This post has a double meaning…

I haven’t posted anything for some time (as is obvious). I needed to reconnect to my blog, make contact so to speak like getting back in touch with an old friend.  You know when you haven’t talked to a friend for a very long time and a lot has happened that you feel the need to share. That happened to me a week ago with an old friend I had lost touch with for a very long time. She called me up at random  to touch base and we talked for 3 hrs! It felt just like we hadn’t been apart at all. I love those kinds of re-connections.

So my blog reconnection is just like that. I haven’t had really that much to say that I felt was that important… today’s another day.

While I have been absent from my blog I have not been idle. I have been working on my Family Tree through Ancestry.ca and have had much success. The other pertinent reconnection was connecting again with another Manitoba Forman descendent who turns out is a cousin twice removed. This particular cousin still lives in the Rivers area (where my father was born and grew up) and she is working on the Forman family history as it relates to the town of Rivers. Rivers will celebrate 100 years of existence as a town in 2013. Interestingly that would also be the 100th birthday of my father should he still live.

So upon messaging back and forth with Lorna (the cousin) we sorted out how we were related and who she was descended from.  It seems that she is the granddaughter of Ernest J Forman and I know I am the granddaughter of James Harris Forman (Foreman). Lorna had no idea that James Harris and Ernest J were brothers and had come to Manitoba from Ontario about 1900.  The two brothers, from census records, appear to have hired on as farm laborers at Wheatland, Manitoba on the farm of my great grandfather Samuel Benjamin Nunn. Ultimately my grandfather married the “farmer’s daughter” and Ernest went on to eventually marry Mabel Harvey.

Lorna passed along to me a picture of my grandfather’s mother, Charlotte Melinda Forman (nee Harris), a picture of Melinda (or Minnie) as she was affectionaly called and Ernest J as young child.  The picture is about 1888 and appears to be taken in Bothwell, Ontario. I indicated to Lorna that I have a picture of an older “Minnie” sometime in the 1920’s; I’ll post that picture later. In the meantime, let me introduce to you my Great Grandmother Charlotte Melinda Forman (nee Harris).

The WORLD is in anticipation. A historical event is about to take place. You may wonder how what is about to happen on Tuesday, January 20, 2009 has anything to do with my blog. It has a lot to do with my blog and genealogy.

A historic event is going to occur down south, a momentous event really. Truly I never thought in my own lifetime such an event would happen. The world is in such turmoil and has been for some time so I felt this would never happen now.

The media is full of news about the comparisons between Obama and JFK. The reason this is applicable to my blog and genealogy is just that…. the history of what is about to take place and how history and people have led us to this time. Listening to all of the media information being generated by this historic event takes me back to the 1960s and JFK assassination. Of course, I was very young then and really I don’t remember anything about that time, but I do remember the RFK assassination of 1968 (I was 10). But all this talk of JFK brings me to think about my own parents. My dad was alive then when it happened and so I wonder what he would think about all this… would he be excited, amazed, hopeful? Being so young at that time I can’t recall any of the conversations between my parents that must have gone on at that time in 1963. Adult conversation. Now that I am an adult experiencing history as it is made it makes me think of how history and generation after generation has brought us to this point.

How exciting and yet trepidous this time is for us, for our generation at this time. Having been through all that turmoil of the 1960s and before (and after) I only hope that Mr. Obama will be safe, he will remain as stable as he seems to be and that he will be able to accomplish even one quarter of what the world expects of this imperfect human.

]]> http://alitrebitowords.wordpress.com/2009/01/18/making-history/feed/ 1 litre http://alitrebitowords.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/ureka/ http://alitrebitowords.wordpress.com/2008/05/25/ureka/#comments Mon, 26 May 2008 00:47:35 +0000 litre http://alitrebitowords.wordpress.com/?p=50 ]]>

Okay, my 6th sense kicked in BIG time. Way back last year (or even further back) my research took me to the Canadian Genealogy site and to the WWI search page. It is free to search and I thought I could possibly find my grandfather (on my mother’s side) in the records. I knew his full name (but not his actual birth date) and that he was born in the U.S. coming from Chicago and he served for Canada in WW1. During this search I found someone I thought could be the likely person. The problem I had was with the birth date listed. I counted back from 1948 when I knew he had died and went back 69 years almost 70 years. My uncles can tell you by memory to the day how old he was when he died. So if I counted back the number of years from 1948 then I came to 1878. I also knew that my grandfather was “much older” than my grandmother so this year of birth could have done the job. But alas my intuition was going with the Charles “Hendy” Wilson born in Chicago in July 1882 who registered in 1916 as a “single” man whose next of kin was his mother “Mrs. H. Wilson” of Chicago. I saved that record for future reference which you can see here. This document is quite public for anyone to be able to look up on the Government of Canada Genealogy web site.

So following through with my hunch, I went ahead and ordered the file on this person. You can imagine my excitement when I arrived home 2 or 3 weeks later to see a large envelope sticking obtrusively from my mail box. It felt like Christmas had just arrived and my gift was waiting for me to rip open. After refraining from immediately ripping it open (I had dinner to prepare) I finally got a few minutes to have a look at the contents. How exciting. Although there were no photos enclosed (which I hoped would confirm my deductions) there was a copy of a document which confirmed I was indeed correct and this was my grandfather. I discovered from the material my grandfather’s first wife’s name (Mary also known as Margaret) and that she lived in Vancouver at least up until my grandfather was discharged in 1919. Sometime between 1919 and 1921 she may have died (or perhaps they were divorced….. hmm). I’ve tried a little bit of hunting to try to determine this. What I do know is that my grandfather indicated he was a “widower” in 1921. Ah the mystery. Exciting stuff though. Now I have a bit more information to continue looking for his roots in Chicago. I did find out that he came up to Winnipeg with his first wife “Margaret” in 1910; they are captured in the 1911 Winnipeg census (which is also a public record). Exciting, exciting stuff. Now on to the great grandparents (Wilson)…. and perhaps siblings?

This is my metaphor for my never ending search. With a little bit of authentic record that I have, I stumbled upon a bit more information that may lead me further into the past. Having in hand a copy of my grandparents’ marriage registration from 1921, I have gleaned information that this was a second marriage for my grandfather Wilson. With a little digging through the 1911 Canada census records on line for Manitoba, I did find a listing for a Charles Henry Wilson living in Winnipeg, married to a “Margreth E” or Margaret E perhaps and this Charles reported his occupation as “chauffeur”, was born in the USA and had come to Canada in 1910. He reports his birth date as July 1882.

I knew my grandfather had served in WWI prior to being married to my grandmother. A previous search of the registrant records for Canadian soldiers in WWI did give me a possible lead. With that information in my mind, I compared the WWI record with the 1911 census record. My “spidey sense” tells me these two records point to the same person. Both records list the birth date as July 1882. The WWI record indicates Charles’ next of kin as his mother “Hannah” which is the first name that is listed on my grandparent’s marriage registration. My gut tells me this is the same person. The wrench in this whole thing is that I’ve been told that my grandfather died just 2 weeks short of his “70th” birthday. Records report that he died in July of 1948 so the month fits the profile. The year though, if he was truly born in 1882, doesn’t; if he was indeed born in 1882 then he would have been just short of his “67th” birthday – that is 3 years off the mark.

Of course, from my calculations, my grandparents were married for 27 years, that being from May 1921 to July 1948. He lists his age at that time as “34″; 34 plus 27 equals 61 which of course doesn’t make 66 much less 69. I do believe that my grandfather fudged on his age when he married. I am told he was “much older” than my grandmother; that is true if he was born in 1882, making him 16 years older than my grandmother (grandma was born in 1898).

My next step then, I have decided, is to attempt to get the WWI records for the “Charles Hendy Wilson” who was born in 1882. I am hoping there is more information there, and perhaps even a picture???

Wish me luck! The road goes on…….

Tis better to see than not to see …. that is not in question. Today I am four days post Zyoptix PRK laser surgery. I was born with wonky eyes that just got wonkier as I aged, to the point where at age 50 not only was I not able to determine the features on a person who stood a couple of feet from me but also my ability to read was being attacked due to the aging process. It was time to upgrade my glasses for a cost of about $600 to $800 yet again or to take advantage of the opportunity to have my eyes repaired with the technology that is now available. The surgery would essentially remove some tissue and voila I would see objects in the distance just as well as a person with no vision issues. The trade-off would be that any near sightedness that I had left would essentially be blitzed.

I can see. I could see the next day actually. The day of the surgery, post surgery was tolerable; as the next day arrived the eyes felt better. To describe it accurately would be to say that for those people who have been able to wear contact lenses and did wear them for hours on end then I can describe the feeling in one’s eyes as having tired one’s eyes out at the end of a day, that feeling of grit that can be attributed to dry eyes. It has gotten better daily and today it almost feels like I have no contact lenses inserted at all. I am looking forward to the time in a few weeks when I can wear make up because let me tell you…. skin around my eyes are pretty WHITE! I don’t have the largest eyes to say the least and any make up that can enhance the look is well received.

For those of you who read this and are still skeptical about this type of procedure, I would highly recommend it if you are at all thinking about it. It took me a long while to ultimately go in and have an assessment but then took less time to decide to go ahead with it. I’m glad I did. I am looking forward now to beach weather and to be able to go into the water and see people’s faces clearly, wear proper sunglasses without the added expense of having to have them specially made to accommodate my deficits. If you are thinking about this type of surgery, the first step is to make that appointment for the free assessment. It may be that you do not qualify for the treatment but you won’t know that unless you take that first step to vision aid freedom!

In honor of Remembrance Day and stopping to think about both those who have been lost in the current war and also those who lost their lives in previous conflicts, I wanted to share a photo of my dad. He was stationed overseas in England. There are many letters from that time that my mother saved for whatever reason (she actually didn’t discard much during her lifetime which it turns out was a good thing, sort of). Although these were their private thoughts to each other, it certainly sheds a bit of light on how things were during the infancy of their marriage. My mother was very young when she married… just 17….. whereas my father was 26. He had already signed up a few short months before and was sent off soon after they married. It was quite a hardship for such a young woman, and who was not prepared to be left alone and then to be left alone so soon with a young baby. Those were difficult times, and certainly difficult for other wives, mothers and fathers. Fortunately my father came back and physically in one piece.

Anyway, in remembrance, our past mistakes are there to hopefully prevent us from repeating them. God bless to those who are in the thick of the conflict. Let them come home soon to their families….. healthy and in one piece.

Something very interesting happened to me about 2 weeks ago. A card arrived in the post from a couple in Arizona. The envelope wasn’t addressed to me but was addressed to a “Mr. and Mrs. G. Foreman”; the address was mine but the name certainly didn’t match. Of course I had to open the envelope to discover who was meant to receive the card and it indeed was a condolence card for Gord and Janice Forman. Gord’s father Charles Lee Forman had passed away at the age of 90 in October. A bit of searching the Winnipeg Free Press obits led me to the following obituary (double click the photo to enlarge).

Upon a bit more searching I found Gord and Janice’s address in Winnipeg and redirected the card and included a card from myself and a small note along with a very old picture. It seems that Lee was my father’s first cousin. My grandfather James Harris Foreman and Lee’s father Ernest Forman were brothers. In fact they are listed together in the 1906 Canadian Census as living in Rivers district. As recently as within the last 10 years in Kimberley BC Lee’s brother Chester and his wife Helen attended my sister Linda’s wedding.

Today I spoke with Gord Forman who was grateful for the picture that was sent. In fact he had never seen a picture of his grandfather’s home in Rivers and to this day could only imagine it from descriptions. Gord and I had a lovely discussion and hopefully we can meet and compare photos. Gord told me a very serendipitous story which I won’t repeat here, so that I will have the opportunity to share another post a bit later.

My condolences to the Lee Forman family and to Chester who has lost a brother.

I did not want to let any more time pass before making mention of my nephew John’s birthday. I thought a few pictures documenting his existence was in-order. First picture of course is John with his dad. Look at the chub of those cheeks, not to mention those thighs. Of course everyone has to have a birthday suit photo and what better one than this. The interesting thing about all this is the fact that there is only about 5 years difference in our ages; as you can see in the third photo John is peeking around the corner at us from his crib. This must have been some event that we visited that day, could have been one of our birthdays, I can’t recall. I am the middle girl on the left with the weird hat, my sister Linda is the tall one and Debs is the little one in front. You’ll notice we all have matching coats. I think I was probably 6 there….. hmm. The last picture was taken about 1979 or so and that’s John with the hair. He still has that hair, still long. That’s his brother Joe and sister Amanda living out in the north end of town. There have been big changes in this town but some things don’t. John is his same silly self.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY from your favorite Auntieeeee!

I thought I would post something I was working on just for fun today. Just a bit of fluff. I’m practicing with Photoshop. It is stimulating to learn something new.

I was moved (to tears really) to write something down today. The catalyst for these thoughts was a dinner date with my youngest sibling, my brother. When we last saw each other we simply went out to Timmy’s and grabbed a cup of coffee. I noted he wasn’t quite his usual self and there was good reason for it. You see my brother has paranoid schizophrenia with obsessive compulsive components all rolled into the mix. For the most part he is okay, he is in a good place with people that for the most part take real care of his needs. However, with this disease of the mind there are setbacks, kind of like with other diseases like cancer or MS or whatever. There are medications of course but they can be a blessing or a curse depending on the day of the week or time of day or perhaps they just don’t work anymore. Well this is where my brother is at these days. He has had a setback and now the doctors try something else. The problem is the something else is stronger and has probably worse side effects than the others. Of course you can’t not put him on something, that could be dangerous in this case. It’s very sad really. The staff where he lives told me ahead of time that my brother is having difficulty with swallowing, he drools and he has a drinking problem. Not of the alcohol kind because he doesn’t drink; just the liquid of any sort kind. Reminds me of those scenes in the movie Airplane where the hero has a drinking problem; those scenes seemed funny but in reality this isn’t. We went to a restaurant where I knew there would not be a lot of people around so my brother wouldn’t be self-conscious; I am ashamed to say I was probably more self-conscious than he was. I am sure he must feel horrified at what is happening to him. He says he feels better; still it must bother him. He said he had to leave work early today because he was drooling to much. He couldn’t work for two weeks before this because his meds were being altered and it wasn’t safe (he hears voices telling him to hurt his housemate or other people around). Funny thing is when he gets angry or out of control it usually is not other people he harms but his own belongings. I mean, that is a good thing right? He doesn’t hurt anyone but himself right? It just made me very sad to watch him in this state (in fact I am tearing as I write this now). What kind of a life is that? When I think of how mental illness affects so many in my family and how fortunate that I didn’t receive the ticket for that ride, I am grateful.  You should be grateful too. Perhaps my brother is grateful too, that the new meds have stopped the voices.  Oh well. Be grateful, every day for whatever blessings you may have received, even if it’s just being grateful for another day to be able to feel grateful.