My Trails into the Past

A wonderful artifact of early marriage life is the wedding book. Besides information about the bridal party and guests, there are pages where gifts are listed and the gift-giver. This is true in Thelma Marie Nilsen Gorrell’s bridal book. She recorded three pages of gifts, who gave it to them, and the date she wrote the thank you note. She married George J. Gorrell on 6 October 1951 at Westminster Presbyterian Chapel in Sacramento, California. Their reception followed immediately in the patio room. The guests included family, friends, and co-workers (hers and his). It is interesting to see the signatures written in each guests’ own hand. She was pretty prompt in writing the thank you notes, finishing up about a month later, though some were written in January. Perhaps those gifts came later. They received a lot of linens and decorative items, but their parents gave substantial gifts. Her parents (#20) gave them an automatic toaster and his parents (#14) gave them silver salt and pep...

My paternal grandfather’s sister, Carrie, never married. By the time the family arrived in Hamilton, Montana, she was nearly an adult. She performed in plays, participated in social groups such as the Catholic ladies, and worked as a sales lady in clothing and millinery stores. In her spare time, she visited family often in Missoula, where her sister, Mary, lived, and in Tacoma, where her sister, Urselle, lived. She also made trips to Southern California to visit her sister, Ida, and Lexington, Kentucky, to visit her niece. Other times, she traveled with girlfriends and traveled along the countryside in an automobile. In 1936, she took an ocean trip to Alaska with friends, where they visited Juneau and Sitka. On another trip in 1949, she took a seven-week trip to Tacoma, San Francisco, Santa Cruz, Monterey, and Carmel and visited friends in Great Falls, Kalispell, and Flathead Lake on her return. These are just a few of the travels recorded by newspapers in small towns, that give g...

My dad’s next oldest sister, Virginia, graduated from Napa Union High School in 1942 and went on to work at the Navy Yard at Mare Island in Vallejo. [1] I have no idea how she got to work, but perhaps there were buses from Napa to the base. This is something I wished I had asked, but I only learned about my aunts working there after they had passed. I ordered her civilian personnel file from the National Personnel Records Center in St. Louis, a branch of the National Archives, and the papers in the file tell a bit of her story. She applied on 8 June, just days after graduation. Her sister, Lorene, and her cousin, Margaret, were already working there. She started out as a junior messenger in the Planning Division of the Industrial Department, making $600 per year. Less than a month later, she resigned from the position in order to accept a new position. On 30 June, she accepted the position of junior typist in the same department, paying $1260 per annum. On 16 December 1942, she w...

Because I am not a direct descendant of my Aunt June, I do not have any paraphernalia of her life. However, I can learn about some of her activities before her marriage by newspaper articles published in the towns where she lived. In the summer of 1939, she returned to her home in Ontario, California after a visit with her aunt and uncle, Nellie and Harold Goe in Anaconda, Montana. [1] It does not state how long she was there, but my aunt told me she lived with her Aunt Nellie for one year and attended school in Anaconda. This would have been the school year 1938-39 and if her schooling was on a normal track, she would have been twelve years old and likely attended seventh grade. In high school, she attended Napa High School in Napa, California. She was busy with school and church activities. She was a member of two church clubs. One was the Young Ladies Institute, a Catholic women’s organization, where they helped the ill. She was initiated as a new member of the St. Cecelia ...

My dad’s oldest sister, Lorene, had many adventures before she married. During World War II, she worked for the Navy at Mare Island, and later in the early 1950s, she worked for the Army in Japan. After a year in Japan, she and three other girls decided to return home the long way – across Asia and Europe. They quit their jobs and boarded freighters that took in passengers. I know all about her adventures both in Japan and on her travels because the letters she wrote home were saved. She was very candid in her letters and today some statements would be considered politically incorrect. Today’s post is about the letters she wrote. It is so nice to have samples of the letters our ancestors have written. I enjoy reading their thoughts and seeing their handwriting. Sometimes handwriting of family members is similar and many of the ways Lorene wrote her letterforms were like her mother’s letterforms. Here is a sample of one letter written shortly after they sailed from Japan: If int...

My paternal grandmother, Anna Marie Sullivan, whom we called “Nana,” was our fun grandmother. Because she had been an elementary school teacher, she was used to being around young children and enjoyed it. She taught grades one and two mostly, though had taught in a one-room school in Napa. The school building still stands though is a private residence now. Nana lived across the street from us in Pittsburg, California, where we lived until our move to Walnut Creek in 1963. There were four of us then, and Nana had us two oldest kids over to her duplex often, probably to relieve my mother, who was taking care of the younger ones. She had a nice collection of books, from readers to picture books, and loved to read to us. One of my favorite books was Angus and the Ducks . The little dog just cracked me up. I enjoyed the readers, too, and probably helped me learn to read. Nana also loved to sing and she taught us all kinds of kid songs. We would sing them together as we did chores such a...

For as long as I remember, my mother loved to do crafts. She either got her ideas from various ladies’ magazines like Good Housekeeping , Family Circle , or Women’s Day , or she just made up the craft by reusing items into new things. One early craft I remember her making: she took a metal coffee can and placed a 78-rpm photograph record on top and placed both in the oven. The record melted down with slight folds into a bowl. She then spray-painted them gold, silver, or bronze. These became useful for candy dishes or holding a potted plant. This is why we have no 78s left in our family. Every Valentine’s Day, she made a valentine’s box to be used in one of the children’s classrooms. She started with an apple or orange cardboard box and covered it with colored paper, crepe paper, and cutout hearts. Too bad we don’t have a photo of one of her boxes. For Christmas one year, she made Christmas trees out of egg cartons. She cut out the cup portion of the cardboard cartons and arranged...

It's  Saturday Night  - time for more  Genealogy Fun! Our mission from Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings is to: 1)  It's National Women's History Month, so I'm going to use   today's prompt from Lisa Alzo .  What education did your mother receive? Your grandmothers? Great-grandmothers? Note any advanced degrees or special achievements. My mother, Lela Nell Johnston attended many elementary schools in Texas, Idaho, Oregon and California, until they moved to Walnut Creek, California, and she attended Walnut Creek Grammar School until the eighth grade, and then attended Acalanes High School for two years and Mt. Diablo High School the last two years. She did not attend college. She was very artistic. She painted and loved making crafts. My maternal grandmother Pansy Louise Lancaster attended grammar school and high school in Stephenville, Texas. She was athletic and like playing basketball and softball. Later she played tennis and bowled....