Festival of October

It is that time of fall where in our neck of the woods activities involving the crop du jour take place. We are not sure for us what those activities will be, we will take one step at a time. First the fruit has to finish maturing and then the harvest activities and then the crush and so on . . .

In the collage above, the left photo shows the fruit in the early stage of development and on the right can be seen the maturing of the fruit into the beautiful shades of reddish purple.

The middle photo shows Dino in a couple of reclining poses as he enjoys the rays of October. It has been mostly sunny around these parts this week, just not sooo hot as a couple of weeks ago. Still hot enough though to put the a/c on most days . . .

The News this Week

The Pope has returned home and regular season baseball is about done for this year.

Unfortunately, two major events happening this week have crowded our TV news shows.

We've driven through Umpqua -- what a shame that this small town has the type of event that will forever link it to so many other towns and cities in the last few years.

And for Joaquin, it is doing what hurricanes do -- destruct, destroy and bring despair to those around the path.

It almost seems that neither of these two events will be"going away" anytime soon.



Webinars This Week & Upcoming

So, to escape for a bit I attended a very well done webinar -- "Using Periodicals to Find Your Ancestors". This took place on Wednesday. Techniques and practices were discussed on what, where and how . . .

Also announced and put up for viewing (by subscribing members) a series of webinars all about researching in the state of Ohio. We have tons of relatives in Ohio so these webinars should be quite useful in researching there.

Lastly a quick view of two upcoming webinars that promise to be excellent as well.

The Researching This Week

This week again I found myself involved in the "Gilletts" . Growing up, we did not talk too much about the Gillett family, unfortunately.

This week goes from GILLETT to WHITE to EADS. How is that possible. Well, in the collage above Gertrude Ellen Gillett is featured. She married a Charles White who then had a daughter who married an Eads.

It is interesting to note that Gertude's father was Walter Scott Gillett who happened to work at the prison at San Quentin California. The picture of Gertrude is one of her standing in front of the school on the San Quentin grounds.

Suffice it to say, the above is another example of filling in some of the detail of family members.

From the Shoebox

Back in July of 1930 my mother received this letter from a young man named Ellis.

It is postmarked "Fort Sheridan" which is a U.S. Army post by Chicago.

I have to assume that Ellis was a soldier there as was my father at that time as well.

Ellis and my mother must have been dating for a bit and I have included the last page of his letter to her on the left.

The answer that he is looking for must not have come because my mother & father married 5 months later.

I sure wish that I could ask more questions . . .


The address above is before the streets were renamed in Chicago. 2521 Smalley Ct. became 2521 N Bernard St. I will be examining the 1930 Federal Census to see if I can spot the soldier named Ellis at Fort Sheridan that was sending letters to my mother . . .

And Lastly

This will be a fun week in a way, i.e. the regular baseball season is over for San Francisco Giants on Sunday and the playoff games begin Tuesday. If all goes to the limits, it will be November before baseball is done this year!

For us fans of NFL in San Francisco, it almost seems like that season could be over too . . . we hope that isn't the case.

It is Saturday, dogs & burgers are in order!  See you all in a few!