The Blue Van

When I was about nine years old my parents bought a van. It was one of those popular things that was the ultimate family vehicle, blue, with tinted windows. It was more than adequate to hold our luggage, us, plus a table for food and games. What more would we need?

The first trip we took was a long one. Those were the days when gas was cheap. Mom says they thought it was expensive, but in comparison with today's prices, it was cheap. The trip started at North Platte, Nebraska and was planned through Wyoming, Montana, northern Idaho and into Washington. From there, we drove the van across the border into Canada and on to a boat that took us to Victoria Island. Those were the days that you didn't need a passport to get into Canada. Security was pretty loose in those days.

After our jaunt in Canada, we drove to Oregon to visit relatives and then into Nevada. This meant we were heading toward home. Mom's eyes would light up at the prospect of driving through Utah. She calculated the miles and told Dad that it appeared we would HAVE to stay overnight in Salt Lake City.

When we began this trip, Dad proclaimed, "This is a family vacation." That actually meant no dead relatives welcome. Even with the capacity of the van, Mom left the genealogy behind. That's something she never did again when we traveled.

Sure enough we crossed the Bonneville Salt Flats and ended up in Salt Lake City, just in time to secure a motel as close as we could to Temple Square. Mom was to have the next day at the Family History Library. What Dad did not realize was that she had been calculating this all along, so had written notes from memory, families she wanted to check, locations of research and her list went on and on. Those dead relatives were lurking in the van on paper!

Checking into the motel, we unloaded the van and parked right outside the door of the room. About an hour later we went outside and discovered that somebody had stolen the cover off the spare tire on the rear of the van. That was Dad's favorite thing about the van. Had we not come to Salt Lake City in the quest of dead relatives, it would have never been stolen.

Mom had her day in the library and Dad had his day of entertaining us. He grumbled all the way home about the spare tire cover, but it was replaced once we returned home. From that day forward Mom knew that she must take genealogy to-do lists regardless of how much room we had when traveling. Within a year or so Dad announced he never did like that van because he had problems parking it and backing it up. Those were things Mom could easily do. Only took out the side of the garage once, but not with the Van. I think they sold it because of gas prices...they always tend to go up, you know!

A Message from Patrick

My nine year old daughter, Tyrah, is enthralled with anything Irish. We have no idea how this happened, but she was excited when her genealogist grandmother told her that she was Irish. Anything green brings a respinse of "Irish" from her. The other day my Mom mailed this letter to her. I think this is a great way to get young people interested in their family history. Genealogy Grandmothers can do something similar and spark that interest.


April 24th in the year of our Lord 2008

Good day wee one named Tyrah,

This is your great, great, great, great grandfather, Patrick Cosgrove decidin' to write you a letter, I am. I hear in a round about way from yer granny Ruby that you are interested in the Irish. As luck would have ye are Irish me lass.

You see, I was born on June 18th in the year of our Lord 1821 in Galway, Ireland. That's along the sea, just as beautiful as can be. But, I was not destined to remain out my life there. When I was a young man in me 20's there came a famine big as could be all over Ireland. Such ye never seen and I'd hope to never see again in me life time.

We Irish, me folks and all, raised potatoes as tenant farmers. Things were goin' along good until in September of the ear of our Lord 1845 when the potato plants just' up and turned black. The leaves curled up and rotted. There came some winds from England that carried that fungus all over the place and the blight did spread. Oh that blight just went all over and we all began to suffer from it. People were hungry and potatoes were our only crops to provide us a livin'.

The only thing we could do was go where we could live and work. Hearing about that great country known as America, I decided to leave me folks and cross the ocean. Oh it was a long trip over those stormy seas. The boat tossed that turned, but I knew there was no other way for me to survive.

Once I got her to America I went to the state called Illinois. I found work and a wife named Maria Regan, Irish lass she was, in Putnam County. In 1852 we were married and Maria and I farmed, had children and went to the Catholic Church here. Never once, mind you, did we forget our homeland of Ireland. I could all me life see those green fields, before the blight and famine, the sea crashing against the rocks in Galway.

Maria and I had eleven children. One of our lasses we named Theresa Mary. She was born in 1867 after the great Civil War here on this soil. Theresa became yer great, great, great grandmother, lass. She married a German lad named Henry Kunkel who lived here in Putnam County.

Yer granny Ruby is so proud of you lass. Maria and I hope you'll always be proud of yer Irish blood flowin' through yer veins. You' make a might fine lass to dance the Irish jig in Galway, with those lovely locks of hir flowing. Before Maria and I died we had hoped to return to see Ireland again, but we never did. It would have been a fine day indeed had we seen our folk and friends.

Love and luck indeed to ye lass,

Patrick Cosgrove

The You Go Genealogy Girls

My Mom and my aunt Cheri are referred to as the You Go Genealogy Girls. Actually they are not "girls", but don't tell them I said that. They are both grandmothers. Mom has two grandchildren and Aunt Cheri has seven grandchildren (all one family).

They are heading out next week to see how many graves they can locate in nine days and how much they can learn at the genealogy conference in Lincoln, Nebraska. It's the annual Nebraska State Genealogical Society conference where they will laugh and learn and see old friends and make new ones. From there they will travel south to Topeka, Kansas to see Aunt Cheri's son, his wife and their seven children, ranging in age from 16 to 3.

Their agenda requires them to make stops at various cemeteries here in Nebraska to decorate graves and locate them. They will be Mom's relatives and Aunt Cheri's relatives and probably anybody else that interests them. I am sure they might even find a few in Kansas that catch their eye.

My Mom likes to pack and repack and repack. Last summer she left on vacation for the east coast she packed and then repacked five more times before she got it just right. She is also a shoe-person so I'm sure she'll take at least seven or more pairs of shoes and wear them all while she's gone. There will also be the necessary things to survive such a long trip, such as the laptop computer, iPod and digital camera. They will take maps and books and magazines...anything to keep their mind on the right track.

I am sure they will shop along the way, looking for more books and possibly an antique or two. Since each will have their own suitcases and carrying bag, the laptop, all the adds and ends, that doesn't leave much room in their car for extras. But nobody will tell them that. Packing light is not something familiar to them.

Aunt Cheri drives a mini van which Mom has "lovingly" called the gypsy van. They can load that mini van full of a lot of "stuff". However, this trip they are taking Mom's little red, Dodge neon. Small trunk, but it gets good gas mileage. Before they get home I wouldn't be suprised if they have items strapped on the roof....such as antiques and books.

Y'all look for them heading across Nebraska and then back across Kansas. They will be those You Go Genealogy Girls (grannies) in the little red car that is dragging the ground and barely has overpass clearance because of what's on the top. I am sure they will have oodles of fun to last them until the next trip they conjure up which I have learned will be in May.

Tornados and Tombstones

It was about thirty years ago that my parents, my grandparents, my brother and I went to the Ozarks in Missouri. It was our first long vacation with my paternal grandparents. The guys rode in the front seat with Dad driving. That left three the girls in the back. We left Nebraska early one morning and managed to get most of the way across Kansas by evening.

Kansas was what prompted Grandma and Grandpa to get into an argument. Grandpa was always watching the weather and worrying about the early summer storms. He called them cyclones and Grandma, in the back seat, would nudge him on the shoulder and correct him by saying they were tornadoes. The comparisons and conversation would carry on for many miles with each trying to get the last work. Of course, once we started laughing, the conversation picked up in intensity. Fortunately we never saw a tornado or a cyclone.

Memories were made in the Ozarks, particularly at Branson, Missouri. We went to shows and water slides, amusement parks and lakes. It was the same every year, but with Grandma and Grandpa it was special. Once we were there they stopped talking about cyclones and tornadoes as the entertainment was better.

I can remember the trip back. We didn't go near Kansas for the fear we would travel the width of the state with cyclones and tornadoes discussed heatedly. Instead we drove north to Harrison County, Missouri. Mom, being the genealogist in the family, decided we should go to the Foster Cemetery and locate the graves on ancestors.

Grandpa became emotional when we found his great, great grandmother's tombstone. She was Anna Wells Gardner, born 1816 in Kentucky and died in 1882. Mom told us the story of how she became a widow at age 22 when pregnant with Grandpa's great grandfather. Anna took her young children to Iowa and then eventually to Harrison County.

I am glad we encountered tombstones of relatives instead of tornadoes or even cyclones. Those trips which would continue to Missouri and also to Colorado were great memory makers in my growing up years.

My Mom Tells Me

When I was about nine months old Mom started working on a genealogy book. It was about Dad's family and she tells me that it isn't very good. She wasn't that experienced then. She also tells me how she had to type letters to relatives asking and begging at times for information and old photographs. When she decided to put all that information into a family book, the old typewriter just wouldn't work. She rented an electric typewriter. I can't imagine producing a book on a typewriter, even an electric one.

Mom had a card table in the living room with the typewriter and paper on it, plus all her notes. Each morning she would cut strips of paper for my three year old brother to color and paste together in loops. She also photocopied the old family photographs for him to study. That would occupy him for a couple hours while she typed.

When I wasn't sleeping or playing in my crib, I was hungry. Mom would balance me on top of her feet, prop the bottle in my mouth and swing me back and forth on her feet while she typed. That's about like patting your head and rubbing your stomach. It seemed to work.

We grew up knowing her as Mom and somebody who went to cemeteries and talked to relatives. There were always books and family charts around the house. Relatives would come to visit or we would visit them. It was our life and I guess we didn't know anything different. Our friends couldn't name off relatives, but we knew their names and everything about them. When I was six years old we moved. I went to school and told my teacher and friends that we were migrating. Wonder where I got that word! Growing up genealogy was indeed interesting and fun.

Genealogy Kitchen Sink

Last week there was a gala at the local library. It was a chance for genealogist to participate in a show and tell. They called it the Genealogy Kitchen sink. That's about what it was. They brought everything imaginable.

I went to it with my Mom (the genealogist), my Aunt Cheri and my nine year old daughter. We had tables set up with things that might interest genealogist. Mom brought some new books, old documents, and family treasures. My aunt had two tables with displays on photo enhancement and manipulation. The highlight was my daughter who with the help of her grandmother had filled in her family album with names, dates, locations and photos. It ws given to her in December by the North Platte Genealogical Society members when she was Junior Hostess at the Christmas brunch. I think this is a great way to get young people involved in appreciating their heritage.

One of the members brought a display of photographs spanning generations. The family members returned to the same housses to have photographs taken many years later. That is a good way to prserve memories and also share at reunions.

The secretary of the genealogy society had an interesting desplay of photographs and documents she had purchase don eBay. They were all family members and from an estate sale. I can't imagine how shocked she was when she saw them for sale one eBay. Maybe we should all check eBay more often.

I enjoyed visiting with the genealogists, sharing in Mom's delight at the good turn out and also telling them about my blog. My Mom has a blog also...Genealogy Lines. Everybody check it out!

Have another great week searching or just lovin' the genealogist in your family!

The Genealogist and Cornhusker

Do you know what is is like growing up genealogy? That's where somebody in your family lives and breaths genealogy. They talk non-stop about genealogy. All they want to do is go to courthouses, libraries or cemeteries. That was my Mom. We grew up in Nebraska where the obsession was Cornhusker football for my Dad and genealogy for my Mom.

When my brother and I were in early grade school Mom decided to take us to a cemetery. It wasn't too far from home, but in the country here in Nebraska. Mom was working on a special project and it was summer...what a great family outing this would be. What she didn't realize was that my brother and I would find every bug in the cemetery. We actually did not want to go and so once the bugs started biting we threatened her that we would telll Dad that she had taken us to the cemetery and that's where the welts came from on our legs and arms. Dad never said a thing because he knew Mom's obsession.

My Dad passed away last year and there's a Cornhusker hellmet on his tombstone. Mom's side has a tree with "Genealogist" under it. Now Mom and I are in the same town and having fun together, doing the things mothers and daughters do. I have noticed though that she is tempting my nine year old daughter into genealogy....taking her to cemeteries, libraries and helping her with the family tree. It never seems to end.