Memorial Day

[cornerofmadness]

Hope everyone has a nice and reflective holiday. My family has members from three wars, so long history of service there. Me, I'm not doing much just packing and writing.

And apropos of nothing, a hummingbird is outside my window looking in. I love hummingbirds they are just so cool. I usually plant flowers that they like just so I can see them. (ditto with butterflies, one of the few insects I don't hate)

Comments

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

You just reminded me of WWI and WWII and the relatives who fought in those wars. My nephew was named after my great uncle, who died in WWI at the age of 18.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

amazingly enough my grandfather and all his brothers made it back alive from WWII, in WWI we weren't even in this country yet.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

Well, that uncle and all my mom's relatives were Canadian, but that's not a big diff.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

not really. My family was still in Italy or rolling around in wagons in Europe

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

My family came over here in 18th, 19th c's.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

wow, been there a while then.

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

There's a graveyard in Pennsylvania with some of my dad's ancestors going back to the 18th c. Pennsylvania Dutch.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

neat. Where? Eastern? (which would make sense) I grew up in PA

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

I'd have to ask my brother or mother. They're the historians in the family, and they're the ones who visited the graveyard. It's been many, many generations since any of my family were there. Even my great-grandfather had a farm in Nebraska, and his wife's parents are buried in graveyard in Hooper, Nebraska (my great-great grandparents).

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

your family history is probably pretty interesting. We keep trying to find ours but obstacles always crop up

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

It helps to have a professional historian for a brother who is both ready and willing to do the leg work. He made the trip to Pennsylvania specifically to trace my father's family's roots, and during a trip to Paris he rented a car and drove up to my mother's uncle's WWI grave.

I need to pick his brain soon to get more of the details down.

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

that's cool. For us the research is rather expensive since much of it requires going overseas. We did do some when Ellis Island onlined their records and found out that Grandma Jana (who I was supposed to be named for) wasn't Croatian as we always thought. That line was Romany

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

You had an ancestor named Jana of the Romany people??

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

My greatgrandmother. My parents were going to name me Jana then decided it was too old world. And yes certain episodes of the show make me snicker

[masqthephlsphr.livejournal.com]

[bad Eastern European accent]

"You are still Jana of da Kalderash people! A gypsy!"

[/bad Eastern European accent]

[cornerofmadness.livejournal.com]

SNORT! If we turn out to actually be Kalderash I'll cry