Song of the morning: Flavor Of The Week by American Hi-Fi

Wow..I’ve not updated this all week. I’ve made a lot of progress with my cleaning but there is still so much to do. Amidst all the sneezing and paper-cuts I have managed to procure myself a closet for my clothes. I cleaned out both of the closets in my grandma’s room so there is some space for storage at least. Also, pictures GALORE. I have a great love of finding old pictures and reliving the memories they are connected to. I’ve found so many amazing old pictures of various family members as well. For instance, I found this really cool sort of collage that I want to try and scan. The problem is that it’s all on like pieces of wood. So I will try to scan it but we’ll see what happens. My Uncle Neil and I think that Great-Grandma Esther made it (she was my Great-grandpa Harry’s second wife). I found an old photo book that must have been more or less my grandma’s baby book. it has pictures up until she turned 13.

It was kind of cool to see her parents together, back when her mother was still a Neil. She actually married 3 times in her life. She was first a Gantenbein, then married Charles Edward Neil, then Alexis Corfino with whom she had a song, grandma’s younger half brother who sadly passed away around age 19 or so. The last man she married was a terrible man with the last name Hartford. He was the cause of my great grandma’s blindness when he hurt her, during the last part of her life. She was such a strong woman though. I read this amazing article she wrote about over-coming this experience, learning to type and write again. I found pictures of her making these strange glass creatures along with the article.

Also, last week I spent some time with my Grandmother Lois. We spent a good portion of the afternoon looking through pictures and talking about them. The best part was when I found her wedding album in this little closet that I never really noticed before. We found my grandfather Erwin’s photo album from when he was in the army as well. I really need to scan some pictures from both her collections as well as grandma Dorothy’s.

I will try to scan those collages today perhaps, because they really are quite unique. Lets see…what else..I found a bunch of letters that were back and forth between Charles Edward Neil and other family members. I haven’t read through them all but that was pretty cool. I found a few cousins from my grandpa David’s side of the family that I met back in fourth grade. I have so little family that it is nice to make those connections. I wish I had better skills with web design, I’d love to make a family tree site. I guess I’ll just stick with ancestry.com among others. Lol.

That’s all for now. I’ll probably be back with pictures later.

-A