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Search For: Family Stories
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Start Date: 2020-03-02
End Date: 2024-12-16
1 TO 20 OF 28 MATCHES
1 TO 20 OF 28 MATCHES
#1) Donner Party 2021
23 Feb 2021
{A} My Harlan and Rhoades cousins led the Harlan-Young Party. They got tired of waiting for the Donner Party - so they left without them. But joined the rescue that started 174 years ago this week. Seemed fitting.
#2) The Rest Is Silence
11 Mar 2021
Some of my Rusyn family stories - like this one, well ... I am sure there is a word. The fate for the protagonist in the Slovak film Cigán provides an entirely "relatable" perspective.
#3) Hide and Blast
18 Mar 2021
My grandfather was a coal miner - and to put food on the table during the Great Depression he would often "borrow" explosives to go "fishing". But don't worry, his widowed mother - a moonshiner - approved!
#4) Don't Ask, Don't Tell
19 Mar 2021
In today's world, my great-aunt would have been labeled profoundly gifted - with a touch of ADHD. As a teen girl in the 1920s? A lobotomy. And the rest of her life chained to a bed in a mental institution.
#5) The Brother of Invention
22 Mar 2021
More family horror stories. This is how my grandmother dealt with being forced to watch her baby brother - in 1922. I imagine a diaper and pockets filled with rocks would really slow a tiny human down!
#6) Bedtime Stories
24 Mar 2021
On Sunday, I lost my last great-aunt ... and my last living connection to a world long since forgotten. No advancements in technology can preserve our stories - if nobody is around that remembers them.
#7) Starlight, Starbright
28 Apr 2021
Ignore my random insight. Because mostly? I'm not very bright. So. I ponder history. Don't blink. Or you might miss it. Or this. My great-great-grandfather. After his second shipwreck. Time for a new blog.
#8) Thinking Chair
31 May 2021
(b) 1860s. Alum Bank, Pa. Home of my 3rd great-grandparents George and Nancy Harbaugh. A stop along the Underground Railroad for slaves seeking freedom. And for six sons/nephews that left for the Civil War. But did not return.
#9) Statue In the Chair
05 Jun 2021
My mom and aunt's game. For their grandmother. Who's mother died giving birth to her. At 14, she barely survived the 1889 Johnstown Flood. Then "life". We all have limits. Her last 20 years? Catatonic in a rocking chair.
#10) Star Gazers
07 Jun 2021
History lies hidden in stories. Mason and Dixon called the Harlan House on the banks of the Brandywine "home" for over four years. Astronomers first, surveyors second - they frequently exhausted the family's supply of alcohol.
#11) Council of Oops
08 Sep 2021
September 8, 1777. The home of Caleb Harlan in Milltown, Delaware. Washington planned for the British at Red Clay Creek. But Howe was miles away - marching along the Brandywine, near the farm of Caleb’s cousin - Joel Harlan.
#12) The General You Know
09 Sep 2021
The eve of the Battle of Brandywine. According to one family legend, Washington “got lost” after inspecting the cannon placed near Brinton’s Ford. Could Ferguson have ended the Revolution? I have different theory.
#13) LaFayette, You Are There
10 Sep 2021
More eve of the Battle of Brandywine. LaFayette was the "guest" of Gideon and Sarah Gilpin. After the battle - the British plundered anything of value. LaFayette returned to visit the home and family in 1825.
#14) Battle of Brandywine
11 Sep 2021
The Battle of Brandywine on September 11, 1777 was the largest of the Revolutionary War. It led to the occupation of Philadelphia - the American capital. General Howe secured the absolute victory - that cost the British the war.
#15) Who Goes Up
26 Oct 2021
My father volunteered for Vietnam the day he graduated High School. An AMS3 (Petty Officer 3C), he was a plane captain for the newly deployed LTV A-7 Corsairs on the USS Constellation (CV-64). Is insubordination ... genetic?
#16) Recoiling In Pain
28 Oct 2021
After my great-grandfather's Winchester Model 1906 - my father's H&R Topper Model 58 12-Gauge holds the most memories. None fond. 10 year old me did not appreciate the hardwood stock using deer slugs during target practice.
#17) Claymation
01 Dec 2021
I am clearly too stupid to ever comprehend the Universe. But. Fortunately. There are those primitive areas of my brain. Filled with family stories. Of witches, spirits, sorcery, premonitions. Like from my Scottish ancestors ...
#18) All The Marbles
06 Jan 2022
As a child in the 1950s, my mom's most prized possessions were her cat's eye marbles. Twenty years later, another child would go on archeological expeditions to dig them up. There's a lesson for today in there somewhere.
#19) Um, Thanks?
19 Jan 2022
My paternal grandfather served as a T/4 artillery mechanic in the Aleutians during WW2. He was wounded at Dutch Harbor, survived the Battle of Attu and then escaped an avalanche - by going for a walk. THIS? Really happened.
#20) How Never To Forget
22 Jan 2022
My maternal grandfather served in Third Army, HQ - a T/5 cook to Patton's staff in WW2. A photographer - he took pictures, collected postcards and "liberated" items along the way. History feels very real ... when you can hold it.
