What the Beck???
Curves Bee Hive
This is a large beehive that was in a tree in the parking lot at
Curves. Isn’t it nasty looking?
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| Imagine how many bees live here! |
LaSalle County Courthouse in Ottawa
I am on a mission to discover the “real” last name of my family.
My grandfather and his siblings (on my Dad’s side) grew up in Streator,
Illinois. When they were young children, their Mom died. Unfortunately, my
great grandfather could not work and take care of his young children at the
same time, so he put them in some type of orphanage. To make matters worse, the
orphanage burned, as did the records of the children’s name. The children were
placed with a family from Streator named Guerdon. My great grandfather began
calling himself Guerdon, as did his children, but they did not change the name
legally. Then, my great grandfather passed away.
When
my grandfather was getting ready to get married, he wanted to know what his
real name was, so he went to one of the two courthouses in Streator, and
selected the name he thought belonged to his family. My Aunt Dorothy was
convinced that this was not our name. My Aunt Ada agrees with her. If he did
not research all three children and verify the name, he may have been
incorrect. Aunt Dorothy believed the name was something like Zoems.
The
first thing you need to know is that Streator is divided into two counties:
LaSalle and Livingston. I spent a couple of days at the LaSalle County
Courthouse and looked through the books below.
I
checked the birth of every child born between 1884 – 1903. I did not find an
Amiel, David, and Frieda with the same last name, or with parents named Matthew
and Emma.
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| These pages made my eyes cross after reading them so much every day |
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| This was one of the second set of books I had to look through for people who reported their child's birth later than expected. |
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| Look at the size of these babies! That is why it took me so long to go through two entire sets of them. |
It
took a long time and many hours of researching, but I am not discouraged. I
have eliminated one courthouse, and am now on to the next one. I also plan on
discovering the name of the orphanage, and if it is associated with a church.
If it is, then there is a chance that the church may have a duplicate set of
records. So, it looks like I will also
need to visit the local newspaper office, or the library. Sounds like a week’s worth of research
to me. Wish me luck!
"Do you miss teaching?"
That is the number one question I am asked weekly. My answer is
always the same. “NO! I truly miss my school friends, but my
kids are gone, and I was REALLY ready to try new things and have new
adventures.” People always think
that I should be having a hard time and pine for what I had, but I loved my job
for 30 years, and I was ready to move on. Will I ever miss meetings???
Never! Will I miss report cards
and conferences??? Never! Will I ever miss the day-to-day
schedule??? Never!!! I love getting up now and doing just
what I want to do each day. My
schedule is totally created by my likes and dislikes.
I
do have to say that I am never bored.
I am STILL cleaning that darned basement, although it is almost done. I
haven’t touched the sewing room, because I have been focused on my family
events, as you can tell from the blog entries. I am now focused on Kentucky and
my family research.
How
can I not love being retired????
Judy Carne
Did
you know that Judy Carne died on September third of pneumonia at the age of 76?
I remember her so well from Rowan and Martin’s Laugh-In. She was the “Sock it
to me” girl.
Are you old enough to remember
Judy? She was great.
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