All My Ancestors

Here’s this week’s genealogy blog prompt:

Week #39: Did your ancestors come by boat? Talk about the documentation that records their departure and arrival.

I have only one family line that I know of that came by boat.  They are my Mennonite Germans from Russia who came to the US late in 1874.

This is a group of folks not widely known outside of those of us who descend from them.  And, honestly, I didn’t know all that much about them growing up.  The short version is that groups of German farmers were invited into the steppes of Russia by Catherine the Great because she want to settle southern Russia and because she knew they were very good farmers.  Some of them came from Switzerland, originally, but some of them had also gone to Holland.  The went into Russia because they had a deal with Catherine that they could retain their own language, have their own schools, and, perhaps most importantly, not be subject to the draft into the Russian army.  My branch were Mennonites and, as such, did not believe in bearing arms.  There are also groups of Catholics and evangelical Lutherans in the larger group of Germans from Russia.

When the US wanted to develop what had been called “The Great American Desert” in the middle of the country, much of the land was ceded to the railroads.  The railroads began to market this land to persons from Scandinavia as well as to these Germans in Russia.  As it happened, these offers came at an opportune time.  Catherine was dead and her son Peter was re-thinking some of her policies, military service being foremost among them.  So the Germans who were still living in Russia began to leave.  They went to Canada, to Mexico, to South America, and large groups of them came to the plains in the US–the Dakotas, Nebraska, eastern Colorado, and Kansas.  They brought their ways with them and they also brought what is today known as turkey red wheat, the a strong part of the economy of this area for decades.  This was wheat that would grow over the winter with large yields the following summer.

Passenger lists indicate that my Buller and Unruh family members departed from Antwerp aboard the Vaderland.  I have gleaned this story from various sources–from family members, from a publication entitled Brothers in Deed to Brothers in Need: A Scrapbook about Mennonite Immigrants from Russia, 1870-1885, and from a family publication entitled The Genealogical Record of Henry Schmidt and his Descendants (1807-1954) by Mae Koehn Curtis I was fortunate enough to receive from one of my grandfather’s cousins.  (I have a faint memory of making a photocopy of this book on yellow paper at the church in my rural hometown–the only place in town at that time that had an accessible photocopier.)  The Brothers in Deed book was a treasure for Germans from Russia Mennonite researchers–it really was a scrapbook of newspaper clippings and passenger lists.  I had no idea at the time about the existence of passenger lists, much less how to locate one. Clarence Hiebert included them in this publication.  Later, I could confirm what he’d re-printed as well as the stories recorded by Mrs. Curtis.

All of these sources said my families came aboard the Vaderland, a ship from the Belgian Red Star line.  According to Ancestry.com‘s Passenger Ships and Images, the maiden voyage for this ship was January 1873, sailing from Antwerp to Philadelphia, a route followed by my ancestors a two years later.  The ship was built in England and its sister ships were Nederland and Switzerland, ship names that occur frequently in the Germans from Russia passenger lists from this time period.

Toward the bottom of this passenger list, accessed at Ancestry.com, my 3rd great-grandparents, Peter David and Eva Schmidt Buller and their family are listed–

The family listing continues onto the next page of the passenger list, which confirms that one of the little Buller girls, Anna,  died 12 December 1874, enroute.

The story of this group of Mennonite’s arrival in Kansas is recorded in Abe Unruh’s The Helpless Poles. Due to the various boundary changes, these people from Volhynia, the area my family lived, were often referred to as Poles, or from Russia-Poland.  This created a great deal of confusion for me as I was starting looking for these folks.  (To add the mix, my granddad’s nickname was “Dutch.”)  The ship had severe problems due to rough seas–propellors broke.  Some accounts indicate they had to return to England for repairs.  It delayed the trip and they finally arrived Christmas eve or day (accounts vary) in Philadelphia.  They almost immediately boarded a train for Hutchinson, Kansas, (recorded as Atchison on the passenger list) but no one was there to meet them in the below freezing temperature.  This was partially due to all the delays that had happened on the journey.  They were finally able to move into a store a merchant opened for them, but my understanding is that they spent the rest of the winter in unheated box cars.

They were, however, industrious and hardy.  My family homesteaded in Lone Tree Township in McPherson County.  They soon grew fairly prosperous and within a few years, had enough land and money to move further south into Oklahoma Territory to homestead in what is now Alfalfa County.  I can remember visiting some of these farms as a young child and again, as an adult, a few years ago when I was invited to one of the collateral family’s reunion.

This is a photo of my Buller family a generation or so after immigration:

The father in this family, seated on the front row, is Jacob Peter Buller, shown as aged 14 on the passenger list.  He married Else Jantz, and they were the parents of 11 children.  The back row of this photo is comprised of in-laws.  The second man from the right is my great-grandfather, John Benjamin Unruh, and directly in front of him is his wife, my great-grandmother, Amanda Matilda Buller Unruh.  Down on the other end, the second man from the left is John Benjamin’s brother Simon Benjamin Unruh and in front of him is his wife Josephine Buller Unruh.  Two more of these Buller sisters married Jantz brothers.  It was a close-knit community.

So that’s the one immigration story I know from my family.  Thanks to a combination of early published and unpublished resources, including some family stories and contacts, I was able to piece together their story.  Most of the published resources were from small publishing companies that family members told me about.  Passenger lists are now much easier to access, thanks to online databases, and it is also wonderful to be able to correspond with others from this extended family.  My other family lines were here much earlier and I have yet to find their origins and dates of arrival.  I suspect the vast majority of them came from the British Isles, including some pesky Scots-Irish, but I have not jumped the pond yet.  Studying my Germans from Russia gives me a whole other perspective on my family lines and their origins

Sources:

Ancestry.com. Philadelphia Passenger Lists, 1800-1945 [database on-line]. Provo, UT, USA: The Generations Network, Inc., 2006.  Roll M425_92; Line: 15.

Hiebert, Clarence. Brothers in Deed to Brothers in Need: A Scrapbook about Mennonite Immigrants from Russia, 1870-1885. Newton, KS: Faith and Life Press, 1974.

Curtis, May Koehn.  The Genealogical Record of Henry Schmidt and his Descendants (1807-1954).  Washington, DC: author, 1955.

Unruh, Abe J. The Helpless Poles. Montezuma, KS: author, 1973.

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Here’s the Weekly Genealogy Blogging Prompt for Week #15:  List some vital signs. Talk about specific birth, marriage and death certificates. Topics may include misspelled names, fudged dates, other anomalies that stand out in your records.

My grandparents both fibbed on their marriage certificate.

My grandmother was born in what is now Beckham County, Oklahoma Territory, 19 January 1906.

My granddad was born in Dewey County, Oklahoma, just after statehood, on 2 November 1908.

In 1929, they were both living with their families in the Oklahoma panhandle in Beaver County.

Lida Lee Anderton and Elmer Dewey Unruh drove two counties away to marry in Woodward, Woodward County, Oklahoma 25  March 1929.  Google Maps calculates this trip as an hour and a half today.  I don’t know how long the trip was at that time, over mostly dirt roads, but it can’t have been quick.

Lida’s age on 25 March 1929 was 23 years and 3 months or so.

Elmer’s age on 25 March 1929 was 20 years and 5 months or so.

Here’s what they wrote on their license and certificate:

According to this document, Elmer was 21 and Lida was 22!  Not a big lie, but not the truth, nonetheless.  Lida ignored her last birthday and Elmer assumed his next.  I’ve often wondered if Elmer had been the oldest by almost 3 years, would they have felt the need to misrepresent their ages?  Probably not, which is part of what makes this act so interesting.  Even today we assume that grooms are older than their brides, though we have become somewhat more tolerant, I think.

My grandmother always told me that her marriage license had burned up in a house fire.  I accepted this story because I did know that her family had at least 2 house fires.  However, when examined more closely, those fires were in the homes of her parents and really should have had nothing to do with their married daughter’s marriage record.  I don’t think either one of us thought about this aspect of the story at the time.

As a beginning genealogist I wrote the Woodward County Clerk for a copy of my grandparents’ marriage record.  They wrote back telling me that they had no record of such a marriage.  Of course I knew they were married but how was I going to document this marriage?  If I was going to have trouble with collecting documents for my grandparents, how would I manage the generations further back?

In current Texas panhandle terms, Woodward, Oklahoma, is not very far from my hometown of Perryton, Texas–a short 2 hours.  Years after my failed request for this marriage record, my mom was going to Woodward for some reason I now forget.  I asked her if she would be willing to go by the Woodward courthouse, “just in case.”  She was a good sport about running these sorts of local errands, so when she called to tell me the results, I could hardly believe what I was hearing.

Not only was their marriage record on file, the County Clerk still had the original marriage license application and certificate of marriage.  Did she want them?  Did she want them!!  So I am now in possession of the original marriage certificate of my maternal grandparents.  My grandparents never returned for the record and it evidently was not mailed to them.  My grandparents didn’t go to Woodward often–if they went to a “big town,” they went to Perryton, Texas, which was less than one-half the distance.  So going to Woodward to marry adds another layer of mystery to this deception.  They went because no one knew them there and they had a better chance of getting by with their “new” ages.

This exercise taught me several lessons–many of which come as second nature now.  One is to be skeptical of what you read, even in official records.  Those records are generated by human beings, and human beings are not perfect.  Another is to not take “no” for an answer, and that there is no substitute for being on the scene yourself (or, in this case, sending one’s mom).  I prize this document for the picture it provides of my grandparents as young people–traveling to the neighboring county to marry, away from persons who would have known them, except with the couple who accompanied them as witnesses, and who were also married that day.  They always celebrated their “correct” birthdays–they included them on the Delayed Birth Certificates they filed in 1971.

So a final lesson is to be sure to collect all the documents and compare the information they include.  And sometimes they tell a story beyond “just the facts”–a little insight into personalities behind those dry documents.

Elmer and Lida Anderton Unruh

near Sedan, New Mexico

est. 1945

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Written for the 70th Carnival of Genealogy, “Uncle, Uncle!”  The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: Uncle, Uncle! This edition is all about our uncles. Have you got a favorite or interesting uncle? Tell us about him!

I couldn’t pick just one.

My dad was one of 6 sons, and they were all a part of my early life.  Here’s a photo of him and his siblings taken about 1975–I believe this was taken at my grandmother’s, their mother’s, funeral.

Osborne Siblings 1975

Back row:  Lowell Cooper “Scoops“, Clark Mobley “Pete“, Dorothy Evelyn, George Landrum

Front row: Donald Guice “Jack“, Gertrude Ruth, Thaddeus Morrison, Raymond Kenneth

All of my aunts and uncles from my dad’s family are gone except my Uncle Ray.  But here’s a little of what I have in my heart about my uncles.

Uncle Scoops was the oldest.  I never knew why he was called “Scoops,” but I never heard him called anything else.  “Cooper” was his mother’s maiden name–I don’t know of any other “Lowells” in the family.  I still have the silver dollar he gave me when I was born.  Uncle Scoops and Aunt Blanche lived in South Dakota for part of my life and it was always fun to go visit them when I was in South Dakota visiting my maternal grandparents.  I didn’t think about it at the time, but how nice it was, in retrospect, to have both sides of my family to know each other and be friends, even 640 miles away from “home” in the Texas panhandle.

Uncle Pete, who also never went by his “real” name, lived in the same town I grew up in.  He, too, had a family name.  His paternal grandmother’s brother was Clark Mills Mobley, so he was Clark Mobley Osborne.  (I have lots of questions about who picked out these names.)  He didn’t marry until he was about 55, so he was often around when we visited my grandparents.  Uncle Pete played the guitar and was often traveling around Texas playing in various western swing bands or accompanying an old fiddler’s contest.  We have an lp recording of his playing, but there’s a big scratch.  We’re seeing if we can have it restored.  Uncle Pete put up with a lot from us kids–here’s him letting me near his precious record collection and player, whether he wanted to or not.

Uncle Pete often worked for my dad during harvest, and my city-slicker husband’s intro to tobacco-chewing came during one of these times.  Hubbo still turns a little green telling the story and I know Uncle Pete is grinning at the re-telling.  One of his fiddler buddies played “Faded Love” at his funeral and we all cried.

Uncle Landrum also lived in the town where I grew up.  He was named for his mother’s father and brother–both Georges–and her paternal great-grandmother, Elizabeth Landrum Cooper,  who had reared her father.  Us kids played with Uncle Landrum’s old basketball and football at our grandparents–in the house when we could get by with it and out in the gravel driveway when we couldn’t.  He was the youngest in the family– he died unexpectedly at the way too young age of 60.  Uncle Landrum was a pilot and managed the small county airport–he also had a crop spraying service–a vital business in that part of the country.  I was babysitter for my cousins from this part of the family– his daughter Brenda got to use our grandmother’s name, Rachel, for her daughter.  The child I planned to name Rachel turned out to be a David.  “Faded Love” was also part of Uncle Landrum’s funeral–and we all cried again.

Uncle Jack takes us to yet another brother who didn’t use his birth name.  At some point he had his name legally changed.  I remember asking him once if he knew for whom he was named, and he said he thought it was for one of the old boyfriends of his his maiden aunt.  (Aunt Fannie’s “old boyfriends” took the credit/blame for lots of things in our family–I never knew the real story for any of them.)  I don’t know the source of the “Donald” part of his name, but the Guice came from his paternal grandmother’s line–she was Gertrude Susanna Mobley Osborne, and her paternal grandmother was Barbara Guice, daughter of Jonathan Guice and Anna Stump.  (Names from this family show up in several Osborne families in the generation of my Grandad Osborne.)  Uncle Jack’s kids were the closest in age to me, and here we are at our Uncle Scoops and Aunt Blanche’s house in South Dakota.

My Uncle Ray is still living–I’ve blogged about him before, his telling me last year that he believed he’d farm another year (at age 80) because what else was he going to do?  I understand that kind of approach to life–farmers really don’t retire–they truly don’t know what to do with their time.  I always have to give an extra hug to Uncle Ray when I see him–he’s the closest in age to my dad and he and my dad looked alike.  Here’s Uncle Ray as best man at my folks’ wedding in 1950–he’s the one on the left.

And, in a survey of uncles, I can’t leave out my mom’s brother, my Uncle Larry.  He’s been the subject of many of my other blog entries–his hot ’57 Chevy and his love for Hank Williams songs.  He was a character and I miss him.  I never knew when he was going to appear on my doorstep–he was here a lot when my mom, his sister, was struggling with cancer.  My sons loved his no-nonsense ways and his stories–not to mention his shorts, crew socks and flip-flops.  I’m glad they got to get acquainted with this great uncle, even if it did mean their smoking together out on the back porch.   I don’t hear a Hank Williams song without thinking of him–or vice versa.  “I Saw the Light” was played at his funeral–a perfect ending.  He’s at the far right in this photo of us after my dad’s funeral–he told me he was “sucking in his gut” so he’d look skinnier in the picture.  So Uncle Larry.

This post doesn’t cover all my uncles–I have at least a couple who married my aunts of whom I am very fond.  But I limited this post to the many uncles who were my parents’ siblings–all part of my growing up.

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Wordless Wednesday

Elmer Dewey Unruh

1908 Dewey Co., OK – 1998 Ochiltree Co., TX

age 14

Oklahoma

my maternal grandfather

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Week #7: Share your holiday traditions. How did you spend the 4th of July? Did the fire truck ever come to your house on Thanksgiving? Share your memories of all holidays, not just the December ones.

For this week’s blogging prompt, which I really like, by the way, I’m going to reprint an earlier post.  I’ve posted several times about holidays–sometimes after hosting Thanksgiving at my house and sometimes after going to my brother’s.  Other postings are related to honoring a great-uncle on Memorial Day and another posts a picture of “Christmases long, long ago…”

But here’s one of my favorite memories:  The July the 4 rodeo in South Dakota:

July 4 Rodeo

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My grandparents, Elmer Dewey Unruh (1908 OK-1998 TX) and Lida Lee Anderton Unruh (1906 OT-1998 TX)

on their ranch near Canning, South Dakota

Summer, 1981

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The day after Thanksgiving I did what we genealogists recommend and support.

I interviewed my aunt.

A little background.  My aunt is only 4 1/2 years older than I.  She was born when  my mother was 14 and their brother was 16.  My grandmother was 40.  Needless to say, she and I have always been more of the same generation than different ones.

My mother (her sister) and grandparents (her parents) all died in 1998–Annus Horribilus as Queen Elizabeth II deemed her 1992.  My uncle (her brother) died last year.  So in some ways, it’s just us now.  We try to get together every Thanksgiving and this year I decided I would try interviewing her.  I really didn’t think she’d go along with it and I thought it might be redundant since we shared so many of the same experiences.  But I wanted to give it a try.

I started working on family history about 25 years ago, and part of the impetus was the stories that my grandmother told me.  I felt like I had done a pretty good job of asking my questions and writing down what they told me.  But the longer I’ve worked on a timeline for my grandparents’ lives, and examined photos, and tried to put the bits and pieces together, I’ve found I still have questions.  So I decided to interview my one remaining source, Aunt Cheri.

I used some of the questions in “My Memories” from Holly T. Hansen and Jennifer Hunt Johnson’s “Capture the Memories” series as a starter.  I was surprised at how pleased my aunt seemed that I was asking to interview her.  She sat up a little straighter and though typically a rather shy person, spoke eagerly and forthrightly.  I captured our conversation on an Olympus digital recorder–I have yet to transfer it to my computer, but editing will be done with Audacity, a free program I’ve used before.  We stopped after about an hour, planning to come back to it.  I should also say that I offered to send this book home with her so she could answer the questions in private, but she indicated she’d rather do it by talking.

One of the things I found out was that my grandad and his dad were perhaps WPA or CCC workers, something I never knew.  This came up when I asked her about how her family handled money.  The Great Depression and the Dust Bowl formed my granddad, her father.  But I’d never known about the work off the farm–I asked her if she had any idea how they’d managed to hold onto their land out in Beaver County, Oklahoma.  My grandmother had told me lots of stories about the window sills filled with silt and hanging wet sheets over the windows.  My granddad’s father had asthma so this was bound to be so hard on him.  [Read Timothy Egan's The Worst Hard Time for a fascinating account of this time and place.]  I never heard Granddad talk about this time, though I did find that he kept fritzing when I told him I was reading the newspapers from the time and place.  I remember finding that they were behind in their taxes a year or two, which in retrospect, was appalling to him.  I should have been gentler with my approach and I might have gotten a little more information from him, not to mention being a little more comforting about the importance of the long view.  My grandparents always had enough money when I knew them–Granddad was a very savvy money manager and never bought anything on credit.

Perhaps as important as the information I gained was the confirmation that interviewing relatives is important, even those with whom you have spent a great deal of time and who are “your” generation.  I hope I get to do extend this interview and now I have plans to “corner” my younger brothers.

Just a confirmation of how important it is to talk to the living.

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Today Kim Powell at About.com:Genealogy addresses the “our name was changed at Ellis Island” myth in her most excellent column..  She address 4 of the common family myths in an earlier article entitled “Family Legends–Fact or Fiction?“–the 3 brothers, the Indian Princess, name change at Ellis Island, and the family inheritance gone awry.

Where I work, we see these myths on almost a daily basis.   We have one customer who has written us 6 times about his Indian great-grandmother.  No matter how we phrase it, we cannot convince him that the girl with the same name who is on the Dawes Rolls is in fact not his great-grandmother.  And another repeat customer is certain we can find out what happened to the inheritance her mother was “cheated out of” by an uncle who went for ministerial training.

One of my great-aunts insisted that her family name was originally “Unrau” instead of “Unruh” and that it was changed at Ellis Island.   At some point in time, the family name may very well have been “Unrau,” though I’ve found some fairly old church records from the time they spent in Russia that have “Unruh” recorded.  As for the Ellis Island myth, the family actually came in through Philadelphia.  The came at the end of 1874, almost 20 years before Ellis Island was opened in 1892.

I tend to believe that most family stories have a kernel of truth, but it’s my job to research and sort fact from fiction.  It’s one of the things I love most about doing this sort of research.   Our family did indeed immigrate, but the port they came in through was not even in operation at the time of their arrival.  This underscores the importance of doing good, basic research of the history of the time.  Contemporary records, such as the church records, are another means of determining what’s gotten changed through time in the the family story.

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Miriam’s most recent journaling prompt asks us to think about who and how humor works in our families.

This is a topic I should be an expert on. I wrote a dissertation on humor. The main thing I learned was that the dissection of humor is the only operation in which the patient ALWAYS dies. (That’s not original with me, by the way, but I can’t remember–or find–the source right now.) It seemed like a good idea at the time, but anyone who’s done that sort of sustained, intense project, soon realizes that there’s nothing funny about it, no matter the topic.

We laughed a lot in our family–it seemed to be a point of pride to get others to laugh, in fact. Not that we were/are all clowns, but we do appreciate a good turn of phrase. My husband is from a family that laughs as well. And he’s the youngest, so he’s the performer, as is our youngest son. Our older son and I tend to be the “critics,” though that’s typically phrased humorously as well.

*When you laugh, who do you sound like? Your father, mother, a sibling, or other relative?
I don’t know who I sound like. I suspect I sound like my mother–everything else has gotten to be like her as I’ve aged–my hands, my skin, my looks. I know I don’t sound like my siblings–one brother sort of grins and giggles and the other laughs a bit louder than him, but we don’t sound alike, though we can enjoy some of the same things to laugh at.

*Who in your family giggles? Belly laughs? Chuckles? Guffaws? Knee slaps or does some other large physical act while laughing?
My grandad used to slap his knee sometimes when he was laughing, particularly if it was something he thought you should be laughing at also. The only person I can think of who giggles is a most unlikely candidate–he’s a cousin who is a big, tough, (at least in his youth) cowboy. I couldn’t help joining in the fun when Willie giggled. My brother laughs a bit like him though he would probably clobber me if I said he giggles.

*Who has the most unique laugh in your family, and why
In my immediate family, our youngest son has the most unique laugh–it just sort of bursts out and is there before you know it’s coming.

*What kinds of things did your family laugh or joke about?
All sorts of things, including each other.

There’s also a tradition of telling stories about serious events but using a humorous twist. I wish I had a recording, for example, of my cousin’s tale about setting his house of fire right before Christmas. His daughter was getting married and his dad, who had cancer, was there. It reminded me of Ogden Nash’s tale of “The Night the Bed Fell.” The event wasn’t funny but the telling was hilarious–all the things going through his mind, his dad, my incorrigible uncle, facing off the official who wanted to replace his meds from the fire-damaged pouch, the interaction with the firemen–not funny, but hilarious in the telling. My husband has a few of those types of stories as well–the first wedding he performed had a bomb threat called in AND a tornado siren go off during the service. They had to evacuate the church twice, in pouring rain. You can imagine what the wedding pictures look like from that one!

*What best describes the style of humor in your family (dry, wet, ironic, silly)?
I’d say it is ironic and even sometimes sarcastic. It’s not mean-spirited but it does have an edge.

There’s some silliness, as well. My dad lived with us for a couple of years after my mom died. His stroke and aging made him all the more susceptible to my sons’ silliness–and they loved having the audience. He loved the antics of the pets as well–he chuckled when he told me about the dog stealing his sandwich off the counter while his back was turned as he was putting the sandwich makings back into the fridge. And then there was the time the hot air balloon came over the back yard and scared the dog.

*Did you ever have tickle fights?
Maybe one. At least with me. Because I probably beaned whoever tried. I always thought they were sort of mean–probably because I was on the receiving end as a child. And maybe it wasn’t all that much of a fight–I was just being tickled and I didn’t like it.

*Who were the practical jokers in the family?
My brothers were practical jokers when we were younger–I was probably a really good target. Once they left jelly beans on their bed that they knew I would eat. They’d made sure our dog had licked them first.

I’ve been known to pull a few myself–I used to tell my youngest brother that chocolate milk came from black Angus cattle–I suppose this is sort of a region-specific joke. Back in that time and place, Herefords were the most common and desired brand.

And I told my husband-to-be at the time that we didn’t sing our school song, we whistled it. He made the mistake of checking with my parents and then he married me anyway.

*What private jokes did you have as a family? What key phrases were giggle starters?
One of the things that can send us into gales of laughter is the mention of hearing aids, or talking about not being able to hear. Our grandad got progressively more and more hard of hearing as he aged. We were all gathered in my parents’ family room, and Grandad kept having us, or more likely, Grannie, repeat to him what was being said. My younger brother, the shrink-in-training at the time, said, “Grandad, have you ever thought about getting hearing aids?” To which Grandad roared, “An airplane! What do I need an airplane for?”

*What do you remember about your own children’s first laughs when they were babies? What silly things did you do to get them to chortle?
Almost anything could send son #1 into a fit of the giggles–getting down close into his face or rolling him around a bit or just talking silly. Son #2 was a tougher audience, but usually with some patience, he would laugh at the same things.

*What books, magazine, or cartoon strips were favorite humorous reads in your family?
We always read “the funnies,” in both the daily paper and the Sunday comics. My dad liked “Dennis the Menace,” “Alley Oop,” and “Nancy,” as I recall. My own sons like reading “Calvin and Hobbes” and it’s probably pretty telling that #1 son loved (and understood) Matt Groenig’s “Life in Hell” at a very early age. They both, along with their dad, like to watch “The Simpsons.” And they love to make fun of me because I don’t like watching it.

*What comedy television shows or movies were favorites in your family?
As I’ve said before, we didn’t have television when we were kids. But sometimes we got to go over to Aunt Eva’s and watch cartoons. I think I enjoyed more watching my brother giggle at Huckleberry Hound than I did watching them myself. Later, my aunt kept my oldest son when he was a little one, and she introduced him to Peter Sellers’ Pink Panther. He does a great Guy Gadbois to this day. My grandad loved Red Skelton–again, it was as much fun to watch him as it was to watch the show.

*Do you ever play games that get your family giggling up a storm?
Password, when played in a multi-generational setting, nearly always set us off into laughter. My grandad, no matter how hard he tried, just couldn’t keep his salty language under control during the pressure of the game, which, of course, sent us kids into gales of laughter–our mother, his daughter, was not so amused. We would practically wet our pants when he and my dad, his son-in-law, were paired up and trying to get the other one to say the magic word. And my grandmother would throw salt at my husband and walk backwards around his chair when she thought he was winning at cards too much. All cause for lots of laughing.

*Do you have digital recordings, videotapes, audio tapes, or home movies with family members talking or laughing in them? I’m a fan of Susan Kitchen’s blog, Family Oral History Using Digital Tools, and she has lots of good tips for preserving these recordings. Perhaps you should plan to do some recording at the next family gathering!
I wish I did have recordings of some of those card games and games of Password. So maybe it’s time to use my digital recorder at the next family gathering. I will say that one of the favorite recordings that makes people laugh in my family is the an old movie of me, at about age 3, gagging myself repeatedly while cleaning my sunglasses. I’m decked out in my two-piece sun suit, and just can’t seem to get those glasses smear-free.

*Besides preserving audio recordings (and perhaps posting them on your blog!), you can post photos of family members cutting capers, laughing, or joking around.
I have done some of this. My grandmother’s 4 sisters astride the horse at Knott’s Berry Farm is a good example. I think the Anderton’s always had a good time when they got together. My grandmother was not rambunctious, but she did like to laugh and make others laugh.

This was a fun reminiscence. I’m glad to be a part of a family that laughs–some of those times and the shared experiences make our lives all the richer. They give us a bond with family members who are no longer around but who can still make us smile when we remember some of our times laughing together. And the stories repeated give other family members information about those they may not have known first-hand. I’m so glad my great-aunt Edna told me the story about “fur-bearing Christians,” for example. I can still see the twinkle in her eye when she told me that tale.

And I remember going to sleep with a smile on Christmas’ Eve because from the living room, I could hear my two adult sons doing what can only be described as giggling as they were playing “Guitar Hero.”

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I found this letter my granddad wrote in 1918 among all the “stuff” we moved after his death in 1998. Based on the date of the letter, he would have been 9 when he wrote it. I don’t know who Ray was that he was writing it to, nor do I know if this was a common occurrence–his letter-writing, that is. I do know that his signature at age 9 looks just like I remember it looking 70 years later.

He mentions his parents going to Beaver. Beaver is the county seat of the county where the were living, also named Beaver. I wonder if they were doing some sort of official business there–much of their trading and shopping was done across the state line in Perryton, Texas–it was half the distance and a larger town. He also references his older sisters who were washing dishes–they were just older than him at 12 and 10.  Even when all three of these folks were in their 70s and 80s, Aunt Lorene and Aunt Edna were still referred to as “the girls.”

You can see that it’s written on that old cheap paper that turns acidic almost as soon as it is made. It’s probably pre-Big Chief tablet days, but the paper is similar. It doesn’t have a ragged edge at the top like it was torn from a tablet.

Here’s the text in case you can’t read the original:

Balko, OK.

Jan 9, 1918

Deare school mate Ray:

Are you coming to the party next Saturday night. I dont know if I will come nor not. How do you like to go to school I like to go to school all right How do ytou like your teacher. I like my teacher fine. Are you sitting in a seat by your self. My papa and mamma went to Beaver to day. They stayed till we had the chures done and the girls was washing dishes. Well I must go to bed. Yours truly

Elmer Unruh

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