Surprising Connections

I recently acquired all of my mother's files on her genealogy research, including reams of printouts of email exchanges from the 1990's with fellow Wandell researchers from various genealogy message boards. One of these researchers (cousins), contacted her last week and discovered her memory decline. I connected with him by phone and explained about her issues, and also shared my DescendDance blog with him. It inspired me to spend a couple of afternoons sorting through all of Mom's files and purging duplicate or useless papers. It is now reduced to a manageable pile. Some of the cousins with whom she corresponded sent her some invaluable copies of original documents that I did not have. I am looking forward to incorporating them into my research.

On another note, my sister and her husband (Holly and Clayton Bernick) were going through the last of his mother's storage boxes of memorabilia. They found a piano recital program that listed his mother's name (Jane Ramsey), and surprise! It also listed the names of our beloved Aunt Teeny (Miriam Lukhard) and cousin Peggy (then Page, now Baldacci)! Jane was about 14, and Teeny and Peggy were around 10 years old in 1946. When I told Teeny about it today, she told me that Gramp used to take her and Peggy to piano lessons in his truck every week and they hated it. But they loved the piano teacher, a little old Dutch man named A. J. Pennartz. He was the organist at the church where the recitals were held. Teeny and Peggy quit lessons as soon as they were allowed, but Jane continued with the same teacher until college and corresponded with him long after her lessons were through.

The times dispatch. September 15, 1912, Page 10