Author: Janet McKee

I currently wear many hats. My interests are genealogy, history, reading, knitting, and more. I now live in an assisted living retirement community.

Collecting …….

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There used to be a BBC program called Collector’s Choice,  This was broadcast in the afternoon and was one of our favorites.  People collect all sorts of weird and wonderful things – from teddy bears to insects, for example.  My folly is collecting postcards.  Here are a few of my latest acquisitions.

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This one falls into the cat category, obviously.

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Belfast Northern Ireland – My husband’s “home town”

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A colorful scene in the Netherlands – people and places category

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People and places – Sporting Activities

I just finished……

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I just finished printing a 78 page document that I have been working on for a long time.  It still needs some editing/tinkering but I’m basically ready to move on to the next stage.  I want to input the information to Excel and then do some sorting into different categories. These are my 300+ immigrant ancestors by name, birth and death dates and location, generation, marriage, arrival date and place, miscellaneous information.

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A Short Analysis of Emily Dickinson’s ‘A Bird came down the Walk’

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InterestingLiterature's avatarInteresting Literature

‘A Bird came down the Walk’ focuses on a popular theme of Emily Dickinson’s poems: animals. As ever, she looks at them in her own way, offering an idiosyncratic perspective on the bird, in this poem.

A Bird came down the Walk—
He did not know I saw—
He bit an Angleworm in halves
And ate the fellow, raw,

And then he drank a Dew
From a convenient Grass—
And then hopped sidewise to the Wall
To let a Beetle pass—

He glanced with rapid eyes
That hurried all around—

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My Ancestors (30d) – Rev. Elijah and Clara Maria de los Dolores Marina de Beck Guion – The First Two Daughters Marry – 1860’s

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Judy Guion's avatar"Greatest Generation" Life Lessons

Last June I  read about a Challenge, 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks, and I was intrigued. I decided to take up the challenge. Some Ancestors may take more than one week, but I still intend to write about 52 Ancestors. I hope you enjoy reading about My Ancestors as much as I am looking forward to researching and writing about them.

(1) Clara Maria de los Dolores Marina de Beck Guion; (2) Alfred Beck Guion; (3) Alfred Duryee Guion; (4) Alfred Peabody Guion; (5) Judith Anne Guion

All during the girlhood’s of my mother and aunts, the slavery issue was coming to a head.  New Orleans had the biggest and worst slave-market in the nation — the one that Lincoln saw as a young man, and never forgot — but here was one moral issue on which the Rev.  Elijah Guion sided with the South.  Northerner as he originally was…

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Interesting Start to the New Year!

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Linda Arthur Tejera's avatarLIVING WITH MY ANCESTORS

Just thought I’d share what happened here a little before 5:00 a.m. Friday, January 4.  We were startled out of a sound sleep by what sounded like a big crash. It had been raining off and on for days and hubby thought we had been awakened by lightning or thunder. We went all around inside the house thinking the cats had knocked some things over and couldn’t see anything. Checking outside, it was so dark, we couldn’t see anything and our outside lights don’t really illuminate much.  But when we got up and it was light out — man, the Lord was watching over us. A huge tree had fallen right next to the house.  Maybe not so unusual in the woods.  But the unusual part and the miracle part is that it didn’t fall according to gravity (downhill).  How does a tree fall sideways against gravity?  If it had…

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Lens-Artists PC: My 2018 in photos

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Manja Maksimovič's avatarManja Mexi Moving (closed)

Leya is asking us for the year 2018 in review and following my blog change I wish to reflect on my last year’s blog and choose some of my favourite moments, because what else are photos if not captured moments for (relative) eternity?

I had fun going through my previous blog to select some of the posts and photos that I’d like you to see (again), but when I got around setting up this post, I got frustrated with technicalities. I don’t like this new editor and my new theme has much fewer options than I’m used to.

I don’t even know how to change the green colour of the links that lead to posts, so believe me when I tell you, there IS a caption under every photo with the working link, it’s just that it’s darn dark green. Sounds like my doing, I like green. I just don’t…

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The New House

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Elizabeth Lovick's avatarNorthern Lace

We moved
into our new house in September. It is
the first time I have lived in a new build, and some things have been a bit of
a learning curve! It is a
wheelchair-friendly bungalow, with a wet room as well as a bathroom.

It has triple
glazing. If you have ever lived in a
house where the curtains swung every time we had a bit of a blow, and where you
are paying 15% of your income in electricity and still feeling cold, then you
will know the joy that small sentence gives!
Here we are actually warm!

As it is a
Housing Association house, we had no time to move in gradually. Boxes were filled PDQ and my wonderful carer,
Michael, took lots over and filled the kitchen cupboards before the removal van
day. But we still had loads of bits and
pieces.

The dogs
took it…

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When Making A Car Was Illegal

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GP's avatarPacific Paratrooper

The last Packard, 1942 The last Packard, 1942

This was originally published as a Guest Post for Judy Hardy at Greatest Generation Lessons.

After Pearl Harbor, President Roosevelt ordered all car manufacturers to cease the production of private automobiles and convert the factories to produce military vehicles, weaponry, airplane engines, parts, etc. But, this would not put an end to man’s love affair with the automobile. A car manual became priceless to a private owner and a truck manual was an absolute necessity for a farmer or businessman. With the rationing of gasoline in the U.S., the “National Victory Speed” was 35 mph and driving clubs were encouraged. (Our modern day car-pools).

The news spread around the world. The news spread around the world.

Automobiles were produced in massive quantities before the Great Depression and this brought the price down considerably. Then, the stock market crashed and many people were unable to afford the fuel for the cars they already…

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lowering the neck of a vintage yoke

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Ella G's avatarella gordon

Hello everyone, happy new year and all that jazz.. today I thought I would show you something I’ve started to do with some of my vintage yokes which is to lower the neck. Traditional Shetland yoke jumpers have not only a high neck but it can be quite a deep rib and its also quite often doubled over. Sometimes I really don’t mind it but other times its just too high and too tight. So rather than leaving them languishing in my collection, I have started lowering them and I do wear them much more often.

I got a yoke in the charity shop the other week and thought I would photograph some of the steps to show you what I did and show some of the others I’ve done it to as well. You can see the doubled over neck here:

As we do in Shetland cuffs are very…

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