I'm continuing to work on my family history writing project but it's awfully slow going. I refer back to my book 'Alphabet of my Life' that I wrote five years ago but most of those chapters were just quick little thumbnail sketches. This time I'm wanting to expand on topics and keep the chapters pretty much centered on family members and events in my life. I'm writing on the aunts and uncles now. I wrote a little on each one in the Alphabet book but this time, I'm looking for more details.
Ten years ago I wrote this book called 'Some of my family with some of their thoughts and memories.'
Eighteen relatives contributed odds and ends along the way (thanks to email) and the 65-page book was short answers to various questions I asked like: what is your major regret, what do you fear most, what person made you laugh the most, do you have a favorite collection, tell me about your most memorable illness, tell me about your parents, etc.
It's an interesting book to pick up years later and reread. It's also helping me fill in gaps I have on memories of aunts and uncles. My cousin, Bill, in Seattle, wrote one of the best stories about his dad, Arthur Blankenship. Uncle Arthur was my dad's oldest brother. He was 14 when dad was born and I remember dad telling me once that him and Jim didn't really get to know their siblings the way a lot of kids would because they were so much older.
My dad and his siblings were a tight bunch and pretty much stuck together throughout their lives. Five of the six stayed in Port Townsend almost their entire life although my dad's oldest sister and oldest brother eventually moved to Bellingham and Bremerton. I thought I'd share what my cousin wrote about his dad. I wish more people would take the time to sit down and really think about what they want to say about their parents or other relatives. I guarantee you...future family members will treasure the record you leave them.
Bill wrote:
I had to really think about what he
liked to do as I realized a lot of what we did together may have been
more about what I liked. He enjoyed watching wrestling. We watched it
on TV and
he took me to local matches on occasion. I think most of the matches we went to were in Tacoma. We went to Seattle Rainer baseball games at the old Sicks' Stadium. That was my first experience with professional baseball. He liked auto racing. We went to the midget auto races out on Aurora Ave near the old Playland amusement park. Midget cars were smaller versions of the Indy race cars of the time. We also attended races at Midway and Spanaway.
he took me to local matches on occasion. I think most of the matches we went to were in Tacoma. We went to Seattle Rainer baseball games at the old Sicks' Stadium. That was my first experience with professional baseball. He liked auto racing. We went to the midget auto races out on Aurora Ave near the old Playland amusement park. Midget cars were smaller versions of the Indy race cars of the time. We also attended races at Midway and Spanaway.
The TV shows he liked were Jackie
Gleason in the Honeymooners, Your Show of Shows with Sid Caesar,
and Sanford & Son. We listened to music on the car radio but I
never heard him listen at home or express any real interest in music.
This may have been something we did for my pleasure. He got a big
laugh out of a program on radio called "Could This Be You".
It was a program produced by the Washington State Patrol of
recordings of people pulled over for traffic violations. It was
really funny. Other radio shows He liked were Amos & Andy, Jack
Benny and Red Skelton. Before he had a TV we went to movies. A lot of
them were war movies or westerns. Some of these must have been when I
was pretty young because I can remember that during intermission they
passed the hat collecting money for the war effort and The March of
Dimes to fight polio.
Thinking about my Dad enabled me to realize some things I hadn't really thought about. I can't remember him ever making a racist remark. I think that is pretty remarkable considering the period in which he grew up. You wondered if he had a favorite sibling. If he did he never told me. He enjoyed visiting with all of them and was really pleased when they came to visit him. My dad always worried about visiting around mealtimes. He thought they would think they had to feed us. He seemed to have a really tough time accepting things from others. Like many people who experienced the depression he was pretty frugal. He wasn't cheap but he believed in getting value for what he paid. He paid cash for everything. If he didn't have the money to pay for it, he didn't buy it. He never had any credit accounts until late in life and then it was only because to do certain things you needed to establish credit. It seems strange that paying cash for everything doesn't establish your credit worthiness. He shopped yard sales and frequently went to the Bremerton Shipyards surplus sale. He would buy things that he thought he might have a use for some day. He bought several cars at disposal auctions.
My Dad was a Rigger at the shipyards. He never talked with me about his work so I am not exactly sure what a Rigger did. I think they were involved in setting scaffolding and various cables for lifting heavy objects on the ships. He liked to fish and hunt. He taught me how to shoot and we would go target shooting. He enjoyed taking Lee, Arlie and me camping and fishing. He liked playing jokes on us. On one occasion he pretended to be a bear outside the tent. I am sure Lee and Arlie will tell you they knew it was him all along but they were screaming just as loud as I was and we were all trying to get away from the side of the tent he was on. He spent a lot of time with me every year, taking me on trips, camping and fishing. He had to take a lot of time off from work to do this. I just took it for granted and thought every father did this. After I took my own kids camping I came home and told everyone I didn't remember camping being so much work. I am not aware of any hobbies but he did like to garden. He had an extensive fruit and vegetable garden with several apple and cherry trees. He gave a lot of what he raised to his neighbors. He kept his house even after he moved out and would go there during the day and work in the garden.
Thinking about my Dad enabled me to realize some things I hadn't really thought about. I can't remember him ever making a racist remark. I think that is pretty remarkable considering the period in which he grew up. You wondered if he had a favorite sibling. If he did he never told me. He enjoyed visiting with all of them and was really pleased when they came to visit him. My dad always worried about visiting around mealtimes. He thought they would think they had to feed us. He seemed to have a really tough time accepting things from others. Like many people who experienced the depression he was pretty frugal. He wasn't cheap but he believed in getting value for what he paid. He paid cash for everything. If he didn't have the money to pay for it, he didn't buy it. He never had any credit accounts until late in life and then it was only because to do certain things you needed to establish credit. It seems strange that paying cash for everything doesn't establish your credit worthiness. He shopped yard sales and frequently went to the Bremerton Shipyards surplus sale. He would buy things that he thought he might have a use for some day. He bought several cars at disposal auctions.
My Dad was a Rigger at the shipyards. He never talked with me about his work so I am not exactly sure what a Rigger did. I think they were involved in setting scaffolding and various cables for lifting heavy objects on the ships. He liked to fish and hunt. He taught me how to shoot and we would go target shooting. He enjoyed taking Lee, Arlie and me camping and fishing. He liked playing jokes on us. On one occasion he pretended to be a bear outside the tent. I am sure Lee and Arlie will tell you they knew it was him all along but they were screaming just as loud as I was and we were all trying to get away from the side of the tent he was on. He spent a lot of time with me every year, taking me on trips, camping and fishing. He had to take a lot of time off from work to do this. I just took it for granted and thought every father did this. After I took my own kids camping I came home and told everyone I didn't remember camping being so much work. I am not aware of any hobbies but he did like to garden. He had an extensive fruit and vegetable garden with several apple and cherry trees. He gave a lot of what he raised to his neighbors. He kept his house even after he moved out and would go there during the day and work in the garden.
I don't know when my parents divorced
but I think I was around three years old. I used to wonder when I was
in my teens what had brought my parents together. They were so
different in their interests. I can't remember either one of them
ever saying anything bad about the other. I was very lucky that my
father chose to stay part of my life and my mother allowed it.
Isn't that just the best tribute you've ever read?! I love it!
Well, I suppose I should get going on a craft project in the kitchen now. I did ride my bike today but it was kinda cold and windy and rainy so I cut it short. I stopped at Safeway to pick up half a dozen items and I must have picked a bad time because that store DROVE ME NUTS! Everybody seemed to want to talk on the store microphone. One damn announcement after another. I mentioned it to one guy I passed in the aisles but I sensed he felt he'd encountered some weirdo. Then when I got to checkout, there were two or three checkers and all the self-checkouts were full too. I get really irritated when I have to stand in line to WAIT ON MYSELF! Then I went over to stand in line to get a lotto ticket. No one ever came so I left in disgust.
I made five more stops--Grandview Grocery (to buy the lotto ticket Safeway couldn't be bothered to sell), Joanne's Fabric (half off on garden shephard poles or whatever you call them), the video store next door (movies for a buck and you can keep them five days), Walgreens to pick up my reprints, and the Airport Nursery to buy some insect killer. (Found caterpillars on one of my fruit trees this morning).
I've been looking over my "stash" of little sewing projects I've made and have decided I'm going to start mailing off surprise gifts to people. I'm always reluctant to give my handmade stuff because I know all the flaws. I need to get over that. I've never made a secret of the fact that my sewing skills are limited.
I got some really cute pictures in an email from Les Walden yesterday. I enlarged them a bit and sent them over to Walgreens for reprints. Going to convert them to postcards to send to this guy in a nursing home in Gig Harbor. Here's one I doctored up a bit and put on Facebook.
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