Monday Genea-pourri, Week of Jun 19–25, 2023

I have completed one hundred seventy-two (172) weeks of semi-lockdown due to Covid-19. We’re still on vacation and while in New York City, I have been wearing a mask on the subway, which is the most crowded place we’ve been.

Genealogy

Blog Writing:

Cyril Hork Was a Pitcher Throwing Fastballs I wrote about my grandfather playing baseball in Hamilton, Montana as a young man. There were many newspaper accounts of the games.

SNGF: What Do You Wish You Had Done I wrote about some of the things I wished I had done in my life, yet I have no regrets.

Genealogy
We are still on vacation this past week, so I attended no meetings. I watched two webinars: Finding Your One Among Millions, Methods & Tips for Urban Research by Amy Garner Giroux (BCG-Legacy) and What’s the Evidence? How to Probe Documents Beyond the Obvious by Elizabeth Shown Mills (Legacy Best of ESM). I also worked on my KDP for the Gleeson family while on board our train from Philadelphia to Chicago and from Chicago on Sunday. I brought a portable table which is much easier to use than the table supplied in the sleeping car.

I am reading:

• A Noble Radiance by Donna Leon—FINISHED!
• Among the Mad by Jacqueline Winspear

Vacation
We spent the last day in New York with the girls and Yannik. We played board games at a café near Columbia University and then went to a German restaurant that had trivia night. Between Yannik and Margaret, our team won.

Tuesday, we headed for Philadelphia where we rented a car. Our drive to Jim Thorpe took a couple of hours and we got there in time to take the last train ride through the Lehigh Valley Gorge. It is so pretty!

Wednesday, we got a late start and made it to the Tunnel Mine in time for the coal mine tour but too late to ride the steam train. They take it out only if they have at least ten riders. It was very cold in the mine—they took us in by a mine train.

Thursday, we headed back to Philadelphia with two side trips. The first was to the old Bethlehem steel mill which has elevated walkways along the outside and interpretive panels to learn about the plant. Then we went to the Canal Museum in Easton. We got there too late for a ride on the canal but walked through the museum.

Friday, we left for Chicago on the Cardinal. It was a nice trip the first day with a volunteer narrator on the train telling us interesting historical features we could see from the train. The bonus of the trip was Wi-Fi  was available and I got a lot of work done on my KDP. On Saturday, we arrived in Chicago early. After checking our bags at the hotel, we went to the Newberry Library. Again, we just missed the tour, but the man at the information desk took us up to the floors for a quick view. After we toured the two exhibits, I spoke with the resource librarian and got a reader’s card. I then viewed some employment records from the Pullman Company’s porters, waiters, and busboys. I’ll use this information for an upcoming article I’m writing about researching railroad workers.

Sunday, we began our trip home on the Southwest Chief to Los Angeles. We will arrive on Tuesday and take the train up to Martinez and home. Because this train travels through some remote areas, there will be no Wi-Fi on this train. I will have to wait until we get to a town to use my cell as a hotspot to upload this post.

Photos for this week

Genealogists are great at documenting our ancestors’ lives but not so great at documenting our own. I’ll write about what I’ve been doing the past week. This idea came from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musing, who started this meme.

Copyright © 2023 by Lisa S. Gorrell, My Trails into the Past. All Rights Reserved.