Flashback Friday…Unlucky 13

Remember all those years when I fretted over whether I would get the Christmas video done…

and then somehow at the last minute, always managed to get it done?

Well, Unlucky 13.

It finally happened.
The combination of computer crash, old dog (me), new tricks (new imovie software), a way too heavy heart in November (my dear friend losing her cancer battle) and just too much waiting til the last minute,caught up with me and I just
couldn't.get.it.together.

(I'm really sorry, Joey)

So, for those who were there, hope you are enjoying the ghosts of Christmas past….

12 years of 

DanceWithNance

For those who weren't, I'll catch up with you sometime to give you your copies.

And this old dog is chaining myself to the desktop to make myself learn this software and get it together for Easter.

Thanks for understanding and for all the cheerleading over the years!



Directions to here:

FYI…
I've written it down.
Christmas is on Dec. 25th next year, right?
Okay, got it.

Flashback Friday…The Family Living Room

On Sister Janet's birthday I posted a picture of little Janet in what I believe was Grandma Fern's Farm house.

Cousin Denise, who as you know, bought and now lives in Mom and Dad's house, made a few comments and we spent a half hour or so, chatting back and forth about memories of the house, the little Red House, The Log Cabin, etc.

I'm amazed at Denise's memory of the Cabin and Grandma's house. 

I forget that she is one of the first grandkids on the Wayne Vandercar side of the family...
which puts her in the time where she would remember more about things that the younger grandkids have only heard stories about.

I enjoyed our Facebook chat very much.

A week or so later, I was looking thru old Christmas pictures.

When Grandma Fern was still living in the Red House…her kids, Wayne, Bob and Gladys would trade off having Christmas…on Christmas Day. Eventually, as the families kept getting bigger, we outgrew everyone's living room and around 1983 or so, starting having the "Vandercar Christmas in July."

I found this picture from a Vandercar Christmas taken on Christmas Day. 

mid 1973-4ish

That is Denise opening a gift in our Living Room.

I thought it was cool to see her as a child, celebrating Christmas in this Living Room and that she now celebrates Christmas in this Living Room as an adult.

Denise says she thinks of Grandma Fern and Mom very often and has a lot of memories and often senses them there…

....kinda cool that she might see flashbacks of her childhood too.

Directions to here:

Oh, and here's a flash back of Vanderkid childhood!

I was looking at a pic that Denise posted on Facebook....(sorry Al...caught you sleeping)
and I asked her…
"is that tile in the living room…and is it tan?"

The answer was yes! 
They pulled up the carpet…revealing the tan tile of our childhoods!!

Remember When..sday

The Mister Vandercars

Flashback Friday...."Okay...Honey"

It was the end of the summer of 2000.

The previous Spring, I had left the job that I thought I would have for the rest of my life.
I spent the summer decompressing, sleeping, reading and wondering what was next.

I mean, after ten years of answering "the call to come help change the world" as your job description, honestly, where do you go after that?

I had no clue, but I knew I was 3 weeks away from running out of all the money I had in the world.

It was time to get a job.
I had always wondered what it would be like to work in a bookstore.
So, I applied to three different stores.

I interviewed with Barnes and Noble.
They wanted me to work part-time...which to them meant 38 hours with no insurance.

It wasn't ideal, but it was the best offer I had.
Then I came home one day and heard a message on the answering machine.

"Hello?
This message is for Nancy.
Nancy, this is Chris Turner, at Half Price Books.
I'm calling about your application...we'd like to interview you, if you're still interested.
So give me a call me back and we'll set up an appointment....
Okay honey? Alright, I'll talk to you later, Dear."

I remember standing in the living room and smiling at the answering machine.




"Honey?" "Dear?"
Was this a Bookstore or a Diner that serves up comfort food and homemade pie, where the waitress calls you honey?

I went to the interview and The rest is, as they say, history.

13 years later, although a lot has changed in the land of bookselling, I'm still working at the Bookstore.
11 of those 13 years I worked for the woman that left that message on my machine.


Chris Turner.

Chris always told me that I could not leave or transfer to another store (read Chicagoland), until she retired.

She ended up taking an early retirement to focus on staying well and continue her battle against colon cancer.

I talked to her exactly one month ago today and she was still spitting out her catch phrases that her employees call "Turnerisms." She told me she had been working on her bucket list and crossed off riding in a combine and that she was going to go to the Eiteljorg Museum with her sisters on the next Friday.
A week or so after I talked to her, she went into the hospital.

Two weeks later she passed away.





As I mentioned, Chris was the kind of person that had a long list of trade-mark catch phrases.
She was the kind of person that can call you "Honey...Sweetie....Dooberhead...
or shout....No, No, No, No...or....shut, shut, shutty....talk to the hand cause the face isn't listening..."
in loud voice and still not make you feel offended.

She was down to earth. Tell it like it is. You hardly ever wondered where you stood with her.
She told you the good and she told you the bad.
Sometimes it was great to hear. Other times it sent us running to hide until the rant passed.
But her heart was big and she held no grudges.

Chris was the kind of manager that you don't appreciate until she's not your manager.
She was a master delegator.
She knew how to create responsible employees by giving her workers tasks, trusting them to do their best and getting out of their way while they do it, either succeeding or failing.
Most succeed, and by doing so, ownership is created and when employees feel like they "own it," they care more. When they care more, they are happier and when they are happier, the business is successful.
Much of Chris' style was unorthodox in many professional (read corporate) circles, but there are few stores where a manager can be on medical leave for months at a time and everything still runs smoothly.
It's because the employees step up and own it.

Chris not only had trade mark phrases, she also had trade mark beliefs.

I honestly don't believe I would have stayed working in retail for as long as I have if it wasn't for having her as a boss and the the values she held.

I learned a lot from Chris.
But there are a few that I still apply every.single.day.

1. "There are No Book Emergencies"

There is a bumper sticker that says "I know there is a hell, I work in retail."
Most days it is not true, but there are some days, some customers, some incidents that make this bumper sticker ring true.
There is a lot of crazy that happens when dealing with the public...
especially in a business that both sells AND buys things to and from their customers.
There is a lot that can happen when 30 plus people work together all day, every day.
Drama happens.
In those situations, Chris would often shout it out:

"There are No Book Emergencies!!!"

And it is a simple saying.
But also a very true saying.
To this day, whenever the customer or employee Drama threatens to push me past the edge...
I hear her "There are No Book Emergencies" in the back of my head and I (usually) take a deep breath and step back from the ledge.

2. "It's just Books"

For several years, when people would ask if I still liked working at the bookstore, my response was "it's the least like work of anything else I can think of."
People, there is more to life than Work.
You get a pass on this if your work is saving lives or making people's lives better, but seriously,
most of Work is just work.
And Chris Turner knew this.
While she was an avid book lover and cared a lot about her work...
I often heard her say...
"It's just Books...get over it."
And it took the edge off.
It made us not take ourselves or the above drama too seriously.
A few years before I started working there, Chris, who used to live in Indianapolis, moved back to her home town to be closer to her parents and her family. This meant an hour commute each way, but for years she didn't seem to mind...
because she knew there was more to life than work.
And when I was running back and forth to Lowell to help with selling Mom and Dad's house and then later, when Dad's health was failing, Chris was there with understanding...
reminding me...that "It's just Books..."
giving me permission to focus on what's important.

And finally,

3. "The Good Lord knows..."

Chris was a cancer survivor.
She had a deadly cancer as a younger woman and lived to tell about it.

One day, when she went to the doctor to find out about stomach pain she had been having...none of us expected it to turn out like it did.
Chris was a fighter and fought long and hard against this disease.
But, early on, she told me point blank:
"I'm gonna die from this stupid cancer."
But as she told me that she also told me....
"but it's okay. I know where I'm going."
Chris knew what she believed. She believed "the Good Lord knows what he's doing."
She didn't understand why everything happened the way it did, but she had faith and knew where she was going.

I hate that this stupid disease took so much of her energy and robbed her of enjoying her retirement and her "golden" years.
But as I sat next to her at the hospital and held her hand, I could tell, she was at peace.
She lived and died as one who knew where she was going.
And that is a gift.
For her.
And for those who loved her.




Her home going has reminded me once again of what a force Chris Turner was in this life.
Her home going has reminded me to live and work by her "Turnerisms" sayings and beliefs.
And her home going has reminded me of how much I loved this woman, who ended most of her conversations with "Okay, Honey."

It is hard to believe the world will never again hear her leave out the back door,
shouting her trademark goodbye:

 "Ta Ta Tu Tu's!!!

See ya tomorrow!"

Farewell, Dear Friend.

You are loved.

Directions to here:

Oh, in case you were wondering, it never escaped me that Chris is a Turner.
I always told her it was why we got along so well. I'm sure in the way, way, back of the family tree, we are family.

Remember When..esday

The Great Pumpkin

 Starring 

 Drew Hayden!

Flashback Friday...The Golden Girls

They are Golden!!

Happy Golden Birthday, Avery and Alexa!

Remember When..esday

Remember when we were Pirates?

That was awesome!

These kids are catching up with me!!

Happy 30th Birthday

Joey!!!

Flashback Friday...Pierce Cousins

Thinking of these cousins this weekend as they have their Family get together.

We Love the Pierce Family!

Directions to here:

the baby is missing here.

gotta keep digging into the photos to find one of all of you : )

Ruby Tuesday....Finding Martha

So, Who was Martha Vandercar?

Tossie

Well, do you remember Tossie Ebert?
Do you remember Grandma Fern ever talking about Stella Wallace?

Those are the names and faces that bring us closer to who may have stood next to Martha's grave and mourned her passing.

I remember Grandma talked a lot about taking care of people. 

I know at one time, she worked for a Doctor in Lowell and took care of at least one of their children.

She took care of her "folks"...meaning her grandparents and probably her mom and dad as well.
I'm not sure, but I think she actually left home and went to live with many of the people she cared for.

Stella (Vandercar) Wallace

I also think I remember her talking about helping to take care of Stella "Grandma" Wallace.

I had searched for Martha Vandercar on the internet off and on for 10 years. 

I think every year, as more records were digitized and added...it brought me closer and closer to finding her.

One night, I came across a picture of Grandma Fern's with the name Stella Wallace written on the back. I remembered Grandma Fern talking about her.
I googled Stella Wallace and I accidentally (how most things genealogy come to me)...
found Martha.

STELLA WALLACE, 91 , PASSED AWAY LAST THURSDAY NIGHT

   Stella Louisa (Vandercar) Wallace, youngest of three children of Adna S.
and Martha (Hogan) Vandercar, was born at Orchard Grove, Lake County, Ind.,

I then found this on the Lowell History page:

EARLY HISTORY ORCHARD GROVE

WRITTEN BY MRS. STELLA WALLACE, AND READ AT O.G. WOMEN'S CLUB

Mrs. Stella Wallace, one of the oldest residents of Orchard Grove, was asked to write a paper on the "Early History of Orchard Grove."The following paper was written by Mrs. Stella Wallace, aged 76, and read by Mrs. Fred E. Ebert at the Woman's Club meeting. Some of the members requested that it be published as some of the younger generation have no idea of the hardships in olden times.



"My father and mother, Mr. and Mrs. Adna Vandercar, came to this country in 1846, driving an ox team hitched to a covered wagon.There were three families, each driving their own team. They did their cooking along the road side and slept in their wagons.
When father got here he had 3 cents in money. Of course, the first thing to do was to write a letter back home -- that took the three cents, so they were here in a new country, strange to people and without any money. He said all they could do was to try and get work, and he went to looking for work at once."

So breaking this down:

Adna and Martha Vandercar were the parents of Stella...who married a Wallace.
Stella had a daughter named Addie
Addie had a daughter named Tossie who married an Ebert.
Tossie is the mother of Carlton Ebert.
Carlton had several kids...many of whom you know, and he is the father of Carlton, Jr. "Jig," whostill lives in Orchard Grove on the corner close to where Adna and Martha first settled.

(sidenote: while I was adding Adna and Martha to our family tree on Ancestry, I received a message from another Ancestory user.
We messaged back and forth about how we knew Stella Wallace. Eventually, we figured out that we were old neighbors...and that's how I (re)met Linda (Ebert) Wilson, Carlton Ebert's daughter)!

So, this means we are related to the Eberts through the Vandercar side. 

And the Vandercars were connected to the Kenney side through their both settling in the Orchard Grove area.
I suppose most of you knew that ages ago. I suppose I had heard it too. But I never knew just how.

Because of this article, I actually know more about Adna's arrival to the area than I do of my own Great, Great Grandparents, Abram and Isabel....I'm still working on this mystery : )

The crazy thing is...
Martha's grave marker that leans up against a tree, is only a stone's throw away from where it belongs. 

All those years I stood there and wondered and fretted that she had been separated from her people....
Her people were right behind me!

I discovered this...shortly after I made the Stella Wallace collection.

I was walking up the hill one day and all of a sudden, saw the Wallace stone. 

To the left, was an older white stone that is marks Adna Vandercar...Stella's Father,

which is the same style and shape as Martha's "lost" stone.

And sure enough, the stone next to Adna is broken off...
only the base remains.

I think, in time...

I may just have to go to the trustee...to see if I have put all of this together correctly and to see if the official cemetery record matches my theory.

And I may just have to see how much it would cost to repair and replace Martha's headstone to it's proper place.

It's the least a Vandercar daughter could do for a Vandercar mother.

Directions to here:

Thanks for listening to this "Accidental Genealogist's" quest to keep the promise I made to Martha.

Flashback Friday...Pickin' Corn

Time to Pick the Corn!

Stay Safe, all you Farmers!!

Ruby Tuesday....Searching for Martha

I'm not sure exactly when I discovered Martha's headstone at Orchard Grove.

I'm gonna guess it was probably between 1999 and 2001.

I remember looking up her name on the Internet. 

I would say I "googled" her, but I think it was pre-google.

I found nothing.

Every time a genealogy question came up in the family...
I would ask if anyone had ever heard of Martha.
I heard nothing.

I found the Kenney Record that Ruby had written...and I checked it for Martha.
Nothing.

I remember finding some records about Lulu Vandercar online and it was then I figured out that Aunt Lulu was related on both sides of the family....she was a Vandercar, who married a Tilton.
I knew that, but I didn't always get it straight.

I started to get interested in figuring out more of our Family History.
Honestly, most everything I found, most everyone already knew.
It was just the case of me growing up and getting to the age where you realize that these people...we're related to...are interesting people....and I wanted to know more about them.

I rediscovered the Bryant book and heard stories about the Turner side of the family from Jane Sanders.

But still no Martha.

Around, 2008 or 2009, I googled "A.S. Vandercar" again and found a question someone had left on Ancestry.com about Adna:

"I have been quoted from a book that 3 Vandercar families travelled together in covered wagons to Indiana where Adna Vandercar and his family settled in 1846. Don't know if the other 2 families also stayed in Indiana or went on to MI.
Anyone know of this story?"  2002

There was no response.

In 2009, New York Lisa was celebrating a Big Birthday in Vegas and we decided to go and surprise her.

I decided to extend the trip with a side trip to Arizona and reconnect with the original family genealogist...Ruby Lawson.

In the search for Martha, it was the first of many..."Hi, we're related...can I come talk to you," phone calls I've made ; )

Reconnecting with Ruby was the point of no return for resisting the accidental pull toward genealogy.
I had brought a brief case of Grandma Fern's pictures and Ruby told me something about each one of them. She spent 2 days pulling records from her "chifforobe" and her extra bedroom closet. She showed me a treasure trove of antique books and photos about Lowell, Lake County and our family.

But when I asked her who Martha Vandercar was, there was no answer.
When I asked about Adna Vandercar...she said..."Oh, Uncle Ab."
But she was talking about Albert Vandercar, not Adna.

Later that year, Mike and his kids came up for the Labor Day parade. We asked where they would be...he said at the cemetery with the Vandercars: Meaning, sitting by the Vandercar stones in the Lowell Cemetery.
Deandra got restless and I took off for a walk with her.
I had never really seen or taken note of these stones. I found Albert and Hattie and their parents Abram and Isabel. And a lot of other Vandercars all in a row.
More clues to the Vandercar line....

But nothing new to connect them to Martha.

(side note: If you want a profound memory keeping...circle of life...experience....take a walk thru a cemetery with a newborn in your arms and stand in front of her Great, Great, Great, Great Grandpa and Grandma's Headstone...and introduce them to her).



The treasure trove of Ruby's records and pictures stayed on my mind.
In 2011, I made a plan to go back with a scanner to get her collection digitized.

In preparation, I gathered her record book (names and dates) and a book of Kenney history that Carl Kenney, Jr. had written. I read the second on the plane and it made the first record book start to make sense. I felt like I was getting a grasp on this Kenney family and like I was starting to understand how all of these names that I have heard my entire life...connect together.

But WHO is MARTHA???

Scanning Ruby's pictures helped me put faces to the names....and stories.
I could follow along the record book and see faces....which made it easier to keep them straight.
I could read and listen to stories and mentally see their place in the Kenney record and start to see which branch of the family they belonged to. And Ruby talked and talked and talked about everyone from the Kenneys and the Tiltons to the Dinwiddies. She told me stories about her mom and Grandma Fern. Grandma Fern was pretty good about writing on the backs of pictures, but names only, not necessarily how they were related. Ruby told me who Stella "Grandma" Wallace was, about several Eberts, about Aunt "Tin" and the Craft Brothers and she told me how they all fit into the History of Orchard Grove.
Again, stuff that a lot of you already knew, but now it was making sense to me.

I came home from that trip and while looking up information on the Kenney General Store, I re-discovered the Lowell Library's "History of Lowell" page. I had been on there before and had found pictures of Dad from his high school days and about his telegrams home from the war.

It dawned on me that I had never searched for Adna and Martha Vandercar on the Lowell page.

I did and after 10 + years of Accidental Genealogy...

...I found Martha.


Directions to here:

Yep.
I waited for 10 years, you can wait a bit longer : )

Flashback Friday...Origins of an Accidental Genealogist

My mom died in 1999 (sigh)

My dad lived in the house until 2002.

For those few years, when I would come home for a visit...I would get off of I65 and no matter what time of day it was or what was going on...
I would drive past the house and turn south on 55 and stop at Orchard Grove.

It was just something I did. 

I didn't feel I had to...or that it was because that was where my mom "was."

I just went there...

Walked up to that headstone and would have a moment.

Sometimes I left a rose.

Sometimes I picked weeds.

Sometimes I just sat down and   watched the grass grow, leaves blow or sunset.

Sometimes I just ran my hand across the top of the stone or knelt down to study the etching. 

Sometimes I was quiet, sometimes I talked to mom.

Sometimes I laughed out loud and sometimes I cried.

A few times I hummed or sang a song.

Sometimes I would wander and wonder about the other headstones there.

Somewhere along the way, in one of these wandering moments, I came across a headstone that was leaning up against that big tree that sits on the hill.

It is so weathered with time, you could barely make out that it says Vandercar.
Looking closer, I could make out the inscription:

 "Martha"... 

"wife of A.S. Vandercar"

I stepped back and felt a little piece of my heart open.
The stone was leaning up against the tree because it had broken off it's base and was separated from it's original spot.
Separated from it's grave.
Separated from Martha.

Now, this was before the genealogy bug had bitten me, but up until then, I had been pretty good at figuring out the family tree...
but, I could not, for the life of me recall or remember ever hearing about a Martha Vandercar.

Now, if we had the name Smith, Jones or any other more common name, this might not be so unusual.
But it is Vandercar.
There are several (and now that I am doing genealogy...more than I ever imagined)...but to be in a graveyard where my mom, with the same name, is buried and to have a lost Vandercar
...was very sobering to me.

I wondered....
Who are you, Martha?
Where are you?
Who were your people?

It struck me that maybe, years and years ago...
Martha's daughter probably came to her mom's grave and stood beside it with a broken heart...
just like I did years later when I stood next to Helen's grave.

Martha probably was loved and missed by her daughter...
just like my mom was loved and missed by her daughter.

Martha mattered.
Just like Helen mattered.

It drove me a little crazy...
that I did not know who Martha was...
or where she belonged in this cemetery.

At that moment, I told Martha...
I am going to find you.
I am going to find out who you were and where your headstone goes.

I owed it to Martha.
I owed it to her daughter.

And so began my 10 year quest of searching for Martha Vandercar...
and the origin of becoming an "accidental" genealogist.



Directions to here:

Tune in to find out what the 10 year quest uncovered.
not to mention....
(finding a whole lot of other people and stories along the way)

She would have been...88

Flashback Friday...Before there was Instagram

There was Instamatic

as in Kodak

Directions to here:

Scanned from Mom and Dad's 126 Kodak Instamatic negatives.

I had never seen this picture before...

and I love it.

Flashback Friday...10 years

Flashback Friday...Dinwiddie in Dinwiddie

A little History

From the Lowell Library site:

"Dinwiddie Station, located in Eagle Creek township on State Highway 2, just west of the now Interstate 65 interchange, was a stop on the Chicago and Wabash Valley Railroad. Started about 1898 by Benjamin J. Gifford, the railroad was given a right-of-way thru the land of Oscar and Jerome Dinwiddie, and their sister Mrs. Frances Brownell. The three agreed to give the right-of-way free of charge if the depot would be called "Dinwiddie Station."

Oscar & Joan Dinwiddie

(Ruby's Great Grandparent's)

Ruby (Dinwiddie) Lawson

Directions to here:

So glad they put up the signs after the construction...was a little worried they wouldn't return.