Reminisce -- Remember -- Recall

This time of the year I find myself doing all of the above. But today especially I try to focus on what it means for veterans and what it means with respect to their time of service. As I have mentioned in previous posts, most military records are associated with war. And our country has been involved in  many.

The celebration of Veterans Day, or Armistice Day as it was named back in 1919 to commemorate the end of World War I, is now in remembrance of all the wars and times served in the military.

Our family tree has many many veterans in it. When searching these vets, the ones who served primarily or only in peacetime are often overlooked in terms of readily available facts and details.

And as mentioned before -- the great fire in the St Louis Military Records Center in 1973, destroyed about 80% of those records for those who served in the Army between 1912 through 1960. That, unfortunately, included the records for my father -- who served in peacetime and then had his records destroyed.

For my father, I can recall some family information about certain places and events that he was involved with -- e.g. patrol along the US/Mexico border, service in Hawaii -- Hickam Field, and hospitalized in Plattsburg, New York after an accident that caused him to lose a kidney.

But I have no official documentation of his military records. I do have a few photos of him during military service, but not much detail. There may be some records "out there" and maybe they'll surface at some point.

And in very recent memory:

It has only been one month and a couple of days since the devastating fire destroyed 6000 or so homes -- some only about 15 minutes away from us.

We actually have not attempted to take a drive near the remains of those homes. We do remember one of the homes that burnt as we had had a couple of dinners and other gatherings there, but for another, we had not yet visited and so we'll have to wait a few years to visit if they rebuild.

The recent rains were and are welcome, but they brought concerns about toxic waste being spread into the water. The entire area has to be cleaned out and taken somewhere for disposal before any
rebuilding could start.

For whatever reason, there are examples of untouched homes in the midst of blocks and blocks of ashes. These families have to endure going and coming to their homes in what has to be the most depressing of daily routines. They have a huge need for consideration for having to put up with the entire situation. They are lucky in that they still have their belongings and memories, but their daily lives are impacted none-the-less.

And, I remember when "Black Friday" really meant something and had a real impact.

Nowadays that impact is lessened due to there being "Black Friday" deals everywhere and already having taken place.

Black Friday started being the day after Thanksgiving and was given to super pricing on popular items. I have always enjoyed the day after Thanksgiving for a variety of reasons -- shopping and leftovers are a couple of reasons.

The good news is that there are many more deals out there and the ability to take one's time to be selective on what deals to take advantage of . . .

Since 99% of our purchasing comes online, along with free shipping, we are satisfied. We still have to venture out to "brick & mortar" stores for perishable items -- but that is changing as well.

I still remember going out shopping with my grandmother in Chicago, before the days of the "supermarket" and discount stores. She would visit, the produce stands, the butcher shop, the grocery store and of course -- the bakery.

Mamie had a two wheel cart that she pulled and it was an adventure (for me) to go along with her on those trips. I particularly remember the scents and smells associated with each store. And usually,
there were some extra treats purchased at some of the stores and maybe even some samples handed over the counter -- like a slice of summer sausage maybe.

Speaking of scents -- recently I opened our cupboard that houses the recycle and garbage and immediately was transformed to another time and place -- primarily the alley behind our grandparents home in Chicago -- the scents of decaying elements from dinner preparation needed to be removed.

DNA, it's what's for dinner learning about some very interesting details of ancestors.

The maps to the left are from Ancestry.com's DNA section and it gives a nice display showing the migration patterns of some of my ancestors.

On the bottom left it clearly shows that most of the HILES early immigrants did, in fact, come from Germany. This information is validated by the various folks who match my DNA -- and there is an increasing number all the time.

On the right side is a more detailed look at where the immigrants landed and started their early lives in America. The regions around Ohio, Pennsylvania, Illinois and as time went on, Wisconsin and points all over the map.

I still struggle with trying to connect many of the matches to folks in the tree -- but that will eventually be done. Part of the problem is that many of the matches do not share information about their trees that would allow for a match-up.

But the future is bright as it pertains to connecting folks. I think about the genealogists of just a couple of decades ago the did everything via snail mail and/or physical visits.

And then just reminiscing . . .

Hey, we eat raisin bran (albeit Kellogg's) every morning.

But who wouldn't want to collect these Western Badges found in their morning cereal boxes?

Hopalong Cassidy was one of my favorite shows growing up (William Boyd, I think) and he rode a beautiful white horse (Topper, I think).

So, we don't get badges in our cereal but probably one of these days we'll see these "badges" being offered for sale on Antiques Roadshow or on Pawn Stars.

That is a bit of our week, see you all "in a few"!