passover (Judaism)

April 10: Good Friday (Christianity)

April 12: Easter Sunday (Christianity)

April 13: Easter Monday (United Kingdom)

April 19: Patriot's Day (United States)

April 19: Dutch-American Friendship Day (Netherlands, United States)

April 25: ANZAC Day (Australia, New Zealand)

April 27 - May 4: Yom Hashoah/Holocaust Remembrance Week (global/Judaism)

April 30: Valborn/Walpurgis Night (Sweden)

Do any of the above events feature in or affect your heritage, culture, or family history?

April Carnivals and Other Events:

Need help? Read my post, "How to Submit a Post to a Carnival", here.

Posted April 1 - the 2nd Edition of the Graveyard Rabbits Carnival - Burial Customs

Posted April 3 - Bound for Mom - The Roadside Café

Posted April 8 - the 69th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy - "What If": Rewriting History

Posted April 10 - Bound for Mom - Driving Lessons

Posted April 15 - the 12th Edition of the "I Smile for the Camera" Carnival - A Noble Life

Posted April 18 - the 70th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy - Uncle, Uncle!

Posted April 22 - Bound for Mom - The World is Not Flat

Posted April 22 - the 18th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy
- Easter and Passover Traditions

Posted April 30 - the 4th Edition of the Canadian Genealogy Carnival - Black Sheep Canadian Ancestors

Please note: the 18th Edition of the Cabinet of Curiosities was postponed until host Tim Abbott recovered from illness. Stay tuned.

April 1 - Data Backup Day

Read the latest "Today is Backup Day!" post by Thomas MacEntee at Geneabloggers.

Scanfest: Sunday, April 26th, 11 AM - 2 PM, Pacific Daylight Time

Go here to learn how to join Scanfest and our group of chatting, scanning family archivists, historians, and bloggers!

Go here to add the above deadlines and dates to your Google Calendar,
courtesy of Thomas MacEntee of Destination: Austin Family.


It's spring! Farewell
To chills and colds!
The blushing, girlish
World unfolds

Each flower, leaf,
And blade of turf--
Small love-notes sent
From air to earth.

The sky's a herd
Of prancing sheep,
The birds and fields
Abandon sleep,

And jonquils, tulips,
Daffodils
Bloom bright upon
That wide-eyed hills.

All things renew.
All things begin.
At church, they bring
The lilies in.

--"April," by John Updike

Using Ancestry's MyCanvas Program for Creative Christmas Fun

Oh, my.

I can't remember the last time I've such fun with graphic design. Maybe a number of years ago, when I created my family tree website. Or when I purchased Paint Shop Pro and learned how to pixel paint.

Except when I was building my website, I was still new to HTML coding (which I taught myself, with the help of online tutorials like Lissa Explains All), and when I was pixel painting, I was trying to figure out how to create I-frames (what I did worked with Internet Explorer, but not with Mozilla Firefox--my browser of choice).

So my creativity was tempered with a lot of learn-on-the-fly and frustration.

Lately I've been hearing a lot about Ancestry's MyCanvas program in various press releases on blogs--a program in which you can create personalized items like family history books, recipe books, photo albums, posters, calendars and the like. I had tried out playing around with making a family history book a while ago, but it didn't really interest me. There's this hesitation I have about putting genealogy into print, knowing that a family history is never really complete or accurate (thus my preference for websites and blogs, where one can easily update, correct, delete or add information as it becomes available). I received an e-mail yesterday from Genealogy.com, a member of The Generation Networks family, of which Ancestry was also a part. This message was advertising several MyCanvas products--including calendars--at 20% off (they're $15.96 through December 24; order by December 11th to receive in time for Christmas via standard shipping or by December 16th via expedited shipping). Now for several years I've been envisioning making a family calendar to hand out as early Christmas gifts at our annual Robbins Reunion dinner the end of October, but do you think that I've been able to get on the horn and actually even attempt to create one? Oh, no...not procrastinating me!

So I thought I'd take MyCanvas out for a test drive with a family calendar...and all I can say is: oh, my!

Twenty-four hours later, I've already got three calendars in the works. The first is for my extended family, which will use the classic default holiday/seasonal background pages (I'm just a sucker when it comes to holiday decorations and the like!), each of which I plan to upload images from my PC of family members who celebrate birthdays or anniversaries that month. Another is for a family member that I know would appreciate some of the lovely designs of teapots that I purchased on CD this summer from Pats Web Graphics (I use my photo-editing program to convert images to .jpg files...MyCanvas also accepts .png files). The third is for my husband's family, featuring the postcards that his great-grandmother, Rena (Lerfald) Westaby received in the early 1900s from family and friends while she was working as a maid as a young single woman in the Midwest. Here are some screenshots from that project. Behold, the cover:

Here's the front and back of an Easter postcard, which I have stored in my online Picasa album (MyCanvas also works with SmugMug albums):

Now here it is featured on an April calendar page, using the wonderful digital backgrounds and embellishments of MyCanvas:

Okay, one more! I've got to show you the December page:

I've already got plans for calendars for the next few years: ancestral photos, documents (you can use the ones you view with your Ancestry subscription, too), recipes, you name it. The nice thing is, you can make a basic calendar with all your family's important dates, and then copy it, personalize the graphics, and add/delete events that are customized to each household. And what's more, it is a simple, one-handed easy-to-use project--perfect for someone like me, recovering from shoulder surgery!

Hello, my name is Miriam, and I'm addicted to MyCanvas. And no, I wasn't asked to write a post about this.

Spring: Not My Favorite Season

This morning I posted "Week Thirty-Five: Spring" over at my journal prompt blog, AnceStories2: Stories of Me for My Descendants. And I have to admit, Spring is not my favorite season. In fact, to name them in favorite to least favorite order, they are Fall, Summer, Winter and Spring.

Now some people just get all excited about Spring. They love that the snow is gone and the flowers are coming up, the days are getting longer and warmer. But to me, Spring has always been too vague, uncertain, and variant. As Lucy from Peanuts would say: "Wishy-washy." By the time we can actually say that Spring is here, it's late May, and summer is just around the corner. Spring brings snow, hail, wind, rain, ice, sun, clouds, and more of the above...usually all in one afternoon, too! When I was a girl growing up in Southeast Alaska and we had Spring weather like that, it was called "Fish Egg Weather," because it meant it was the time when the salmon went upstream to spawn. I remember seeing a creek which was located about a mile from our home being absolutely choked with salmon laying their eggs. Since the weather as a whole (wet and rainy) didn't seem a whole lot different in Spring compared to Summer or Fall (Southeast Alaska gets 160 - 180 inches of rain a year), it's hard to look back on my childhood memories and say definitively, "this happened in the Spring," or "this was a Spring memory."

One thing we had to be cautious about in Alaska in the Spring was the fact that bears were coming out of hibernation and 1) they were hungry; and 2) the females had their cubs with them. These were not pleasant thoughts to consider while walking the lonely one-mile long road from our house to town on the way to school and then back in the afternoon! Dad always said, "they're more afraid of you than you are of them" (doubtful!) and "make a lot of noise while you're walking, like singing or whistling, so they can hear you coming and go away," which is probably how I got into the bad habit of talking to myself, while doing mundane tasks. :-) Since these were black bears, not grizzlies, I was pretty safe, and I never did run into any on my way to school or back. In fact, it was my brother who ran into a bear when he was about 5 or 6 years old in the woods behind our house, and it happened after we moved to Eastern Washington. The bear ran off, and I'm sure Adriaen did, too...in the opposite direction!

On a side note: one of the things we did for fun was to drive to the dump several miles down the road between Klawock (our home town) and Craig to watch the bears. We didn't have television on the island at that point and there wasn't a theater, either (it burned down not long after we moved there), so entertainment had to be creative! There would be bears all over that dump, especially on garbage day. I remember one time when we went, there was a sow and three cubs, and as they ran off into the woods, the third cub was limping a bit. We saw plenty of sows with twin cubs over the years, but that was the only time we saw one with triplets.

One nice thing about Spring in Alaska was that there seemed to be a lot of rainbows during that time. My friends and I had a superstition that you couldn't point at a rainbow, because that would make it disappear. Funny how kids are!

Once my parents started their little farm, Spring meant baby animals being born: goat kids, bunnies, and chicks, ducklings, and goslings. It also meant a lot of work, because the kids had to be bottle-fed so that we could milk their mothers. And as anyone who's ever had a farm or small homestead knows, Spring is the beginning of plowing, planting, and lots of weeding!

When we moved to Eastern Washington in 1979, it took some getting used to a different climate. This side of the state is called the "dry side" for good reason; unlike the West Side, which is more like Southeast Alaska in its climate (damp and rainy), Eastern Washington has four distinct seasons and much drier air. Summer and winter go to temperature extremes, with August blazing in at over 100*F and winter dropping as low as -40* temps when you consider the wind chill factor. Spring was more defined as a season in Eastern Washington than in Alaska, I noticed when I moved here. There are a lot more deciduous trees, which, of course, bloom (the magnolia next door is a favorite); and the lower latitudes allow for a longer growing season, so I could see a lot more variety in the flowers that grew in people's gardens. However, Spring also meant pollen, especially pine pollen. The grand Ponderosa pines in this region put out huge quantities of pollen which are visible in the air on windy days, or on lake and pond surfaces in thick green layers. I lived in this area for nearly 20 years before I figured out why I was getting so run down every May...to the point of becoming pretty ill: I have allergies. One of the things that also seems to trigger my symptoms is lilac blooms...and where do I live? In the Lilac City, no less!

Eastern Washington has fairly clay-ey (is that a word?) soil. Every spring, my parents' long driveway would turn to a sticky, muddy mess as the deep snow melted. Seems I remember numerous times when our 1940-something four-wheel-drive Willey's Jeep and other assorted vehicles they owned got stuck in the driveway. Dad cut back a lot of trees over the years to let in sunshine to the driveway to help dry up the mud, but still, it often meant many summer days for us kids scouring the garden, roadsides and woods for medium-sized rocks to fill in the ruts. After all those years, you'd think their driveway would be cobblestoned from the amount of rocks we placed in it!

Spring Break was always a great relief (and still is, now that I work for a school district!). We never took vacations (as a school custodian, that was/is one of Dad's busiest work weeks). My favorite Spring Break happened when I was a junior, I think. It wasn't anything special, but I remember we had a picnic, and there was a favorite musical on TV. I just remember it was a fun family time.

I don't have a particular favorite Spring holiday now, although as a kid, Easter was a favorite, for obvious reasons. And speaking of favorites, my favorite Spring food is fresh asparagus, which is shipped up here from the Yakima Valley and is simply delicious!

So although Spring may not be a favorite season, there are still enough enjoyable things happening to make it be "okay" for me. What about you? How do you feel about Spring? And will you leave some Spring stories for your descendants to read someday?

Happy Easter

Happy Easter to all my readers!

Source: The Westaby-Lerfald Postcard Collection. Privately held by Troy Midkiff, Vancouver, Washington.

Alaskan Russian Foods

As many of my readers are aware, I was born and grew up in Alaska, living in five different communities. The "city" where I was born was Kodiak, on Kodiak Island, where the Russian influence can still be felt in the culture, religious practices, and surnames of the Native Alaskans living there. While Kodiak is near the top of the Aleutian chain of islands creating the Southwest panhandle of the state, the Southeast panhandle--where I spent most of my childhood--also felt Russia's hand and can be seen in the architecture of the old Russian Orthodox churches in Sitka (the capital under Russia) and Juneau (the current state capital). However, the Native Alaskans of the Southeast panhandle were more religiously influenced by the Presbyterian, Catholic, Lutheran, and Salvation Army churches.

Russian Church, Kodiak, Alaska


St. Michael's Cathedral, Sitka, Alaska

(For more views of beautiful Russian Orthodox churches
in Alaska--onion domes and all--click here.)

Two wonderful Russian dishes I remember eating as a child were pirok and kulich. Pirok is a fish pie that my mother would make as a simple, filling main dish, using canned or fresh Alaskan salmon. It is especially tasty topped with a tomato-based cocktail sauce, such as what you would eat with shrimp. Kulich is also known as Russian Easter bread, and is a delicious treat, made sweet from candied fruit and heavy with many eggs (made of course, to celebrate the end of Lent and self-denial). Dad was usually the one who made kulich, and our favorite way to eat it was lightly toasted with lots of butter! In fact, just thinking about it makes me want to haul out my breadmaker and make a loaf this weekend to eat with Easter breakfast!

I believe the following recipe is from Alaskan Cookbook for Homesteader or Gourmet by Bess Cleveland; Berkeley, California: Howell-North Books, 1960.

PIROK

Pastry for double-crust pie
2 c. cooked rice
1 onion
3 hard-boiled eggs
1 can salmon or 1 lb. fresh salmon, deboned
salt and pepper to taste

Line pie with pastry. When steaming rice, add 1 chopped onion. When done, mix with canned salmon, including juice. Mix well. Season with salt and pepper to taste.

Put 1/2 rice and fish misture in unbaked pie shell. Press quartered hard-boiled eggs into mixture, top off balance of rice and fish. Cover with piecrust, seal edges well and cut steam vents. Bake 1/2 hour (1 hour for fresh salmon) or until well browned. [A temperature is not given; I cook mine at about 425° F.] This is a dish brought to Alaska by the early Russian colonists, and was first made with salt salmon.

Traditionally, the kulich dough was braided, then baked. However, when Dad made this, he would bake it just as he and Mom did our sourdough-raisin bread: in greased coffee cans, creating a nice round load, easily sliced and able to fit into a standard toaster. While the sourdough-raisin bread, which was our everyday bread, was made in two-pound coffee cans, the kulich, more of a dessert than a sandwich bread, was usually baked in one-pound cans. I am adapting my Mr. Coffee bread-maker's recipe for a one-pound dried-mixed fruit bread, which yields a similar result.

KULICH

1 egg plus enough water to equal 1 c.
2 c. + 1 T. bread flour
1/2 t. salt
2 T. honey
1 T. dry milk
1/2 c. bran cereal
1/2 c. chopped candied mixed fruit
1/2 c. raisins
1/2 t. nutmeg
1/4 t. baking soda
1 1/2 t. yeast

Place ingredients into your breadmaker according to its suggested guidelines and use the Whole-Loaf (as opposed to Dough) Sweet Bake setting (setting 8 on Mr. Coffee breadmaker). Yield: 1 one-pound loaf.

March Is...

...Irish American Heritage Month.

...Women's History Month.

March 1: Korean Independence Movement Day (celebrated in both North and South Korea - independence from Japan)

March 8: International Women's Day

March 17: St. Patrick's Day

March 23: Easter Sunday

March 25: Greek Independence Day

Do any of the above feature in or affect your heritage, culture, or family history?

Carnival Due Dates and Other Events in March:

March 1: 43rd Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy - Technology

March 10: "Where Were You?" Carnival - Great Depression

March 14: 4th Edition of the Carnival of the Carnival of Irish Heritage & Culture - St. Patrick's Day Parade

March 15: 44th Edition of the Carnival of Genealogy - A Tribute to Women

By midday, March 16: Cabinet of Curiosities #5 - Steampunk Edition

March 21: 5th Edition of the Carnival of Central and Eastern European Genealogy - Traditional Dishes

March 29 - April 6: Spring Break Scan-a-Thon

March 30: Scanfest, 11 AM - 2 PM, Pacific Daylight Time

And One More Thing:

March 1 is National Pig Day!

Advent Memories No. 4: Christmas Cards

I'm a little late jumping into Thomas and Jasia's Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories, but better late than never! And maybe I'll do some back-posting to get caught up; we'll see what time allows.

Christmas Cards

Did your family send them? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards?

During the last four weeks, I've been going through the letters my mom wrote her parents in Western Michigan from Alaska during the years 1966 - 1978, and have just started 1977. There are many December letters tucked inside Christmas cards during those years, although I don't specifically remember Mom sitting down with a stack of them to sign and mail off. It may be that she purchased just a few to mail to family and friends, or perhaps she was able to buy them by the box. I do know from what she wrote in those letters that it was hard to buy holiday cards of any kind in Southeast Alaska. My mother's greeting to her parents on Easter or Mother's or Father's Day, for instance, usually consisted of the weekly letter with best wishes for the family member(s) and an explanation that no store on the island sold greeting cards.

Once we moved to Eastern Washington in 1979, I do remember our family sending off greeting cards. Sometimes Dad would get a neighbor to take a nice group photo of our family with his camera and get some Christmas photo cards printed up. We would dress up for these photos, most of the time. Mom would tuck newsy notes or letters in with both the greeting cards and the photo cards.

I think cards were taped along the beams of our house in Alaska, which had a cathedral ceiling, but I'm not sure if I'm remembering that correctly. In our home in Eastern Washington, the cards were always--and still are--taped around the doorway and pass-through between the dining area and kitchen.

After my husband and I married, I started sending out Christmas cards to friends and family members, and after our children were born, I added photos and a Christmas letter. I haven't done a Christmas letter every year, but I did most years. They're fun to go back and read, because I always hit the highlights of the past 12 months. The past few years, with postage so expensive and with most people in my e-mail address book having color printers, I've just e-mailed my Christmas letter and scanned photos of our family, while mailing "hard copies" to family and friends without Internet access. This year has been so busy that I am probably going to forgo the cards altogether and just mail and e-mail the Christmas letters. I figure at the rate I'm going, people are going to be lucky to even hear from us!

The cards we receive are placed in a green Christmas wooden basket on our coffee table in the living room. After Christmas is over, I go through and save the photos and Christmas letters. Most of the cards, unless unique or extra special, get their covers reused as gift tags for next year's Christmas, or passed on to non-profit organizations that recycle them.

This post is a part of the "Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories" meme created by Thomas and Jasia. You, too, can write your own Christmas memories, either for your personal journal or blog. Click on their names for the list of topics. To see what others have written, go here.