genealogy

Thankful Thursday: Indoor Camp Meeting ad, circa 1966

February 9, 2017 by Melodye Shore

In researching my memoir, I oftentimes slipped into the role of my alter ego, Nancy Drew. I’ve retrieved clues from dusty archives; revisited the vacant fields where my father pitched his revival tents; and reclaimed abandoned artifacts, strewn by the wayside as we followed the Sawdust Trail.

I unearthed this family treasure in the Oregonian archives. Years ago, my father purchased this advertising space, in anticipation of a large turnout for an indoor revival meeting. The venue’s long gone, and the intended audience has scattered. But this newspaper clipping is a voice from my past, harkening me back to my childhood. I remember the murmuring crowds, the rise and fall of my father’s voice in the pulpit, perfumed women and sweat-soaked laborers, gospel choruses and clanging tambourines… same as if it were just yesterday.

Most certainly, dusty pages like this would’ve been trashed, were it not for keen-eyed, good-hearted historians–librarians, genealogists, archivists, and volunteers–saints of a sort, who devote their time and energies to the preservation of our individual and collective stories. I’m grateful to them always, but I think they deserve special recognition on Thankful Thursday. Can I get a witness?

Throwback Thursday: Annie Elizabeth Harding, one of countless immigrants

November 19, 2015 by Melodye Shore

My great grandmother, Annie Elizabeth Aldrich, was born in Hertfordshire, England in 1859. In this snapshot , she’s about 45 years old and has long since moved to Nottingham. As mother to 11 living children (9 girls and 3 boys), it’s no surprise that she looks a bit weary. Even so, she was by all accounts a very happy woman who probably imagined herself living out her days among the people she knew and loved, in the homeland she cherished.

May (L) and Evelyn (RO were the youngest of Annie Elizabeth Harding’s 12 children.

But when World War I erupted, Nottingham was hit hard. Annie’s boys enlisted in the military, and my great-grandparents sought refuge on American soil. They were second class passengers on the USMS Philadelphia, which was chased by German submarines for countless, terrifying miles.

Her daughters found work at a local corset factory, and Annie — who, by then, was 56 years old–set about creating a new life for them on Pleasant Street in West Brookfield, Massachusetts.

She and her husband George worked hard, saved diligently, and eventually purchased a comfortable home on an old country road, across from a yeast-making factory and adjacent to the railroad tracks. Annie planted flowers on the hillside and was feted by her beloved children on the occasion of her 50th wedding anniversary.

Within a month, the Great Depression hit. They made do and did with less, so as to lend financial support to those in need.

Annie Elizabeth and George Harding, on the occasion of their 50th wedding anniversary in 1929.

Just five years later, my great-grandfather passed away. Annie was 75 years old. A widow now, she once again rolled up her sleeves. She endured floods and other hardships, but as it was with her pet canaries, she never lost her song. Local historians told me that hobos etched friendly symbols in the dirt roads that led from the rail cars to her house. “Hot meals offered here,” they said. “Everyone’s invited.” How utterly Annie, to share what little she had!

When I met the current owners of her humble abode, they offered me a gift.

Pulled from the crumbling remains of the original foundation, this brick reminds me of my personal roots. Too, it grounds me in the truth of things, within and beyond the current narratives we’re hearing. That is to say, that we are a nation of immigrants, settled by great-grandmothers who sacrificed much in the name of safety and freedom, and who were welcomed equally at Ellis Island.

Throwback Thursday: My Brother Roger (1943-2015)

October 29, 2015 by Melodye Shore

We didn’t stay in any one place for long, nor did we ever sit for family portraits. And while revival organizers sometimes took candid snapshots of my father’s fiery sermons and the like, most of those got pitched overboard to make room for an ever-expanding family. So by the time my siblings and I reached adulthood, only a handful of personal photographs remained.

Some wayward pictures were eventually returned by my father’s associates. Some found their way ‘home’ when I reached out to estranged family members. My sister Sheryll, who shares my interest in personal genealogy, tracked down quite a few photographs on her own. Secrets oftentimes stay buried, but we encouraged more than a few hoarders to share their private stash. And as it turned out, I retrieved a good number of images by climbing into my “Nancy Drew” roadster and following my father’s tire ruts down the Sawdust Trail.

When Roger passed away this month, I felt a hollowness in the places where his voice once reverberated. So precious–then and in hindsight–the times we shared in communion, recounting the highlights of our individual and shared stories. Such treasures, the memories and pictures we’ve managed to archive, for ourselves and future generations. This doesn’t seem to me the appropriate place to write my brother’s obituary, but I’ve assembled a small number of images that bear witness to his life.

To my brothers and sisters, a love offering. That’s already printed on the dedication page of my memoir–in my mind’s eye, at least. Same with the pictures of Roger that you see here.

Roger Suva was born in Detroit, Michigan in 1943.

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Roger’s standing next to the family dog, facing my father, who has my oldest sister Coral on his lap. A candid (?) snapshot, taken in front of my father’s revival tent in Johnson City, Tennessee.

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My brother Roger’s upper elementary school picture, taken the year I was born.

A front-porch respite from the cramped back seat of our family car, the summer before his senior year in high school.

Roger the Bookworm, shortly after college graduation (Wheaton Bible College, in Illinois).

A Christmas hug from his older daughter, Esther.

Hanging out on the front porch with Heather, his younger daughter (Anaheim, California).

1986 04 Jake and Darlene, Disneyland, Desert_20140413_0004

An outdoor enthusiast with an irrepressible wanderlust, Roger’s pictured here in Joshua Tree, watching for Halley’s Comet.

A vegetarian before it was fashionable, Roger espoused strong opinions about many things.

We shared a complicated story, and a tangled family tree. Here, Roger’s (re)introducing me to Cliff, whom I’d met on a couple of other occasions but hadn’t yet realized was my brother.

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The VW bus that Roger called home for several years before he died.

#TBT A portrait of my Great Aunt Eleanor, drawn from memorabilia

May 7, 2015 by Melodye Shore

I know very little about my Great Aunt Eleanor, but these artifacts sure paint an interesting portrait!

Eleanor (“Nelly”) was born in Nottingham, England in 1887. She–along with many of my maternal grandmother’s family members–emigrated to West Brookfield, Massachusetts in 1916. Years later, Nana told us stories later about the WWI German submarines that chased their ship across the ocean, but at the time of their passage, the United States hadn’t yet entered “The War to End All Wars.”

People described Nelly as “high-spirited” and “adventuresome.” She and her husband, Allen T. Godfrey, were nothing if not enterprising. That’s what I heard tell.

When I steered my Nancy Drew roadster down bumpy roads, I found evidence of that.

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The Golden Rule Lunchroom, about 1927 (via West Brookfield, MA Archives)

Whoa, Nelly!

She died the year before I was born, which makes me wistful in this remembering. I think we might’ve shared some things in common. And oh, the family secrets we could spill, over afternoon tea!

Allen and Nelly Godfrey, 1946

Although she fashioned herself a writer, Nelly didn’t leave to future generations any poems, journals or books. She did, however, enter lots of contests, many of which she won. “Duz Does It All” was my great aunt’s award-winning slogan for a laundry detergent company.

Wartime was hard for everyone, with more than enough hardship to go around. Gasoline and groceries were rationed, and money was scarce. Few people owned automobiles in the small town where she lived. But there were whispers down the lane about a certain relative who very much enjoyed rumbling through the streets of West Brookfield, honking and waving to pedestrians from the driver’s seat of a shiny new Ford. It wasn’t common, back then, for women to slide behind the wheel. But Nelly being who she was, I suspect she felt entitled, being the Grand Prize Winner and all.

I’m picturing all this in my mind’s eye this morning, and oh, what a happy portrait it paints!

1947 Ford, via OldCarAdvertising.com

#TBT: Indoor revival meeting in Portland, Oregon

April 30, 2015 by Melodye Shore

Portland, Oregon Revival Meeting, August 1966

In researching my memoir, I oftentimes revved up my roadster and slipped into the role of my alter ego, Nancy Drew. I’ve gathered clues from the National Archives; I’ve explored the sites of former tent revivals and churches, long since demolished; and I’ve unearthed numerous artifacts, along the Sawdust Trail.

And so it is, that on this Throwback Thursday (#TBT), I’m recalling that other blogging meme, Thankful Thursday. I unearthed this classified ad in the Portland, Oregonian archives. Like so many other treasures I’ve collected, it could’ve been lost to time and decay, were it not for for the myriad librarians, genealogists and archivists who’ve devoted their time and energies to the preservation of our individual and shared histories.

#TBT: High school graduation photo, O. L. Jaggers’ World Church

April 23, 2015 by Melodye Shore

Here’s another picture of my mother, since this is her birthday week. She’s sitting in the front row, far left, at her high school graduation ceremony. World-renowned evangelist O.L. Jaggers is at the microphone. (World Church, circa 1955. Picture courtesy of Larry Abernathy, O.L. Jaggers’s son, who contributed it to our shared family archives.)

Celebrating Mother Earth and remembering my mother

April 22, 2015 by Melodye Shore

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PaMkj4_H8WM

My mother would have been 77 years old today. Her birthday coincides with Earth Day this year, which seems fitting. She derived her greatest joys, it seemed, from nature-related activities: camping alongside a mountain stream; watching a sunset at the beach; and singing about sweet violets and moonbeams, carried home in a jar. I suspect this was also her private torment, given that we spent so much time on the road–endless days and countless miles, blurring past, rarely knowing for sure where we’d eventually land.

She’d stare out the window, wrapped up in her private thoughts as the moon traded places with the sun and the landscape morphed from rocky terrain to desert wasteland. And then suddenly, with a single word, she’d fix our attention on something she’d seen beyond the narrow ribbon of asphalt. “Look!” she’d say, and I’d follow her pointing finger to a lizard, sunbathing on a rock. “Over there!” she’d exclaim, and we’d wish together on a shooting star.

My mom (1960, Kansas City, MO)

“For the Beauty of the Earth…” It was my mother who first taught me this song, who also showed me Mother Nature’s bounty. And it was through her eyes (and Nana’s example) that I came to fully appreciate the wondrous beauty of the earth, sea and sky.

Rest in Peace, Beatrice “Colleen” Dixon Suva

February 6, 2015 by Melodye Shore

She thought she was his first wife; turns out, she was his fifth. I thought I had seven siblings; turns out, she’d given birth to two more. “Call me Beatrice,” she said, even though my father’s marriage certificate referred to her as “Colleen.” She trusted me enough to share her part of the story; I figured out the ways in which it intersects with mine. Rest in peace, Beatrice “Colleen” Dixon Suva: I will tell our story true.

Look! Lessons from my mother

December 10, 2012 by Melodye Shore

Look! It’s one of my favorite words. Not as it’s spoken by narrow-eyed sorts, for whom “Look!” means “See here! I know what’s right, and it’s time you come around to my point of view.”

As I define it, “Look” is a soft-focused invitation to see what is, and to imagine in your mind’s eye the things that might someday be. It’s sometimes borne of a quiet sense of wonderment, as when the night wind whispered to the little lamb, Do you see what I see? But it can also be a trumpeting sound, a la the angel’s proclamation, “Behold!”

Look! I learned it from my mother, saw it reinforced in Dick and Jane. It’s part of who I am, mind body and spirit. I’m thinking that’s why I enjoy my new camera so much. It’s not about capturing the perfect image, perfectly composed (although I’m working on that). It’s more about noticing things I might otherwise have overlooked. Photography encourages me to explore, from different vantage points, the things that catch my eye, and it affords me a visual record of my adventures.

Speaking of which…Look! I collected these memories in Santa Barbara County.

Fog greets the Surfliner train as it pulls into the Santa Barbara station.

Seals at play, Stearns Wharf

A house with a bird’s-eye view of Clairmont Lavendar Farm

Notice the finely structured bones of this bistro table–too, the naked limbs of the live oak in the distance. They’ve come to the forefront, now that the lavender’s gone dormant for winter.

Rainbow chard, displayed at a farmer’s market in Santa Barbara

An invitation to savor the local flavors of Solvang, a Danish village in Santa Barbara County’s wine country

Begonia in a bookstore windowbox

Pasta shells gone glam, atop a Christmas tree at an Italian restaurant

A team of Clydesdales pulls tourists through the streets of Solvang.

Meanwhile, their miniature cousins munch grass (at Quicksilver Ranch).

We had a fabulous weekend, a feast for all senses. And when we finally headed home, we chased a long string of railroad cars for several miles. To our left: live oaks and chapparal; on our right: rocky cliffs and a sparkling blue ocean. Glimpses of paradise, wherever we looked.