English Card

Scan of a Christmas Card from Christmas Past

English Card, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Happy Holidays!

I'll be back to blogging the week of January 6, 2014.
Rest, relax and stay healthy. Thanks for reading my blog!

Message from Mom

2001 Calendar, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

 For Christmas 2001, we gave my mother a calendar of lighthouses. After she died in June 2002, I had the awful task of sorting through drawers and selling the furniture that we did not take. 

In with a drawer with the phone book I found the calendar that we gave her the year before with this lovely message on it. I ripped this page off and kept it.

It says she appreciated the effort we made to make a nice Christmas for her that year. I really think she felt that she had had enough of her life but lived another year. I had to shut off the machines, as she had directed, so this made me feel better about doing so. 

Christmas can be a sad time of year for many people. If so, should be remembered as part of the balance of life.

Christmas 1957

Christmas 1957, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

I turned ten in 1957, and my grandpa had been gone since June of 1955. This was the last year in my grandparent's large English Tudor house as she sold it and moved in the early spring of 1958. I was still young enough to have dolls and play in my room at her house. Christmas was always spent away at her house until she moved in with my parents when she turned 80. My husband never saw the inside of this house, as Grandma Jo lived in an apartment when I met him. 

The couch was bought when she sold the grand piano the year before. It fit very well in her new apartment. It was great for naps after long hours of homework on weekends. It moved with her to the room built onto my parents home.

I remember this Christmas as a happy one. The sadness of losing Grandpa was lifted and moving to a new place seemed to brighten her up. 

Family Heirloom Decorations

Teardrop Ornament, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

Heirloom Responsibility

This antique Christmas tree ornament was found on my grandmother's Christmas tree. It is glass and was a tarnished gold color. Many years ago, I bought gold "hobby" paint and spent some time carefully painting it. Then, I rolled in in a little glitter.

I am fairly sure that it belonged to my great grandparents or my 2nd great grandparents.

I do know (thorough years of research) that items that were in my 2nd great grandparents (Dudley Stewart) home eventually went to my great grandfather, Charles Edward Stewart. His mother was Eliza Fish Denison and she went to live with him until her death.

I remember asking my grandmother why she went to live with her son instead of her daughter. I do know that the house was not a problem because her daughter lived in a big house in Groton, CT. My grandmother answer was vague. People are not good at saying, "I don't know."

Things just keep getting passed down in my family. Many people think that is a great thing but I think of it as a responsibility. Am I to be forever responsible for the items of past generations?

I have now packed this item away forever. It is very fragile and not very pretty. I have bought new unbreakable ornaments.

Some things don't last forever.

Yawn

Yawn, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

As you can see, this was the December (today the 11th) that I got a descendant. She was born late, almost four weeks. I put her under the tree and put my Santa pin on her. My aunt made her the stocking which was almost her size.

Happy Birthday to my baby. How did you get to be 38?

Holiday Door Decoration

Reindeer, a photo by midgefrazel on Flickr.

This upcoming February I hope to be writing about how I researched my childhood neighborhood and what memories I have of it. There was an annual Christmas door contest and this reindeer was made by my father and painted by my mother for that year.

Yes, I still have this and if it is not a snowy winter, I try to put it out to remember my parents. 

The Glass Wax Christmas, Part 2

[This is a true story from the memories of Midge Frazel]

The Glass Wax Christmas, Part Two

It has probably been sixty years since this event. It was just one day but it stands out as a very special memory that I cherish for many reasons. (Part 1 is here).

With her brown banana curls, flashing brown eyes, and a tendency to stomp her feet with her hands on her hips when she didn't get her way, Linda intimidated most adults and children with her brains and her ideas of how it should be! She was the smartest person I have ever know.

Quickly, she and I discussed how we were going to use the stencils. She decided that I would hold the stencil down on the glass and she would dab the Glass Wax on the glass. This would have worked fine if I had been tall enough. Her mother came to the rescue with a small chair for me to stand on.  In no time, we had stars, holly and candles on each pane. 

With only two panes of glass to go, she decided we should both do an angel. It was a bigger stencil and harder to do, so I did the first one. It came out perfectly. When it was her turn, she set her mouth and jaw as she did when she concentrated and put her angel on the glass! We were done!

With great delight, we admired our work. Linda's mom said we had just enough time for cookies. Her dad had made Italian cookies like his mother taught him. We got to use as much powdered sugar as we wanted. It was a day to remember. While we ate, Linda's mom checked to see if the decorations were dry and assembled the living room back in order.

We put on our coats and went to the bottom of the driveway. My mother was already at the top of the street. I thanked them and walked rapidly toward my mom. It was getting dark, just as it is today. It was nearly the shortest day of the year.

I think of this little adventure every year when the light grows short for you see Linda's life was a fleeting as the daylight that day. 

She died at 14 while bowling with friends, of a massive brain tumor. She had moved away to a new neighborhood when she was 11. I only saw her once after that. She was ripped from my life twice but I will never forget her.

You see, I believe Linda is my own special angel, waiting to guide me into heaven. She looks like the angel in the Glass Wax stencil. Serene, lovely and perfect. I am sure our mothers will be there too with her, waiting on the streets of heaven for us as they did those ordinary days. I hope they miss me as much as I remember them.

Thank you for reading my true life Christmas story.

1953 Cranston, RI City Directory

Previous Post
 
   

The Glass Wax Christmas

[This is a true story from the memories of Midge Frazel]

The Glass Wax Christmas, Part One

It has probably been sixty years since this event. It was just one day but it stands out as a very special memory that I cherish for many reasons.

Glass Wax is a window glass cleaner that came in a metal can. During the holiday season in the 1950s, a sample stencil wasaffixed to the front and back of the can with directions for use. (Then you bought a book of more stencils.) It was a pink liquid that when it dried, turned white. It was economical and cleaned windows well even if it was messy.

I lived in a neighborhood that was called "The Plat" because all of the houses were built within a few years in the post World War II boom. Many people wanted to move away from the city, out into the suburbs and because they owned a car, they could drive to work. Before this many people used public buses and trolley cars or walked to work. Driving to work was a new idea then and many returning servicemen (like my father) could buy an affordable house maybe 15 or 20 minutes from their place of employment.
  
Some of the houses in my neighborhood were occupied by older people who had been living with parents until the parents died, and then they inherited the family home in the city, which they sold and moved to this growing area of shopping plazas and small industries. It was a multi-ethnic neighborhood. The city directories for my home state confirm that my memory is correct.

I had a girl friend, about my own age, an only child like me, living on an adjacent street. Our fathers took the cars to work and the mothers stayed home and were housewives. Both families had a telephone, which was not all that common, because it was a new area. Our mothers called each other to set up a time for us to play at one of the houses. 

My mother walked with me to the intersection of the two streets and waited for Linda's mother to come out of her house and walk to the bottom of the driveway where my mother could see her.

Mom would watch me walk all the way down the street until I reached the safety of Linda's driveway. She'd wave and turn and walk back to our house. This process was reversed or our fathers would take us home when they returned from work while the women made supper.   

One day, in December, Linda's mom told us that we could use the Glass Wax stencils. Linda's dad was a printer and they was always a lot of scrap paper in her house for us to color on or cut up. I assumed that's what we were going to do. But, no, Linda's mother was going to let us put the stencil on a window pane and dab on the glass wax as it showed on TV.

I was so surprised because Linda's living room had a WHITE rug! I couldn't believe it! Adults can be so mystifying!

But, there it was, the rug was turned back, the furniture moved and the curtains held back from the windowpanes. It was surreal. 

I looked at my friend to see if I was dreaming. Linda was known to be able to talk her parents into anything she wanted to do. So, into the formal living room we went with Linda's dad's big chef aprons tied around us. I was actually terrified. What if we spilled the Glass Wax on the floor?

Continued here

Ruth's Double Toffee Delight

Ruth
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

This coffeecake is excellent for the holidays because it can be made a couple of days ahead and when cooled after baking wrapped tightly in foil until serving it will keep fresh. It does freeze well. I have made it with Splenda and sugar free pudding mixes and it was fine. Make sure you are using INSTANT pudding mixes.

Double Toffee Coffeecake

Preheat oven to 350 degrees. Prepare a 13x9 pan by greasing the bottom and sides with Crisco and dusting with flour or by using PAM Baking Spray. I made this year's batch in two smaller disposable aluminum foil pans for easier transport.

Combine (for topping) in a small bowl, 1 1/2 cups packed brown sugar and 1T cinnamon. (one cup chopped nuts can be added if you wish) Mix  ingredients for easy sprinkling,

In a large bowl, combine:
2 cups flour, 1 cup sugar, 2 tsp. baking powder, 1 tsp. salt, 1 pkg dry INSTANT vanilla pudding mix, 1 pkg. dry INSTANT butterscotch pudding mix, 1 cup water, 3/4 cup salad oil, 1 tsp. vanilla and 4 eggs.

Beat mixture two minutes with electric mixer, scraping bowl frequently. Pour some of the batter into the pan, and sprinkle with some of the topping mixture. Pour remaining batter over and then, sprinkle with remaining topping. I don't fuss with the layering as when it bakes it runs together anyway.

Bake at 350 degrees for 40 to 45 minutes until top springs back when lightly touched in the center. Cool before wrapping in foil. Cut in squares and reheat individual servings just a bit.

Ready!

Table Bags
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Happy Holidays from Granite-in-My-Blood! I am taking a short break for the holidays. Will be back soon...

Christmas Menu

Christmas Menu
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

This is a Christmas menu lovingly saved by my husband's grandmother, Linda Hyde Frazel. I put a border around it to make it look more festive!

The wonderful surprise is the inside. It not only lists the food they ate but who was in attendance. One person who was serving in the Armed Forces was included but we know he was not there on that date.

My husband and his brothers will find the menu familiar. I always thought the menu my mother-in-law made was from her side of the family but I guess not! More evidence that my father-in-law's mother was a strong influence in his life.

Notice the date. On a manual typewriter there is no numeral 1 so a lowercase l was used. They made a mistake and used an uppercase L.

Rudolph's Nose

Rudolph
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Last year, I blogged about my mother's door decorations. My husband said, "Hey let's wire up the reindeer's nose!" What a great idea.

Here's the cheerful result.

Christmas in the Cemetery II

Decorations
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

As you saw in the earlier posting, this is a photo of a gravestone in one of my local Bridgewater Cemeteries which has been decorated for the Christmas holiday with a weatherproof plastic potted decoration.

In the cemeteries where many of my own ancestors are buried, decorations and flowers (or items of mourning) are only allowed at burial. Many cemeteries are struggling with the costs of maintaining the grass, shrubs, trees and the walkways.

Families who paid for burials used to pay a fee for perpetual care. This was supposed to cover the expenses forever. I am sure no one anticipated the extreme costs of today. Most graves are not visited by later generations. Just try asking people if they visit graves even at Memorial (or Decoration Day as it used to be called).

I hope this family named Pease rests in peace.

Christmas in the Cemetery I

Orange St. [facing Walnut St.]
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

As this small country cemetery is at the end of my street, I drive by it daily and have visited it many times. It is a bit unusual in that the newer stones face one way and the older stones face another.

It is written in many books on cemeteries that New England cemeteries face all in the direction of the inscriptions facing West so that on the day of Judgment (as many Christians believe), when the angel Gabriel blows his horn for the second coming of Christ, those buried will rise up to face the East. [Source: Carmack page 158]

Personally, I think it was a matter of space in later years that caused burials in different positions but this cemetery is an unusual case in my town.

Orange St. Cemetery has two gate openings, this one shown here from Walnut St. and one on Orange St. As you can see, this one is missing a gate.

One Christmas season, my husband and I were driving by this cemetery and got a big surprise! An elderly lady had driven her car through the opening here and right up to the graves. Talk about getting close to your loved ones at Christmastime!

She was busily attaching a Christmas wreath to one of the larger stones to the left out of range of this photo. Naturally, I was wondering if she could navigate her car back out through the granite posts. When we returned home, driving by again, she was gone so evidently she was quite used to doing this yearly! I have been looking for a car that is scraped on both sides...

I have been waiting for her to come this year so that I could take a picture of the grave with the wreath on it. She did not come back, at least not yet.

The wreath used to get brown and ugly as the winter wore on. She didn't come back to take it down. I often wish I had stopped to find out if she lived far away and could I help her take it down after Christmas. It made the winter cemetery scene look sad and lonely.

As I live in a town with a prison, the town has made an arrangement with the state to have our cemeteries cleaned several times a year by prison work crews. They can be seen in orange jumpsuits busily raking and taking away debris.

Sometime ago, a Boy Scout made the wooden signs of all of the small cemeteries here with the date and the name the cemetery is called in this era. If you look closely, you will see it says "Pratt Town Cemetery 1828" which is the date for this newer section.

This cemetery has been recorded and transcribed and that information can be found here.

Crompton Christmas Adventure Part 4

It all started with a gravestone...

Passenger Records take a lot of analysis. They are often hard to read, even the ones that are typed. Dates and sequences of numbers are written above the names, below the names and in the margins obliterating the information.

The first Cromptons in this family to come here must be my uncle Jack (John) and his father. Uncle Jack was only 19 and it looks like his father left him here and returned to England to bring more family over. They went to the coal mines in West Virginia. This first trip was in the fall of 1921. [Which makes it in-between US Census years, darn!] Father and son went to Williamson, WV. from their landing at Ellis Island.

In the fall of 1922, Uncle Jack's father, James William Crompton, his mother Rebecca and their teen sons Frank and Harry came together. This left behind their oldest son Fred and only daughter Doris who were adults and married by this date. The record says the father was here 8 months ago, so he must have only stayed 4 months in WV.

Next, Fred (Steve's ancestor) and his wife Ethel and their daughter and son arrived in the fall of 1923. They are listed as going to see Fred's parents in WV.

In 1924, son Frank arrived in NY going to WV. He is 19 and is still single.

I think the family now intended to stay here permanently with only visits back to England to see Doris. She married a man named Mr. Jackson and they might never have come to America. Steve tells me that the parents returned to England, died and are buried there.

Uncle Jack is listed in the 1926 Westerly RI City Directory as living in the Bradford section of Westerly at 4 Bowling Lane. This is at the opposite end of the same street as his future wife lives. Annie and Jack married in 1929 and moved away from Westerly.

This is the end of the adventure for this Christmas season. Steve is going to talk to his mother and grandmother and find out more. Isn't he lucky that they are still living?

Crompton Christmas Adventure Post 3

It all started with a gravestone...

While my counterpart Steve works in retail by day, I am trying to keep the flow of Crompton information moving along. He's done a great job adding in the earlier generations and now I have to connect my Ancestry tree to his so that I have the same data and census records as he has found.

I keep a desktop genealogy application besides the one I host at Ancestry. I have to set aside time to add what I discover at Ancestry to my database and back it up. I keep private notes in it and questions for future ideas. I have to do that now while we wait for Christmas to be past.

Here's the basic family we started with:

James William Crompton and his wife Rebecca Wolstenholme had 5 children. Steve and I only knew about 4 of them. From the passenger lists, we discover that a child named Doris stayed behind in England while the rest of the family went adventuring to America. She marrried a man named Mr. Jackson. It must be that James William and Rebecca returned home to be with their daughter and died there. It would be nice to find out where they are buried.

John (Jack) Crompton's brothers, Fred (Steve's ancestor), Frank and Harold (Harry) came to America with their mother after my uncle Jack and his father came here first. But, wait! Fred was not listed with the younger boys and the mother. As I reported earlier, I found that he was married and came here to Boston later. So many passenger lists to go through to get it right!

The discovering is great fun but the recording is WORK. That's what I must do now. More Crompton adventures follow...

Crompton Christmas Adventure Post 2

Remember, it all started with a gravestone....

To effectively help someone else out with their family, you have to stay organized and keep communicating. Communication is easy these days but you have to find time to work with each email! I pulled all I knew about this family and put it in a notebook.

I keep an ordinary index card file on each "client" like Steve with the surname, the client's name and contact information and their email. I jot down what they asked in their first email and if they are related to me which ancestor we have in common. In this case, I made a list of the gravestone, places where other family members may be buried and any work I have done previously to this line.

At one time, I taught a workshop on Ellis Island after doing a lot of reading and listening to lectures given by John Coletta and Sharon Carmack. I researched my own family and anyone else that was related to them. That's why I already had a file on my uncle.

I reviewed what I knew about them from the oral interview I took to finding them in cenus records. I sent Steve the Ellis Island Passenger lists I found and we went over them. He questioned, rightly so, the generation above Uncle Jack's father, James William Crompton. It was a wrong guess. Steve worked successfully on creating a tree at Ancestry, adding in his family and mine and seeing where they overlapped. He worked on possibilities for the earlier generations while I searched the Rhode Island City Directories. [I LOVE city directories!]

With both of us toiling away and concentrating on specific tasks, we have accomplished much! I started a list of what we still did not know and spent a morning looking for his ancestor's passenger list. He was so excited that I found it. That's so rewarding for me! It was a big missing piece.

His ancestors stayed in England longer than my uncle and his father. We knew they were there at a certain date because they had a child born there. The 1881 and 1891 British census records helped with that. Finally, I found them coming into Boston (not Ellis Island). The passenger list is fairly clear as it is typed. But, some of the places of birth are hand corrected and are very faint. Steve's eyes are younger than mine so I have him working on that.

The adventure continues. Fortunately for us, Steve's mother is still living and is excited by what we have found. He may find out more from his family over Christmas. That will be fun for me.

My aunt and uncle were very special to me and I do this in their memory and to further my ability to be a professional genealogist. The quest continues...

Norway Paper Decoration

Norway Paper Decoration
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Cabinet of Curiosities, 12th edition

Three maiden ladies of Norwegian ancestry moved in next door to my parents when I was a little girl. They were great fun. They gave me several heirlooms, probably not of significant monetary value, when they got old. This is one of them. It seems to be very old, maybe it belonged to their parents or grandparents. It is made of paper. I think this year when I get it out, I will put it in an acid-free envelope meant for photographs.

What the significance of this, I am not sure. Was it meant to be given like a Christmas Card or was it designed to be placed on the branches of the Christmas tree. Maybe someone can tell me?

Helga, Astrid and Mary Louise Elstad will live on because I remember them, their passion for making Christmas cookies and for watching soap operas.

I wonder where they are buried?

Happy Holidays

English Card
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

This morning I decided to try scanning the front of a Christmas Card I designed in 1992 with my old Apple IIGS. After scanning it, I edited it in Picnik (Premium) and added the "stamp" effect around it.

I know this seems crazy, but I am going to try to use this as my Christmas Card for next Christmas. I have always loved this English village setting and think it is the best card I ever made. (It was printed on a color dot matrix printer which is why you can see tiny lines.) It is actually yellowing with age a bit.

As we will be grandparents for next Christmas, I think if I use this card with a photo of the child inside, no one will remember that I used it so long ago.

Wishing all of you very happy and healthy holidays. "Granite in my Blood" will resume the gravestone adventures now.

The Gift of Grandparents

205 Wentworth Ave.
Originally uploaded by midgefrazel

Carnival of Genealogy 61st edtion, December, 2008

The Gift of Grandparents
"over the river and through the woods to grandmother's house we go": a traditional for Christmas.

When I was a little girl, this is the house my maternal grandparents lived in. This is where most of my Christmas traditions begin. (This is what it looks like today through the magic of technology.) As it was nearby to the laundry and dry cleaning plant that my grandfather owned and my father, his son-in-law managed, we spent most of my early Christmas vacations living with my grandparents.

Santa brought my toys here and it is here that we trimmed the tree, baked the cookies, enjoyed the decorations and ate our roast beef Christmas dinner. When I dream about past Christmas times long ago, this is the setting. Isn't it a beautiful house?

As a child living with many grownups, I remember sitting on the landing and listening to the joke presents of the grownups. They drew a name at the Thanksgiving dinner table and won the right to pick on that person with a gift and a poem. My grandmother cheated one year and made sure she got her sister as she had already bought the gift. I was sworn to secrecy. It was great fun and they never found out I listened. We don't carry on this tradition and I have no photos of the event except in the deepest part of my memories. Every family should have a time to pick on each other and laugh about it.

Grandpa indulged my every whim. He was very sick and I understood he didn't have long to live. He bought me my first book, the Audubon Bird Guide, as he and I sat for hours watching the bird feeders. It was my birthday gift when I was two years old.

Grandma lived a very long time. She was a great hostess, had all her friends over for a big Christmas tea (I hid under the piano and watched the ladies) and probably bought, wrapped and hid most of my gifts as she drove and my mother did not. My grandparents are my favorite holiday tradition.

I think about their traditions of family, especially now that I am to be a grandmother. I've got until June to get ready and a lot to live up to.