Living in a Motor Coach

I'm still working on my autobiographical coloring book.  Drawing this little scene reawakened several memories for me.  First off was the oversized zip up snowsuit, mittens (probably with a piece of yarn connecting them through the arms of the snowsuit), and thin rubber boots that folded inward and were fastened with what looked like a big rubber band and a button.  Those boots did not keep my feet warm.  When I walked, the shiny fabric of the snowsuit made a sound like ZWOOP, ZWOOP, ZWOOP.

The other memory was of the trailer we lived in until my younger sister was born.  I have only vague memories of the trailer, and just a handful of photos.  I asked my aunt, my mother's older sister, if the trailer had a bathroom, but she did not remember.  I was too  young to need any plumbing, so I do not recall.  I do remember that when my grandparents build a new house, and we moved into the farm house, they installed indoor plumbing, and the wooden outhouse became a relic of the past.  I believe my parents moved into the trailer right after they were married in 1948. I came along at the end of 1950.

I did an internet search to see if I could find out more about the first place we lived.  I think lots of people lived in trailers after World War II; they weren't just for hauling behind your automobile.  I think I scored with the Atlas Mobile Home Directory site.  Our trailer had a nice streamlined shape, with a curved top, two doors with porthole windows.  This could be it:

I know the interior had what looked like wood paneling, linoleum floors, and lots of built in shelving and drawers.  It was compact at 28 feet in length, and probably about 8 feet in width.  At any rate, it was too small once my sister was born, and we moved into the drafty old stucco farmhouse that was my home until I went away to college.

Autobiography - One Coloring Page at a Time

I've been coloring, but I've also been drawing the past few days.  Actually I had the idea for an autobiographical coloring book while I was coloring something entirely different - maybe a page about Zorro.  It occurred to me that a parent and child might sit down to color together, and if the picture had to do with somebody in the family, a conversation might start about who that person is, what place the picture depicts, what pets (or toys, friends) the person had when they were a child.

So, this is me, with one over several pet crows my father kept for a time.  He loved animals, and we not only had the usual farm animals, cows, cats, dogs, but also occasional wild pets like crows and raccoons, and once foxes. All of the wild pets were freed once they reached maturity and preferred a mate to us and our attention. 

This drawing is of me, my father, and his collie mix farm dog, Shep.  I have pictures f Dad with this dog when he was in high school, so Shep was older than I was.  He was a sweet old softie, and when he died, perhaps the first living thing I remember dying, we wrapped him in a sheet and buried him under an apple tree in the orchard. 

So, this isn't painting or anything I'd take to the gallery, but it's entertaining for me.  I've also been doing a few for friends, trying to see if I can make anything interesting out of other people's photos. 

The jury is still out.

Who Are These People?

A couple years ago I gave my brother a CD containing all the work I had done to that point on my family family history project.  His bewildered response was, "Who ARE all these people?"

Good question.  I've taken every grandmother and grandfather back as far as I can, included all their brothers and sisters, spouses, children, and then brought them as close forward to now as I can.  The result for me has been a gradual revealing of a multi-generation saga mirroring the history of our country.

Most of the people I find were farmers, teachers, or ministers, though there are most of the occupation a person might think of.  There are shop keepers, railroad people, doctors, photographers, career military folks and bankers.  Some traveled west on the Oregon Trail.  Sometimes they have connections to fame, as in the man who was chaplain of the senate when Lincoln was President, and who spoke at his funeral.  But most are unremarkable, so far as I can tell.

Which isn't to say that their lives are not interesting. This week I stumbled across a sad and common story, of a woman who was born in Ontario in 1839, who then moved with her husband and family to Illinois to clear land and farm.  While they were in Illinois, her fourteen year old daughter, Sarah, took ill and died.

I found the girl's photo, and the letter her mother wrote to her sister, expressing her anguish over the girl's death.  Suddenly the list of names and dates transformed themselves into real people, and their lives resonating across time.

Here is the letter.  I added end punctuation to help make the story easier to follow.  This letter helps me to begin to understand who some of these people are.  This is from Annie Gaulte Dumond to her sister Esther.

Kinmundy
December 1, 1877
Sunday afternoon
 
Dear sister,

I now improve the present opertunity of wrighting to you. we are all well at present—thank God for his goodness to us. Thomas health is very good so far. I  wish I could see you all and have a long talk with you. I don’t know what aild me all the time I was at Mothers. I felt so sad all the time I felt as though I had great burden resting on me all the time times. I think it was a presentiment of Sarahs Death.  Oh if you could of seen her when I come home. She held out her hand and says Oh Ma. I kissed her and ask her not to get excited she says to me I am beter now and of course I will not. she says,  Maw what ailes you you look aful. oh you lost your tooth. then she sayes,  how did you leave them all I told her but I notest no tears come to her eyes.  she was past that.  but I did not think she would die so soon.  on that Monday before they Dispatched for me she wanted to  go to school but her pa would not let her for she had not ben well for three or four dayes and on the wedensday they dispatched for me they thought she was a dying.  all day she had a congestive chill that lasted all day and on Monday after I got  home she had another but—it did not last over ten  minuts—the Doctors sayed it was all caused from her bowels.   

She was sensiable of every thing. the fever never raised to her head it was all in her bowels. the Doctors Don all they could. the Monday tusday before I come Minnie was washing most all Day and Mrs. Rosbough and an other woman was wating on her and her father never left her bed side and she locked a round at them and her father says, what Do you want? Sarah she sayes, I want Minnie. She come to her but she could not keep from crying.  she Put her armes about Minnie’s  neck and says, Dont fret, Dont fret.  Minnie Dont leave me  I am so lonesome.

Oh Esther, I have wept untill I can hardly weep any more.  I go some times and sit by the lone grave of My Darling child and I  think I must see her or I cannot live, but I have to bare it. I could of given Sarah up when she was a baby and so small and delicate but, have have her to grow up and bloom into womanhood all most and then be taken away it seems to hard, almost-more than I am able to bare.  but we are told that god will give us grace sufischent for every trial and for this I am Praying. Oh Esther how near we ought to live for what is this world but a world of sorow and tears and partings here with Loved wones.  Oh Esther, I hope you will be spared that painefull trial of taking your Dear child by the hand when it is all ready cold with the chill of Death and bid then a long farewell on this earth, but I am living in hoope of meeting her soon where parting will be no more.

No more at present from Your Loving sister Annie M. G. Dumond

P.S. wright soon and let me know all the news.  give our love to Joney and Sarah let me know how babe is.  kiss the belly  for me and send me its Picture.  tell hanah to send Minnie her Picture her and her sister Minnie and we will send ours. Joney sends his Love to the boyes. right soon. they wanted to know how long Sarah was sick. Just 10 Days.  She was very poor. her litle cheeks was sunk in so much

Agnes

The inscription on the back of this small photograph was "Agnes."  I found her in a box of my grandmother's photos, and I think she was a girlhood friend from Spokane, the a vivacious young woman who died after falling on a tennis court and hitting her head.  I have always liked her pose here, with rolled stockings and a parasol, and sassy shoes.  So, I decided to try and paint her for a series of featuring people from vintage photos, and gold leaf.

 The first step was a gesso an 8x8 inch canvas board, draw the figure, and then start establishing the lights and darks with graphite gray acrylic paint.  Then I blocked in the background with burnt sienna acrylic paint.

Since my reference photos are black and white, part of the fun is making decisions about colors.  I decided that girls back in the early 1920s would not have wanted much of a tan, or else why carry a parasol?  Certainly the accessory is a nice way to frame the face, but I also think it was for keeping the skin protected.  So I decided to make her skin tones quite light.  My original conception of bathing costumes of the time was that they were like cars - always black.  But when I found old swim suit ads online, I discovered they came in all sorts of colors, red, pink, blue, green.  So I chose a yellow-green color that would compliment the reddish underpainting of the background.

The last step is to add the gold leaf by applying an adhesive that is very much like rubber cement, then adding the tissue thin metallic material.  I intentionally left bits of the underpainting showing through for contrast.  Unfortunately the nice texture and shine of the gold doesn't photograph very effectively, but I am always excited to get to this stage.

The steps are to coat the entire painting with an clear semi-gloss acrylic, and to cover the unattractive back side with wallpaper, so that the painting can stand on a easel or be framed.

Thoughts on Family History

8x8 inches, acrylic and gold leaf on canvas board

from a found black and white photo of two Wisconsin farm girls

Since retiring from teaching in 2006, I have been working at improving my painting, first in watercolors, later in acrylic and oils, and most recently in mixed media format.  Little by little I've been focusing on figures, especially those inspired by old photographs.  Sometimes the photos are from my family, and sometimes they are of anonymous people.  At first I fretted about whether I had achieved good likenesses in these small paintings, but I've stopped being concerned about that.  Since most of my work is very small, it's nearly impossible to include much detail, so I concentrate on the figure's posture, clothing, and attitude.  My hope is that people don't know for sure who the figures actually are, but see in them something familiar.  I hope the little paintings help people remember their own families.

I think my passion for old photographs come partly from my growing efforts in tracking down family history, something I have occasionally written about here.  I'm not sure where this comes from.  Mother collected old photos, repeated stories, wrote down as much family history as she could with her comparatively limited resources.  She often sent me copies of old photos, photocopies of diaries, birth certificates, and while I was mildly interested, I didn't put any effort into helping, or even encouraging her, something I now regret. After her death, I found myself with boxes of what she had collected, and decided to try and make sense of it.

I began with some simple genealogy software from Reunion, and that helped my understand family relationships better than I had on my own.  It also allowed me to print simple blank forms that I could give to family members to fill out, or sometimes served as a template to help me ask questions in an organized way.  But for me, the drawback was that my research was hard to share.  

The more I understood how my grandparents, aunts, uncles, and various cousins were related, the more fascinated I became.  I started doing online searches.  I began meeting distant cousins, documenting what they told me, and adding it all to the family tree on my computer.  I wrote to historical societies in other states, inquiring about people on our tree.  I took trips to meet my maternal grandmother's family in Washington, collected stories and photos there.  Besides doing Google searches, I began researching people on rootsweb.ancestry.com and familysearch.org, and findagrave.com - all free sites.  I joined the Genealogy Society of Walworth County, and pestered people there to help me find old newspaper clippings relating to our family, and I combed the old papers myself. I walked a lot of cemeteries.  I finally gave in and joined the subscription site, ancestry.com

Then I found a free online family tree hosting site, TribalPages.   I began transferring all my Reunion information to that site, which seemed simpler to me than Reunion, and allowed me to invite other family members to view the work, and also to add and edit information about their immediate families.  

One thing this process has taught me is that learning about my own family has helped me understand history much better.  I now have thousands of names in the data base, and in my mind I can see how people arrived in North Carolina, or Rhode Island, or Boston, or Montreal, and how the children and their descendents spread across North America, both in the United States and Canada, as homesteading land became available.  I've seen how interconnected we all are, and how completely Anglo-Saxon my ancestors were. We are mostly English and Irish and Scottish, with a few Norwegians and Germans thrown in.  For a long long time we were mostly farmers, teachers, preachers and railroad people, though that changed as the country changed, and these days it's hard to generalize about the work we do.  

Another thing I have learned is how wonderful it is to meet distant relatives, whether in person, or online.  Through this blog and my entries in Find-a-Grave, I have had people contact me through email and add what they know to the family story, a real thrill.  In the past couple months, two women who live far away contacted me and answered many of my questions about the Pierce family in South Dakota and in Canada.  I love learning more about these distant great aunts and uncles,and multiple times great grandparents, love the occasional photo that brings the names to life.

But I have also learned that many people are not interested in family history, and for a variety of reasons.  They might be young and busy with getting their own work and families started.  They might "only look to the future, not to the past," as one very mature cousin told me.  They might fear for their privacy, and be leery of questions. They might feel inadequate in using the computer.  They might just not be interested -  for whatever reason. I try hard to not antagonize them, though I try to keep the door open for their participation.

For me this research is a chance to understand how we all fit into history, how we are bound together by blood, and circumstance. It is a challenge, a puzzle, and an endless quest.

Honoring Family Veterans

Herman Heinrich Adams, my great great grandfather, was a Civil War veteran. I hadn't realized that until I visited the cemetery in Washington state where he is buried, and noticed that he had two headstones, a family stone and a government stone that indicated his military service.

Adolph Kern Pierce, my great uncle, was a veteran of World War I.  I had not realized this until I inherited this photo, then asked some questions of my remaining elders.  He was stationed in the United States since his poor eyesight prevented him from being sent overseas.  This past summer I went to the local veterans office and got a WWI flag holder for his headstone.  I hope that will let future generations know that he was a veteran.

Henry Leaver Pierce, another great uncle, also served in World War I, overseas in France.  I was thrilled to get a copy of his diary last year.  Once again, the photo was my clue to even know to ask about his service, since I had never heard it spoken of by my parents.

Howard Funk Tess,  my grandfather, was an MP in World War I.  He never spoke of the war, though after his death I asked my grandmother about it.  I didn't learn much except that he was desperately seasick in the ship going overseas, and that he had spoken about rats in the trenches.  I didn't know about his military service until his funeral, when his casket was draped with a flag, and his service mentioned in his funeral service.

LD Smith, on the left, was my step-great grandfather, a surgeon who served in the National Guard in WWII, and his son, James DuRell Smith, also in the National Gauard, served in Alaska during the same war.

Peter Hadley Pierce Pierce and his brother Richard Leaver Pierce, were my dad's first cousins.  Both served in the US Navy in World War II. I only learned of their service while interviewing Peter's wife when I was working on my family tree.  Peter was part of the initial landing on Iwo Jima. Their parents both taught radio code to members of the Air Force and Navy who were stationed in Madison.

While I do not have a military photo, another son of my dad's cousin, Lt. James Pierce, was killed in 1942 while flying patrol over a base in Alaska.  His  plane was lost at sea and his body never recovered.

Gene Earl Pierce, my uncle and my dad's only sibling, served his country during the Korean War.  I knew about his service because my parents spoke of it, and because he had brought home a tiny pink satin Korean outfit, trousers and an embroidered top, home for me.  A few years ago, a year or so before his death, I asked him if he ever wanted to return to see Korea, and his was emphatic that he had no desire to remember the place.  He wasn't open to talking about his experiences, but when I expressed an interest in seeing photos of him in uniform, he agreed and sent me several.

Joseph Hyers Ellestad is my second cousin's son, and the most recent veteran that I know of.  Here he is with his mother, returning home from service in Afghanistan.

For many years when I was a younger woman, I  knew next to nothing about the men - for in my family it has been all men - who served their country in military service.  My parents were never involved, didn't talk about it, and I only thought to ask questions once I started looking into family history seriously, after I retired from teaching.  And it makes me feel bad.  I wish my uncles, my grandfather, had felt open to telling me about their experiences, or that I had found a way to show interest, but I know that doesn't always happen.

A few years ago I tried to ask a World War II veteran, a close friend of my aunt, about his army experiences in World War II, especially when he complained bitterly about how long it took the United States to have a memorial for those veterans in Washington D.C.  My comment to him then was that I was not alive during that war, never knew anyone to talk about it, so why should other people in my generation be anxious to promote a memorial to a war that veterans apparently didn't want to discuss?  I didn't get far with that line, but when I asked to see photos of him in uniform, and didn't press, he opened up and told me a bit about what happened to him in the Philippines.  Perhaps that is a technique that will open up some veterans to talk, at least in general terms, to lifelong civilians like me.  I believe that telling stories is crucial, so that history will be remembered, and to help family members and friends understand each other better, no matter what their political beliefs might be.  If there are no living veterans, I hope parents talk about those veterans who are gone, of  their service, to their children.  I hope that the upcoming generations don't take as long as I did to seek out stories of service in their own families.

The Old Team

farm horses  - between 1925 - 1935?

My husband and I drove to my brother's house for Christmas Eve.  Our family doesn't get together often, but since Mother died a few years ago we've agreed to meet on that day.  This year I gave my brother a CD copy of the extended family tree, a project I've been working on about five years.  It has photographs, stories, and a cast of several thousand characters going back to pre Revolution days.  Brother wanted to know who all these people were, and that, of course, is what I have been trying to discover since I started the project.  Who are these people, and how do their lives inform us who we are today?  Why bother with events and people long past and often forgotten?

Sometimes there are clues, as with these photos that Mother had kept from our paternal grandparents. There are others of farm animals, horses, and many of chickens and geese.  I suspect my grandmother was the photographer, since she is rarely in the photographs, and she was the one who kept hens for their eggs.  I recognize the corn crib in the background, so I know this picture was taken on our farm.  Perhaps the sleigh was stored in the center, the place where Dad kept a tractor when I was small.  But there is much I don't know.  When did Grandpa finally stop using horses?  Did he keep them out of affection until they finally died, or did he sell them out of economic necessity?  There is nobody to ask any more, so I find myself inventing stories, which is what I sometimes do for people who are distantly related on the family tree.  I gather clues were I can, and make up stories for myself when that is the only thing I can do.

Inventing a Horse
By Meghan O'Rourke

Inventing a horse is not easy.
One must not only think of the horse.
One must dig fence posts around him.
One must include a place where horses like to live;

or do when they live with humans like you.
Slowly, you must walk him in the cold;
feed him bran mash, apples;
accustom him to the harness;

holding in mind even when you are tired
harnesses and tack cloths and saddle oil
to keep the saddle clean as a face in the sun;
one must imagine teaching him to run

among the knuckles of tree roots,
not to be skittish at first sight of timber wolves,
and not to grow thin in the city,
where at some point you will have to live;

and one must imagine the absence of money.
Most of all, though: the living weight,
the sound of his feet on the needles,
and, since he is heavy, and real,

and sometimes tired after a run
down the river with a light whip at his side,
one must imagine love
in the mind that does not know love,

an animal mind, a love that does not depend
on your image of it,
your understanding of it;
indifferent to all that it lacks:

a muzzle and two black eyes
looking the day away, a field empty
of everything but witchgrass, fluent trees,
and some piles of hay.

Snow, and Lack Of

6x6 inches, acrylic on paper

The other night I sat with a large group of retired friends for Friday night fish fry, listening to the hardiest of the group bemoan our lack of snow so far this year.  I had to bite my tongue, having already declared my lack of enthusiasm for football, about my similar lack of enthusiasm for snow. I didn't want to be ejected from the table.  Despite my northern European genetic background, and despite having lived almost sixty-one years in Wisconsin, I don't like snow.  I don't like being stiff and cold, don't enjoy being afraid to drive on icy country roads or nervous that I may slip and break one a bone.  When one long-time friend and happy grandmother said she was thinking of organizing a sledding party - once snow actually falls - I just chewed my potato pancake and smiled.  For me, sledding is only a memory.  As a child I dragged my little sled up the small hills on the farm, and once, wanting more of a thrill, hauled an aluminum saucer onto the roof of the chicken coop and slip off the snowy incline onto a pile of plowed snow near the driveway, but that was when I was more resilient.  I also slid down hills at UW Whitewater on fiberglass trays from the cafeteria, but that was when I was dumber.

Anyway, I decided to attempt a painting based on a small 1935 black and white photo I found of my mother and her older sister.  They are standing outside in a dim and snowy landscape, bits of snow falling past the camera lens.  It was interesting, mostly fun, and frustrating.  The little girl in red is my mother, and the painting actually resembles her.  The older girl is  OK in a general way,  maybe a little old looking, but she in no way resembles my dear aunt.  I wish I could have tweaked her features more, but I feared overworking the painting even more than I had already.  At least the girls call to mind a time a place, and painting them gave me time to imagine their life between the two world wars, on a cold day in Wisconsin.

The Snow Man    
by Wallace Stevens

One must have a mind of winter
To regard the frost and the boughs
Of the pine-trees crusted with snow;

And have been cold a long time
To behold the junipers shagged with ice,
The spruces rough in the distant glitter

Of the January sun; and not to think
Of any misery in the sound of the wind,
In the sound of a few leaves,

Which is the sound of the land
Full of the same wind
That is blowing in the same bare place

For the listener, who listens in the snow,
And, nothing himself, beholds
Nothing that is not there and the nothing that is.

Family Service Members

Herman Heinrich Adams (1839-1922), Civil War Veteran

It is Veterans Day, a day that the television, newspapers, social media all remind us to honor.  To be honest, I didn't think that much about it when I was younger, probably because my father was never in the armed service, and the other two men I knew who served, my Grandpa Tess and my Uncle Gene, never spoke of their time in service.  The only way I persuaded Uncle Gene to say anything about his time in Korea was when I begged for some photos of himself in uniform.  It has only been since I've been looking into family history that I have come to realize how many family members were veterans. I'm posting this so that other family members can think about the contributions made by our relatives.

Take, for example, Grandma Tess's paternal grandfather, H.H. Adams.  A German immigrant, he was a veteran of the Civil War, a Union soldier, wounded in action and honorably discharged.  I was surprised when I visited the cemetery near Spokane, Washington, to see that he had two headstone, a family stone and one from the government. 

Henry Leaver Pierce (1890-1972), World War I Veteran

Grandpa Pierce's brother, Leaver, served in World War I.  I was delighted not long ago get get a copy of his journal that he kept most of his life, and part of it describes his time in France.  During World War II he and his wife Jo taught radio code to soldiers in the army and navy.

Adolph K. (Bard) Pierce (1892-1995), World War I Veteran

Grandpa Pierce's youngest brother, Uncle Bard, volunteered for World War I, but ended up serving in an office position because his eyes were bad.  This is him standing in front of the farmhouse where he, and later me and my siblings, grew up.  One of my goals is to find a way to mark his grave so that people remember that he was a service member.

Howard Funk Tess (1896-1970), World War I Veteran

It's hard to think about my gentle and quiet Grandpa Tess as serving in the army, but he volunteered and served in France as a Military Policeman.  He never spoke of the war to me, except to say that the trip by ship made him violently seasick.  I know too that he thought about marching a a parade in East Troy after he was married, but when the old uniform was taken out, it was riddled with moth holes.

James B. Pierce (1916-1942) on his father's lap, World War II Veteran, Killed in Action

Grandpa Pierce's oldest brother John, lost his younger son James in World War II. This is the note John received about his son's death:

 July 17, 1942, Dear Mr. Pierce; I just received your letter of July 9th.  Of course you are interested in the answers to the questions you asked; I`m sorry I did not anticipate and answer them in my first letter.  The facts will probably be uncoordinated but I`ll try to answer them all.  James volunteered to fly a patrol to protect our base and gather information while we were getting settled. In other words we had just arrived and needed an air-alert to cover the natural confusion of arriving at a new base; he was to fly an area covering all points within ten miles of our base and investigate and report on any aircraft, boat, or submarine within the area.  He was flying a (censored) and had another pilot (Lt. G.W. Brown) flying on his wing.  Lt. Brown will write to you soon.  The weather was perfectly clear.  James and Lt. Brown were flying at 8,000 feet when James dived down at the water to investigate something he saw there.  Lt. Brown followed him down.  When he got within a hundred feet of the water he saw that what he observed was only driftwood.  Just as he was pulling out if this dive his motor began to miss, for black smoke poured out of his exhaust.  He never got any higher than fifty feet after this so he was too low to jump. HE never mentioned any trouble via his radio, but a pilot has his mind and hands pretty busy when his motor misses at that altitude.  Lt. Brown actually saw the plane hit the water before James got out, so did Lt. Carter who was third man in the flight and he also saw the plane hit.  Neither pilot could later see James.  Lt. Brown flew home and reported to me.  I grabbed a transport plane and pilot and went to the scene over which Lt. Carter was still searching.  We found the belly tank and at first thought it was James.  We dropped a life raft before we realized it was only the belly tank of his plane; this tank being externally fastened had ripped off.  We circled the spot until two Coast Guard boats arrived. They picked up the raft and tank but could find no trace of James.  All of his personal belongings are being shipped to you.  I will be glad to answer any other questions you may have.  The accident is a pure case of motor trouble at low altitude, a man has very little chance of leaving a (censored) after it hits the water.  There was no chance of recovering the pilot or plane due to lack of facilities and the depth of the sea.  Yours sincerely, Bill Litton, Capt. A.C.

Peter Hadley Pierce (1924-1910)left,  and Richard Leaver Pierce (1922-1910), World War II Veterans

I knew my dad's cousins, sons of Leaver and Jo Pierce, as congenial men from occasional family occasions.  Both passed away recently, and I learned more about them. Dick served in the navy in both World War II and Korea.  Peter was commissioned an ensign at Columbia University, serving during WWII on the LST 779. His was the first ship to land on the beach at Iwo Jima and supplied the flag seen in the famous photo of the flag raising.

L.D. Smith (1883-1954) left, and son James DuRell Smith (1915-1982), served in War War II

Dr. Lemuel Durrell Smith was an orthopedic surgeon, and was Grandma Tess's stepfather.  His son, James DuRell was Grandma's younger, and only, brother.  Dr. Smith was a lieutenant colonel in the medical division of the Wisconsin national guard for many years, retiring in 1942.  Uncle DuRell was also a member of the Wisconsin National Guard, a served three years during World War II in Alaska.

Gene Earl Pierce (1926-2009), Korean War Veteran

Dad's older brother, Gene Pierce, went to Korea and served several years.  I tried once to engage him in a conversation about his time, whether he ever considered going back, and he just said that it was no place he wanted to revisit or remember.  

Joe Hyers Ellestad, Afghanistan Veteran, with his mother Hulda Pierce Eleestad

Joe Ellestad is Peter Pierce's grandson.  This is a photo of him and his mother when he returned from Afghanistan in 2008. The happiness shown in this photograph says everything that needs to be said about love and gratitude.

Autumn Vintage Photos

 Yesterday my husband and I spent the day in Madison with friends who have come to be known as the Badger Buddies - Two other couples we met when we first married, living in adjacent local apartments.  We started dressing in red and white and attending one UW Badger football game a year together, and have managed an unbroken string since 1976, except that the past two years we sat in bars and watched the game in warmth and relative comfort.  Part of the problem is just finding six tickets together when none of us is a season ticket holder. I remember some very cold and sometimes rainy Saturdays, often sitting in the raucous student section, or in obstructed view seats, where huddling in the stadium bathroom was the one of the best parts of the day, at least for me.  Still the UW band music, the friendship, the brats and beer, all are great fun.  College football, an autumn tradition.

Since I seem to not be getting a whole lot of artwork done this week (I'm blaming it on sniffles and a cough caught on the plane ride home from our cruise), I thought I'd share some autumnal vintage photos from my family archive.

Hunting is a fall tradition in Wisconsin, though I read in the newspapers that fewer and fewer young people are taking it up.  My grandfather, George Earl Pierce, was an avid hunter as a young man.  That's him, standing on the far left.  I know he collected bird eggs as well, because the framed collection was in his cellar for years when I was a child, and is now safe in the Walworth County historical museum in Elkhorn, part of a collection of taxidermy preserved birds from local hunter Howard Cook.  Anyway, I think these men look handsome with their vest, guns and decoys. I'm guessing the studio portrait was taken about 1910.

My dad, Ralph Pierce, also hunted, though he seemed to prefer the fall deer hunt.  Every November he and his buddies would take a road trip to the Rhinelander area for a week of hunting.  He brought home a few trophies, though certainly not every year.  I'm not sure he hunted very seriously.  He mostly liked taking a few days off to spend time with his high school friends, be outside, drink some beer, and play some cards.  I took this photo about 1960.

Fall on the farm and harvest go together.  To tell the truth, I'm not sure who the man is in this photo, though the picture belonged to Grandpa Pierce.  From the iron wheels I'm guessing this photo is from the 1920s or early 1930s, and that the man was a neighbor who was part of a crew who came in to work.  This wouldn't be a corn harvester; I'm guessing it had something to do with oats.  Even in the 1950s when I was a girl individual farmers did not own all their own equipment.  Neighbors went in together, sharing equipment, working in crews to harvest crops.  I especially remember summer haying crews, and my mother making huge noon meals to feed the hungry and thirsty crews of farmers working in our fields.

My grandfather raised and sold hybrid seed corn for a local family.  Here we see him and Sicy Simons, owner of Simons Seed, standing outside with harvested corn, stored in bins made from snow fencing. We also grew field corn that was chopped and blown into the silo for winter feed for cattle, and some was dried and ground into feed. The photo is probably from the 1930s.

This last photo is of me, taken about 1954.  It might be the last time I smiled raking leaves.  Actually, we didn't rake much on the farm.  I imagine that Mother probably handed me a rake to get me outside, hoping I'd get some exercise and maybe make a leaf pile for me and my sister Patty to jump into.  These days my husband rakes the maple leaves that fall into our little back yard, and I manage to stay away from rakes most of the time.

Book Review: The Way West, by A.B. Guthrie, Jr.

In the few years since I retired from teaching I've gotten deeply involved in researching family history, tracing the movements of an extended set of families as they moved westward from North Carolina to Ohio, Indiana, Iowa and Missouri, to Oregon, Washington and California.  At the same time my husband and I traveled to Washington and Oregon as tourists, and I took time to locate some of the living people from my family tree, and got some sense of where they lived and what their stories involved.  All that made reading this good book, The Way West, even better.  I would have read the book anyway, since I already liked historical fiction, and have enjoyed most of the Pulitzer prize winners I have tried.  But knowing that some of my ancestors came west over pretty much the same route that Guthrie describes here made me all the more interested.

This well-researched novel tells the story of the On-To-Oregon wagon train that left Independence, Missouri in 1845, headed for the head of the Willamette River, the Oregon Territory, where there was free land for homesteading.  There are many characters, so many in fact that if I had it to do over I'd start a list to keep as a book mark. Some of the major characters in Dick Summers, a former mountain man who is hired to guide the group on their way west.  There's Tadlock, an officious and difficult man who is the group's first leader, though he doesn't last - his place is taken by steady Lije Evans. There's Curtis Mack, whose wife is fearful of having a child along the long and difficult journey.  There is a family who choose to leave their Midwestern home because they want a healthier place to raise their young son who is prone to the fevers common in Missouri.  There is a preacher - handy for funerals and weddings.  Some folks are strong, some weak, some honest and forthright, others not. I found the shifting relationships among the leaders and followers to be fascinating, and I was caught up in the groups day-to-day struggles along the trail.  This is neither a cowboy and Indian shoot-em-up novel nor a history text.  Instead it is a heartfelt look at  how real people might have acted and felt during the epic journey along the Oregon Trail.  I also appreciated how much time was devoted to and credit given to the women characters. 

I wish I had found this Oregon Trail website before I started reading, because the maps, explanations, and photos would have helped me to visualize the group's journey more clearly.  You can see the site here: The Oregon Trail

I think I saw that a Kindle version of the book, with this website included is available for 99 cents.

Looks like now I need to check out the DVD of How the West Was Won, the Hollywood version of the 1949 book.  The last time I saw it I was a child at the movies.

Northern Rambles

For years I have been going up north to Algoma to see my aunt, my mother's only sister.  Algoma is in Kewaunee County, right on Lake Michigan, and is always cool and damp, including through most of the summer.  This trip we caught up on family stories, went out for fish in one of the country bars, and took flowers to a local cemetery.  I have always liked the harbor there, with its red light and fog horn.  When I was a girl the waterfront was filled with fishing shacks and commercial fishing boats, but now there are more condominiums and private boats.  I had to do some serious cropping to make this shot look a bit like the harbor used to look.

My grandparents used to drive north for my aunt's early May birthday, and often the cherry trees would be in bloom.  I have never before this made it there in time to catch the  blossoms.  This time all the cherries, apples, wild plum were at their best, and I couldn't resist taking way too many pictures of the orchards. This one is right outside of Fish Creek.

Although I make it my first priority to visit relatives, and my second to visit favorite art galleries like the Edgewood Orchard Gallery, the Hardy, and the Fine Line, this time I wanted to see where my cousins' grandmother's family came from.  When I asked my aunt she just said the Grandma and Grandpa H. were from Belgium, WI, and that their cemetery was near there.  I hadn't visited their farm since about 1960, so I had to get out my county map.  Grandma H.'s family was Belgian, and I grew up with a taste for a local pastry called Belgian Pie.  But I didn't know much about the immigrants from the area.  That family is buried in the White Star Spiritualist Church near Namur, so I went searching for that.

The church goes back to the 1880s when a group of parishioners from the local Catholic church broke off and formed the spiritualist group.  We found the church, which has occasional services, and now draws psychics from places like Kewaunee and DePere.  I hadn't expected to find anyone there mid afternoon, but a group was standing outside talking, and after inviting us to come to a service any time, told my sister-in-law and I where to find the cemetery with the graves I wanted to visit.  Researching family history can sometimes be really interesting!

 I stayed a couple days with my husband's sister and her husband, both avid birders and naturalists who volunteer at a beautiful spot called the Ridges Sanctuary.  Whenever I can I take walks there, looking for interesting plants and wildlife.  This day was cool and a bit foggy, and the dripping confers and ferns reminded me a little of walks I have taken in the Pacific Northwest.  The unique environment at the Ridges hosts many rare plants and animals, and I always try to spend at least a little time there.

There are a couple ways to get from where I live in southern Wisconsin to Door County, a faster interstate route, and smaller state highways.  On Memorial Day weekend I wanted to take the smaller roads and avoid the heavy traffic and aggressive  drivers from the major highways.  My favorite route skirts Lake Michigan for forty miles, then veers off through rolling farmland toward Lake Winnebago.  I had packed a picnic lunch and pulled over to eat it at a scenic overlook a bit north of Fond du Lac, at Brothertown.  This scene, with the steep hill, farms, and the lake that blends with the sky, is a favorite of mine.  I shared the view with a motorcyclist, and the two of us just stared for a while before heading back to our separate homes.

Women Grads, Elkhorn High School, 1947

Patricia Smith, Carol Tess, Patricia Enright, 1947

I recently into the basement to look for a three-ring binder to house some magazine articles I wanted to save, and found one more of my mother's scrapbooks.  The entire collection was dedicated to her high school graduation in 1947.  There were formal photographs like the ones here, candid shots of her and her friends, the program for graduation, newspaper clippings of the event, and even a program from their senior class play. I love these photos, so carefully preserved, the subjects all  young and healthy. I occurs to me that graduation was very formal.  You can see all the girls with their hair fixed, makeup, rather serious expressions on their faces.  In this picture Mom is in the center, and her two best friends are on either side.  Patricia Smith went on to earn a doctorate in psychology and to teach and write textbooks in California and Oregon.  Patty Enright married and raised a family in Menasha, and was good about keeping in touch right up until Mom's death a few years ago. 

When I taught high school here in Janesville the classes averaged around four hundred students, a number that always seemed large to me, since my graduating class had 128 students.  This photo from 1947 shows all the women graduates in my mother's Elkhorn High School class.  These women remain friends to this day, though many of them have passed away.  They continue to have reunions every few years, and to keep in touch with one another through telephone calls and letters.  It seems almost quaint.  I read last night somewhere online that people keeping in touch through social media is taking a toll on class reunions.  Why bother to get together with high school buddies when you already have seen each other's photos and know what is happening in each others lives online?  I'm not sure why one would replace the other, unless people are getting too busy to make the effort, or just are losing the taste for face to face friendships.

Here they are again in their caps and gowns, all dressed in high heels.  I imagine they wore dresses beneath those gowns, and felt very grown up.  No decorating of the mortarboards in 1947, no Silly String, or anything that didn't suggest the seriousness of purpose that the occasion signified.  Which isn't to say these women didn't know how to have fun - but that is another post.

Reading about local collage and university graduations in the newspaper got me thinking about how traditions change, which is probably fine.  A nicely printed program is a good thing, though this mimeographed program from my parents' graduation, they were in the same high school class, has its charm.  Girls dressed formally suggests dignity that perhaps they didn't all feel on that June day in 1947, but girls graduating today with shorts and flip flops beneath their caps and gowns have big challenges facing them and are just as excited to get on with their lives as Mother and her friends were.  Formal or not, this is a time of year that marks milestones, and I enjoyed sharing Mom's via her scrapbook.  I hope other young people take the time to preserve the day for their children, though perhaps that is gong out of style as well.

Car Date

414 inches, acrylic on mat board

It occurs to me that while I am thoroughly enjoying painting these miniature pictures, I don't know what I will do with them.  Save them in hopes that the gallery that specializes in small format art will sell them?  Frame them?  Stash them in the old art drawer?  The challenge of painting minis is intriguing, how to recompose and simplify old snapshots, what colors to choose.  Often the photos are overexposed, or blurry, so I look long and hard to decide what is is I am seeing in them.  The end results are something like magic to me, a re-envisioning of people long gone, times past.  The initial drawing is useful for deciding on composition, but rarely allows me to appreciate what color will do for the image.  Little by little the shapes become rounded, the figures take on personality, and the scene comes to life.

I know that the woman is my husband's mother, Lorraine.  I'm not sure if the man is Walter, his father, or not.  They look to be teenagers here, and I only knew them when they were in their late fifties and sixties.  None of us at sixty look much like the teenagers we once were.  Whoever he is, I particularly liked his obvious attraction to her, the confidence that comes through his body language, and those snappy shoes.   I wish she was alive, for lots of reasons, but today I'd like to find out about the day this scene was captured in a snapshot.

Further Adventures in Minis

4x4 inches, acrylic on mat board

I was all set on Monday to head over to UW Whitewater for their evening figure drawing class, when I got an email from one of the longtime participants saying since it was spring break class was canceled.  Too bad, because I have been enjoying painting people from reference photos, and looked forward to painting from life.  It's funny how I used to look forward so much to spring break, and now I have no idea when it even is.  The teachers and students here in town aren't haven't good weather at all - lots of rain, hail, and maybe today, snow.

I meant to start something new, but find that I am still enjoying doing these miniature paintings.  The reference for this one is a black and white photo of Grandpa Pierce, probably in the 1930s, taking a rest on the kitchen porch of our farm house.  There was a wooden porch and a little cement walk that led to a hand pump.  I remember Dad doing the same thing after hours working in the barn or the fields, coming up to the house, pumping water and washing his hands and face, and resting for a while. This scene was morning, because of the way the strong eastern light lit his overalls and washing out the edge of the floor.

4x4 inches, acrylic on mat board

I finished this one yesterday.  The original was badly blurred, but it made a fine reference anyway for this style.  The boy is my second cousin, Jim.  The oldest of six children, Jim eventually grew up to become a dentist, and a fine singer. I always liked the snapshot because of the way he is trying to balance in the water, and his little toy boat. Water has always been difficult for me to  paint, but I like the way this turned out.

Betty and Bernice

4x4 inches, acrylic on Tyvek

I completed another miniature today, this time based upon a snapshot of my grandmother and her best friend.  They must have been in their twenties at the time, and I imagine that one of their husbands took the picture.  I could not fit both figures in the 3x3 format that I have been using, so this one is 4x4 inches.  I knew Betty, and she had dark hair, but I couldn't resist making her a redhead to fit her personality as I remember it.  I have lots of photos of the two couples.  They took vacations together; the men worked at the same factory, and I remember them playing poker every weekend when I was little.  None of that matters to the little piece, but I enjoyed thinking about them as I painted this afternoon. I'm going to need to stop this soon and pop these in the mail.

Men of Milwaukee

I swear, since I retired from teaching I have become less and less focused on tasks at hand, or scattershot in how I spend my days.  For the past year or so I have been actively researching my family, and also my husband's family.  His family is harder, because not that many people seem interested in family history, or have kept good records.  I have been trying to learn more about his grandfather's family, and finding relatively little information.  I was especially interested in a couple brothers who started a successful heat treating business, and I was excited to discover a biography of one of them in Men of Milwaukee: A Biographical and Photographic Record of Business and Professional Men of Milwaukee (Volume 1 1929-1930).  Sure enough, there was a photograph of his great uncle, and more information then I had ever found before. But the book ended up being interesting to me for another reason.  The photos of all these white men, mostly German immigrants, with their short haircuts, serious expressions.  It occurred to me that it would be fun to do a dozen or so sketches from the old photos, practice modified contour drawing, and using a range of values in each one.  All are in my Moleskine watercolor sketchbook using Inktense watercolor pencil and an ink pen.

I'm having a ball.  The sketches vary in likeness, though that doesn't especially bother me.  These are the first four I did last night and today.  Maybe I'll improve as I go along.  No procrastinating here, because the book will be due back at the library in a couple weeks.