Thursday, April 25, 2013
Wednesday, April 24, 2013
A Nifty Book About Wichita History
Found while looking for something else, which is how the best things are always discovered, the Illustrated History of Early Wichita.
A variety of digitized versions is available from this page at the Open Library. Very cool pictures.
A variety of digitized versions is available from this page at the Open Library. Very cool pictures.
Friday, March 22, 2013
Dear Kyerstin, with Deepest Apologies
Thanks to a free weekend trial at ArkivDigital, I recently discovered digitized parish records for your son, Magnus, my great-great grandfather, and your family in Soraby, Sweden.
This is where I discovered that the name our family has recorded for you, Soora Rottne, is actually the name of the neighborhood you lived in.
As a small gesture of penitence, for the rest of today I will refer to myself as
Yours truly,
Rocky Creek
This is where I discovered that the name our family has recorded for you, Soora Rottne, is actually the name of the neighborhood you lived in.
As a small gesture of penitence, for the rest of today I will refer to myself as
Yours truly,
Rocky Creek
Friday, February 15, 2013
Swedish Genealogy Workshop in Lindsborg, KS
Gotta sign up for this workshop! Swedish Genealogy in Lindsborg, KS just seems so appropriate, especially since my Swedes settled right around there.
Thursday, January 31, 2013
Genealogy in Local News
The Wichita Eagle reprinted an interesting article from the Kansas City Star about some genealogists who solved a riddle that more mainstream historians hadn't resolved (not clear whether the historians couldn't solve the riddle or just hadn't bothered.) Benjamin "Pap" Singleton was born a slave, escaped to freedom, and was instrumental in encouraging former slaves to move to Kansas and other states to escape the Jim Crow south after the Civil War. The riddle? What happened to him after his prominence faded? Some Kansas genealogists and historians found his death certificate and cemetery records.
It's an interesting article that gives genealogy a positive shout out. Read it here.
It's an interesting article that gives genealogy a positive shout out. Read it here.
Tuesday, January 1, 2013
Wichita Women's Groups
Yowza, it's been a while since I last posted. My excuse? The stuff I've been doing with my genealogy time, while worthwhile to me, is unutterably dull to write about. I've been labeling vacation photos and making backup disks at home, and conducting inventory at the genealogy library. Yawn, right?
Anyway, I don't want to talk about that stuff now. Tuesday, while I was staffing the front desk at the library, I was asked a question I totally failed to answer. And, since I hate being clueless, I've been doing a little research.
The question: Could I help identify this picture?
Known: The known woman in this picture moved to Wichita in the late 1910s and died in 1942. The picture has a Wichita photographer stamp on the back. The woman's husband worked for a railroad.
Observed: The dresses are almost identical, the women each have a dark ribbon tied in a bow on the left shoulder, they don't seem to have any other common jewelry or insignia, and the room looks more like a hotel banquet room than a church or home.
Answer: I have no idea what group this is. It appears to be an organized group, and, if they went to the trouble of matching dresses, it's probably an on-going group. The women are too old to be graduating from high school. The consensus of the folks at the library was that it is probably some sort of women's group, like Eastern Star.
So what women's groups were active in Wichita during the 20s and 30s?
The History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, published in 1910 by Orsemus Bentley, provides a whole chapter on Wichita women's groups. These include the Hypatia club, started in 1886 (and only recently ended), the Twentieth Century Club, the Wichita Musical Club, the South Side Delvers, the DAR, and the Fairmount Library Club.
There were many Masonic lodges in Wichita, and many wives and daughters joined Eastern Star.
There were trade organizations, with female auxiliaries, including the Peerless Princess Lodge auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and the Peerless Princess Division auxiliary of the Order of Railway Conductors.
Many of the same organizations are mentioned in Helen Winslow's Official Register and Directory of Women's Clubs in America from 1913.
So, I have the beginnings of a list of possibilities, but no pictures, which might help narrow things down.
I'll have to keep looking in to this...
Anyway, I don't want to talk about that stuff now. Tuesday, while I was staffing the front desk at the library, I was asked a question I totally failed to answer. And, since I hate being clueless, I've been doing a little research.
The question: Could I help identify this picture?
Known: The known woman in this picture moved to Wichita in the late 1910s and died in 1942. The picture has a Wichita photographer stamp on the back. The woman's husband worked for a railroad.
Observed: The dresses are almost identical, the women each have a dark ribbon tied in a bow on the left shoulder, they don't seem to have any other common jewelry or insignia, and the room looks more like a hotel banquet room than a church or home.
Answer: I have no idea what group this is. It appears to be an organized group, and, if they went to the trouble of matching dresses, it's probably an on-going group. The women are too old to be graduating from high school. The consensus of the folks at the library was that it is probably some sort of women's group, like Eastern Star.
So what women's groups were active in Wichita during the 20s and 30s?
The History of Wichita and Sedgwick County, published in 1910 by Orsemus Bentley, provides a whole chapter on Wichita women's groups. These include the Hypatia club, started in 1886 (and only recently ended), the Twentieth Century Club, the Wichita Musical Club, the South Side Delvers, the DAR, and the Fairmount Library Club.
There were many Masonic lodges in Wichita, and many wives and daughters joined Eastern Star.
There were trade organizations, with female auxiliaries, including the Peerless Princess Lodge auxiliary of the Brotherhood of Railway Trainmen, and the Peerless Princess Division auxiliary of the Order of Railway Conductors.
Many of the same organizations are mentioned in Helen Winslow's Official Register and Directory of Women's Clubs in America from 1913.
So, I have the beginnings of a list of possibilities, but no pictures, which might help narrow things down.
I'll have to keep looking in to this...
Tuesday, September 11, 2012
I remember 9/11
I got a phone call from my father: "Are you watching TV? We're under attack." I was studying for a research statistics class; my parents were on a cruise. That's where I was when the twin towers were hit.
My parents were on a New England and Canada cruise. They had steamed out of New York harbor, sailing past the twin towers, just the evening before. The ship was buzzing with folks trying to get phone connections, internet connections, even television signals. Later, my folks commented on how eerie it was to see completely empty, contrail-free skies. Several days into the trip, when they landed at a town in Canada, the locals were on the dock, greeting them with American flags.
I was at home in Kansas. My research statistics class had a test that evening, and it took a while to get through to the university to find out if we were still having class, which we were. I felt a strong sense of dissonance -- the images on the television were of a disaster, very severe and very personal, but in Kansas it was a lovely day and there wasn't really any reason not to carry on with our business. My friends and I drove to Manhattan (KS) to class, speculating on what the consequences were going to be.
Kansas State University is in Manhattan, KS, which is only a few miles from Ft. Riley. Our graduate program has very strong ties to the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth. About a third of the students in my class were former or current soldiers. It was clear that they shared our shock, grief and anger, but added an additional factor -- they didn't know when, they didn't know where, but they were all sure that they, personally, were going to war, and soon. Several had children who were also in the military. It wasn't that they had any inside information -- they said they didn't, and although I know they wouldn't have told us if they did, I believed them. It was just that these were men (and that day it happened to be all men), who were teachers of military history and strategy and officers learning to lead, and they had a very good idea of what was going on behind the scenes. They shared what they felt they could. It was a very sobering evening, and the things I learned had nothing to do with statistics.
Looking back, I'm glad I spent the evening with my fellow students, rather than with CNN. Even without all their video and interviews with "experts," I learned much more about what the fall of the twin towers was likely to mean to all of us.
My parents were on a New England and Canada cruise. They had steamed out of New York harbor, sailing past the twin towers, just the evening before. The ship was buzzing with folks trying to get phone connections, internet connections, even television signals. Later, my folks commented on how eerie it was to see completely empty, contrail-free skies. Several days into the trip, when they landed at a town in Canada, the locals were on the dock, greeting them with American flags.
I was at home in Kansas. My research statistics class had a test that evening, and it took a while to get through to the university to find out if we were still having class, which we were. I felt a strong sense of dissonance -- the images on the television were of a disaster, very severe and very personal, but in Kansas it was a lovely day and there wasn't really any reason not to carry on with our business. My friends and I drove to Manhattan (KS) to class, speculating on what the consequences were going to be.
Kansas State University is in Manhattan, KS, which is only a few miles from Ft. Riley. Our graduate program has very strong ties to the Command and General Staff College at Ft. Leavenworth. About a third of the students in my class were former or current soldiers. It was clear that they shared our shock, grief and anger, but added an additional factor -- they didn't know when, they didn't know where, but they were all sure that they, personally, were going to war, and soon. Several had children who were also in the military. It wasn't that they had any inside information -- they said they didn't, and although I know they wouldn't have told us if they did, I believed them. It was just that these were men (and that day it happened to be all men), who were teachers of military history and strategy and officers learning to lead, and they had a very good idea of what was going on behind the scenes. They shared what they felt they could. It was a very sobering evening, and the things I learned had nothing to do with statistics.
Looking back, I'm glad I spent the evening with my fellow students, rather than with CNN. Even without all their video and interviews with "experts," I learned much more about what the fall of the twin towers was likely to mean to all of us.
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