Cookbooks of Yesteryear

Whenever I visit my daughter and son-in-law’s home, Sarah and Josh, I see a small bookcase filled with old cookbooks in the kitchen.  These cookbooks belong to Josh’s mom and many were given as gifts from Josh.  There is an old Betty Crocker cookbook with a faded cover and countless church and communities cookbooks.  These are those cookbooks filled with real food ingredients which seem to be impossible to find today in our processed food world.  These recipes may not win any attention on the cooking shows of today, but they filled the hungry stomach of a working class of people.  They are also the recipes that fill the potluck tables at many churches,  family reunions, and neighborhood get-togethers.

The other day I was over to their home and finished laying new flooring in the nursery.  After I had finished, I was sitting in the kitchen and looked over at the bookcase.  I walked over and picked up one of the cookbooks.  The title of the pick up: Stories and Recipies of the Great Depression of the 1930’s by Rita Van Amber.  The copyright of the publication was in the mid-80’s.   It is a cookbook about an inch thick with a wire binding.  I paged thru the book and there were countless recipes intermixed with recountings of life stories in the 1930’s.  The name’s of the people and town names footnoted most of the recipes and stories in the book.  I spotted a recipe for the perfect Ice Cream, as noted in the recipe, “Absolutely excellent and does not need a topping!”  I’ll have to fire up the ice cream maker and give this recipe a try.

As I continued to look over the recipes and read the stories of the past I found the perfect gem of a recipe.  “How to Preserve a Husband”  These were someone’s words of wisdom give to the young ladies on picking the perfect husband and preserving him for a long and happy life together.  I read through the recipe and was amused with their words of wisdom.  I then read the recipe aloud to Josh pausing for the amusement between each sentence.   We laughed together as I finished the recipe.

In today’s world, this recipe sounds a little too old fashioned with too many raw, unprocessed ingredients of life.  I know this is advice given to the young ladies on how to be a great wife.  I am sure there was good fatherly advice given to sons in the barns and fields on how to be a good husband.  I’ll have to look for an old shop manual at an auction on this subject.  Maybe the manual will be filled with many How-Tos on keeping the homestead in good repair and maybe there will be such a gem on How To Keep Your Wife and Family in Good Repair.

Where Did I Come From? Part II

A little less than a year ago I wrote a post about “Where Did I Come From”.  I commented on my DNA results I received on my ethnicity results on my AncestryDNA test.  I received an e-mail a few weeks ago s from Ancestry saying there was an update to their DNA feature.  I quickly opened the e-mail and followed the link to the Ancestry website.

The Ancestry DNA web page had a new look and still at the same time looked familiar.  The new feature is their Genetic Community for my DNA.  My finger swiped across the iPad following my DNA Communities.  I had three communities of DNA of the over 300 communities in the DNA data bank.  The overview map was of the world with four lightly  colored circles on the map of Europe representing my ethnic circles.  A heavy yellow dot pattern covered the west coast of Norway.  A red dot pattern crossed Norway from east to west with a strong pattern in the Oslo region.  The third dot color of purple spread from north to south in Western Germany. These were the patterns I would expect from from the information I had received last year on where my DNA had originated.  The new information is showing where my DNA was concentrated in the last 200-300 years then spread from those epicenters.

My Grandfather, on my mother’s side, was an immigrant from Stavanger, Norway.  Stavanger is on the southwest coast of Norway and the epicenter of the yellow dots of my DNA.  Last years DNA information stated I was 45% Scandinavian and the new information reaffirmed my Norwegian heritage.  The red dots in Norway help me understand a blending of my Norwegian heritage.  Gathering family from the Oslo area and intergrading thru marriage into the Stavanger area.  Yep, Lutafik and Lefsa should be on my table for dinner each night, and the word “Uffda” should be uttered in every third sentence as I speak.

The purple dots in Germany are in the western part of Germany.  There is a heavy concentration near the borders of Luxembourg, France, and Belgium.  I know some of my Father’s family is from this region but that might be misleading. I have no information on my Grandmother’s family on my mom’s side.  They were from Germany but I don’t know where in Germany.  I found the new information interesting and as I scrolled thru the time blocks, it showed me the migration of my family over the last 300 years.

I next choose Dad’s DNA results to view and to my amazement his Genetic Community were not in Europe, it was already here in America.  He had 2 Genetic Communities.  The first community was the Early Settlers of New York and he second being Early Settlers of the Northeast.  It follows the research I have done over the years.  Many of our ancestors were from New Jersey,  Massachusetts, and Connecticut.  With Dad’s ethnicity being 45% Great Britain it makes sense that his ancestors were from the New York and New England regions.  This information was showing how our ancestors, on my father’s side, have been in America for the last 300 years.  This also gave me a moment of pause.  The purple dots on my German community were probably not from my dad.  The dots may have been from my mother’s side and may given me a helpful hint to my Grandmother’s families.  Maybe they are from western Germany.  This is my first clue to where they may have immigrated from in Germany.  I may not have a town but I have a region in Germany to start looking.

The third person’s DNA I opened was my wife’s.  She is a full blend of Western and Eastern Europe.  Her Genetic Community was a little harder to access.  There were no dots on her map.  As I clicked around on her DNA page I found her Genetic Community.  She is not from Europe but from the Early Settlers of the St Lawrence Seaway.  Again it fell in line with my research.  Her Grandmother, on her father’s side, is a long line of French-Canadian ancestry dating back to 1600.  There wasn’t any hint of my wife’s mother ethnic circles.  So my wife acquired her Genetic Community from her father.  I also know her Grandfather on her father’s side is of English decent and it doesn’t appear as one of her Genetic Communities.  But after a few days my wife’s dots on the map  appeared.  The heavies concentration was in the Quebec and Montreal areas along the St Lawrence River.  There was also a very interesting circle on the map.  It appeared in the Winnipeg area.  Does that mean my wife has 8th-10th cousins who are descendants of the French Voyagers of North America?  Interesting tale to be told.  After a few more days passing, her DNA community changed again.  She is now in a community of Early Settlers of Montreal and Detroit Metro.

The last person’s DNA I viewed was my Mother-In-Law’s.  Her ethnic circle was in Eastern Europe.  Her father was Slovenian and her mother Polish.  The Genetic Community didn’t disappoint me. There was a large number of yellow dots covering Slovenia with a concentration in the community where her Grandfather and Grandmother immigrated from in Slovenia.  My Mother-In-Law also had a second community in the Pomerania region of Poland.  This area is in the north central part of Poland.  I found it interesting my wife didn’t have any Slovenian community in her DNA.  But I didn’t have any New York or Northeast settlers in my DNA like Dad.

The biology of DNA says we inherit half of our DNA from our mother and half from our father.  These results are showing me it isn’t a true 50/50 inheritance.  It makes me wonder which Genetic Communities my siblings and my wife siblings  would belong to if they were to do a DNA test.  My siblings could belong to a community from Norway, Germany, Prussia, or New York and the Northeast like my father.  My wife’s siblings could belong to a  community from Slovenia, Poland, French Settlers on the St Lawrence or an English community descendanted from England.

Probably the the most intriguing discovery I have uncovered, and am willing to investigate farther, is a a genetic relationship I have with a 2nd cousin on my father’s side of my genealogy.  When I look at my Father’s New York Genetic Community I can see his cousins, WL and LB.  Also there there is a daughter of WL named SM.  All four of these people are a part of the New York community and I am not.  When I look at my communities and click on the Western Norwegian Genetic Community I see SM.  My Father and his cousins are double cousins.  Their mothers were sisters and their fathers were brothers and there was no Norwegian bloodlines in those families. So SM has inherited her Norwegian DNA from her father and the information has lead me to the conclusion that my Mother and SM’s Father must be related!  What a new twist on the family research.  This is going to be an ongoing search to fact check this new discovery.  I know my Mother’s family has limited information but I am hoping SM’s research will open some new insight into my Mother’s family.  Stay tuned for more genealogy discoveries!

1999 A.D.

In the early 1970’s I was a junior high school student.  This was a time in history and in a school district where there was a new way of educating. In seventh and eighth grade I had seven class periods and only six classes met each day. The classes were on a rotating schedule throughout the week. In ninth grade there were eight class periods and six classes met each day.  The weeks were also rotating over a eight week period.  Now it is all starting to sound like my current work schedule as an adult. In all three years, built into the schedule was an open block of time. The time block was for lunch and open for study hall, game rooms and movie rooms.  And for me, I excelled in the movie room.

They showed a variety of school movies of the era. But the movie that brought me back day after day to the movie room was, The Home Of The Future: Year 1999 A.D.  The look into the future fascinated me. The future was less than 30 years away and the main characters, the Shore’s, were three to five years older than what I would be in the year 1999. The memories of that movie have stayed with all these years. The strongest memory of the movie would be we would scan our hand and a computer would tell us our diet and exercise for the day. I have searched the internet over the years looking for this movie. In a recent conversation, with a young college co-worker, I made one more internet search. With 1999 in the search engine I had endless results for movies made in 1999. Then I added the phrase “1970’s movie about 1999” and it was my lucky day!  I found it!  It was on YouTube!  By looking at the comments I think the movie was uploaded in the last year.

I tapped the white arrow on the red square and the movie started. I was a little confused because I didn’t remember the beginning of the movie very well. As the movie continued to play it all started coming back to me. I was remembering the past with an old junior high school friend. The movie was etched with its countless showings. A long scratch line danced back and forth across the screen and also a few splicing skips.  All the sudden the computers of the future appeared and I knew it was my old friend telling and showing me how the year 1999 would look and I kept a keen eye on the movie absorbing all the small details.  I invite you to watch the movie for yourself. Yes it is well aged but it was a fore telling of the future by some of the best minds of the day. The movie was produced by Philco-Ford in 1967.  They were the Microsoft, Google and Amazon of their day.

Later in the movie was my memory of the body scan for diet and exercise. My memory wasn’t remembering the scene perfectly, but it was close and still is a look into tomorrow’s health future. The diet and exercise scene told how we would lay down on a bed and the data collection points on the bed would take all of our vitals and also do a body scan looking for hot spots in our bodies. The data collected would be entered into your medical history on the home computer and forward to your physician to keep them up to date on your health. Then the computer would give you a workout and make up your daily diet to keep you healthy and fit.

As I rewatched the movie it was interesting how many things have come to be. Mr Shore calls a friend on a video chat and schedules a golf outing.  They were hoping to play at Pebble Beach but after checking his weather computer they made a change and moved the outing to Mexico.   Skype, FaceTime. Sound familiar?  How about the Weather Channel on your computer?

It showed Mrs Shore doing some shopping on the computer in the world of e-commerce and Amazon. Sound familiar?  Of course the modern family in 1999 was still living in the 1950’s.  Mr Shore would have to figure out how to pay for Mrs Shores purchases. Of course Mr Shore would pay for those items via the internet banking system.

Letters of the future wouldn’t be written on paper. They would be written on a glass plate connected to the computer. The computer would send the messages to the recipient so they could read the message on their computer. E-mail and texting sound familiar?

In the last scene Mr Shore wants to show his party guests a video of a singer they had seen and heard. He pulled up the video on his computer and showed it to his friends on the big screen. Starting to sound like YouTube being shown on the home entertainment center?

Those a few snapshots of the future and there were many more scenes of the future. I know 2017’s reality is a far cry from the conceptual vision in 1967, but it is amazing how right the Philco-Ford people were in 1967.  Who dreamed the computer would fit into your hand as a tablet or smartphone. The predictions of the year 1999 were awesome and only a short thirty-two years into the future.

The last words uttered in the movie are, “What’s next?”  So what is next?  Any ideas?  Smart Alecks need not comment, there are plenty of other blogs and websites for those comments.  But what does the future hold?  What is the future of our homes, cars, work and leisure time. Drop me a comment on what “The Home Of The Future: Year 2049 A.D.” will look like. It’s only thirty-two short years away.  I will be 90 years old and my grandchildren will be in their thirty’s. Maybe I will still be around to see the future with them in the year 2049 A.D.

The Home Of The Future: Year 1999 AD

Forty Day and Forty Nights +3

On Monday morning my Aunt Kaye lost her battle with leukemia. She was raised and schooled in Western Wisconsin.  After marriage a few short stays in the area, Kaye and my uncle moved to Pennsylvania and raised their own family. She taught school in Pennsylvania for many years then moved back to Western Wisconsin for retirement. With the both of them being raised in the area, it was a coming home for them. In her retirement she wrote a column for the local newspaper. She titled her column ” A Bird’s Eye View.”  She would tell tales of everyday life  and stories of yesteryear.  When she made her announcement to her readers that she had leukemia she penned the story titled 40 Days and 40 Nights +3

I have shared her story with others who are having their own struggles.  Sometimes in life we build the barriers that keep us from knowing our neighbors in this life. Kaye tells how some of those barriers are removed when you are sick. When you are sick all the rhetoric of life styles, religions, nationalities and politics seem to fade away.  All the doctors, nurses, and specialists are trying to help you get better or make your finals days more peaceful. 

I share her story as a tribute to her.  Right now for our family there will be a rain of tears, but soon the rays of sunshine of her life will be shown brightly thru the clouds.

40 Days and 40 Nights + 3

Forty days and forty nights—that’s how many days it rained in the 600th year of Noah’s life. According to Genesis, “In the second month, on the seventeenth day of the month, on the same day all the fountains of the great deep burst open, and the floodgates of the sky were opened. On the very same day Noah and Shem and Ham and Japheth, the sons of Noah, and Noah’s wife and the three wives of his sons with them, entered the ark.” Two animals of every species on earth also entered the ark.

Can you even imagine watching it rain nonstop for 40 days and 40 nights? That’s a long time—it’s a period of time for which I have some appreciation and certainly some understanding.

Last week, on April 19, I was released from Methodist Hospital in Rochester, Minnesota after being treated by doctors at the Mayo Clinic for acute leukemia. I was there 43 days and 43 nights. While there, I underwent an aggressive regimen of chemotherapy—the possible side effects are harrowing and take up pages.

I am pleased to report that I had only mild nausea, no mouth sores, no fever, no infection, no complications of any kind. I did, of course, lose every hair on my head, and I am not an attractive bald woman—I think some women’s heads are so perfectly formed, that they feel comfortable appearing in public sans hair. That is not the case with me. Wigs and scarves will be my constant companions until my hair grows back. This time I want it to be thick and curly instead of thin and straight.

My future holds additional chemo and a bone marrow transplant. That’s my new reality.

Today I share with you, my dear readers, some past realities from those 43 days.

• We live within driving distance of a world famous medical center—that’s very good. People travel from all over the country and in fact the world to be treated by the doctors at the Mayo. It takes us exactly one hour and 20 minutes from our front door to the front entrance of the Mayo.

• My 43 day-43 night experience was no walk in the park due to boredom and of course stress as I waited for my blood counts to slowly return to normal after being wiped out by chemo. I also felt, to put it mildly, blah and had little if any appetite.

• Every four hours (except during the night) nurses took my vitals, chatted amicably with me and asked me over and over again, “What else can I do for you?” I was not surprised by this—I am a lover of nurses no matter where I encounter them. Complain about nurses, and I’ll offer you a deaf ear—not going to listen.

• Every morning about 10:00, a team of doctors gathered outside my room discussing every aspect of my condition and then filed into my room. The men were dressed in suits and ties and the women in suits or other equally professional looking attire. The head doctor talked to me while the other five looked at me, nodded, smiled, took notes and told me to have a good day when they left.

• One of the interns checked on me regularly throughout the day. His name was Dr. Mohammed Brochiere and every day we had a contest as to who was wearing the most outrageous socks. I received many pairs of socks as gifts from friends and family, so I had a good selection.

• Not long ago a presidential candidate called for “An absolute ban on all Muslims entering the United States.” If he had made that proposal 10 years ago, and if he had gotten his way, here’s what would have happened. A large percentage of the gifted, talented and extremely intelligent doctors and nurses at the Mayo Clinic would not be there. And I suspect that’s true of hospitals across this country. As to my Muslim doctors and nurses—I adored them—I trusted them completely—beautiful people with beautiful smiles and a warmth that rivals that of my Norwegian relatives any day of the week.

So to all my readers, I’m finally spilling the beans about my illness. It’s been a difficult and stressful time made tolerable by the cards, emails, phone calls and visits I received from friends, family and many of you. For that I am most grateful.

I’m also grateful to Paul Seeling who has never, not even once, expressed any frustration to me—his only reporter—about my long absence. Instead, he offers encouragement and wishes for improved health.

Forty days and 40 nights—that’s a lot of rain . . . that’s a long stay in the hospital, but who among us has been promised a worry-free, stress-free, disease-free life?

A friend of mine facing a liver cancer diagnosis shared this quote. “You either get bitter or you get better. It’s that simple. You either take what has been dealt you and allow it to make you a better person, or you allow it to tear you down. The choice does not belong to fate. It belongs to you.”

I’m choosing “better.” This journey I’m on . . . like the people/animals on the ark . . . will eventually end with the sun’s rays coming through the clouds. Of that I’m certain.

 

 

Colorado Wedding Trip

The end of June found me and my daughter , Beth, traveling to Colorado to celebrate my niece’s wedding day.  We had made our plans months ago and I looked forward to the day.  My niece, Tina, grew up in western Wisconsin and about 10 years ago she moved to the Fort Collins area in Colorado.  Tina fell in love with the mountains and spent her free time hiking in those mountains.  A few years ago she meet her future husband, Rich, and fell in love.

We made our plans to fly to Denver and rent a car to drive the final leg to Allenspark where the wedding venue is located.  We also traveled with another person, Tony.  Tony’s uncle is married to my sister and he joined us for the trip.  Our flight was an early one.  The departure from Minneapolis was about 5:00 in the morning.  Beth made the plan to stay in Bloomington at a hotel so we didn’t have to make the hour drive from home to the airport.  3 o’clock in the morning was an  early enough wake up call, we didn’t need to be an hour or two earlier.

We made our way to the airport and parked the car and caught a shuttle to bring us to the front of the airport.  We checked in and proceeded to the TSA checkpoint.  The line looked long but it moved along very quickly. We made our way thru and off to our gate.  It was very early in the morning.  Caribou Coffee wasn’t even open at that hour in the morning.  It was going to open shortly because a line had started forming by those needing their morning caffeine fix.  It wasn’t long and they called us to board the plane for our flight to Denver.

As our plane took off I saw the sun rising over the horizon with a red glow.  As we traveled westward I watched out the window as the sunrise greeted each town as the plane passed overhead.  The flight was smooth and uneventful.  We exited the plane and went to baggage claim and gathered our luggage.  We exited the airport and found the rental car shuttle for the ride to the car rental lot and picked up our car.  Beth rented the car and she added me as an extra driver and I did the driving for the weekend.  The first order of business was to get some breakfast.  We have been up for about 5 hours and hadn’t had anything to eat.  As we drove towards downtown Denver we looked for a place to stop and have breakfast.  We found an IHOP and stopped and ordered breakfast.

With breakfast finished we made a plan to head for Rocky Mountain National Park for some sightseeing before we made the drive to our cabin in Allenspark.  We made our way to Estes Park, the gateway to RMNP.  We stopped by the grocery store and grabbed some food to snack on as we drove thru RMNP.  Our plan was to drive to the top of the mountains and visit the Alpine Center.  I wanted to drive the Old Falls Road but we were to early in the season and the road wasn’t open.  I looked at the information brochure for RMNP and it stated the road usually opens around the 4th of July.  Rats! We were a week too early.  We made our way up the mountain via Highway 34.  We made the steady climb to 12,000 feet on our way to the Alpine center.  We drove by a large herd of elk high in the mountains grazing on the new alpine grasses as we continued on the drive to the Alpine Center.

We arrived at the center and the air was cool with a slight breeze.  Denver was warm at 7 in the morning and so was Estes Park.  The drive up the mountain was also warm and bright.  But the top was partly cloudy and cool.  It was good I had packed a jacket for the walkabout at the Alpine Center.  At 5 am we boarded a plane at 800 feet of elevation and a 2 pm we were standing at about  12,000 feet.  The altitude didn’t seen to effect me too much.  I kept a good stride up on the mountain.  Tony on the other hand found the lack of oxygen taxing on his breathing.  After a half hour of photos and a moment of taking in the sights and smells of the mountain top we made our decent to the floor of RMNP.

As we drove across the mountain top we met the elk herd again.  There must of been 80 or more.  All the sudden the traffic slowed to a slow crawl with frequent stops.  I couldn’t see ahead because of the twists and turns then all the sudden I saw why we were in the traffic jam at 12,000 feet.  There was an elk standing on the side of the road grazing within a short camera lens distance.  On the other side of the road were several elk laying and chewing their cuds after filling themselves on the fresh alpine grass.  As soon as we passed the the traffic lightened on our decent.  We made several stops at the many vistas in RMNP enjoying the views and soaking up the warmth of the air and sun.

We made our way back into Estes Park to pick up some groceries for at our cabin in Allenspark.  The town had turned into a big parking lot.  There was a celebration in Estes Park and there were no roads bypassing all the people in town.  With a slow drive we arrived at the store and found it with even more people shopping than before.  We purchased our items and made our way to Allenspark.

We followed the Peak to Peak Highway with all of its twists and turns enjoying the back country of Colorado’s mountains and looking into RMNP.  I saw a few sights I wanted to go back later to see and photograph.  We found the town of Allenspark and exited the highway onto the business highway that traveled thru town.  The town greeted us with many log cabins homes and rental homes.  As I drove pass the post office and I spotted my brother and his family  dropping a few pieces of mail in the mail box.  Maybe they were letters they sent to themselves back home.   We continued on our short journey and found our cabin.

The cabin was cozy and dark on the inside.  The walls on the inside of the cabin were log with a deep rich patina of well aged fir logs.  The cabin was well equipped for a quite vacation in the big woods.  There was no cell phone service but the cabin did have WiFi so we could stay linked in to the Internet.  Pictures will need to be uploaded to keep non traveling family members updated on our weekend adventure.  We unpacked and I took a walk around the outside our cabin and listened to the sounds of a small mountain stream sing its song.

Dinner time would have us all meeting at my sister’s cabin.  I’ll restate that, my Sister’s mountain home!  My sister and her daughter and family, and Dad and MaryLu also stayed at the home.  The home sat High on a Windy Knoll overlooking the Allensparks valley.  The backdrop behind Allenspark was mount Meeker and many other peaks in the RMNP.  From this home Mount Meeker would be bathed in the golden light of the morning sun and end the day with a silhouetted mountain peak in the final sunlight of the day.  The whole family gathered for a cookout, pre-wedding photos and lots of talk before retiring for the night.

The next morning was clear clear and warm.  Many of us were going to do a day hike on Lily Mountain.  It was a short and easy hike.  By who’s standards?  Yes it was only a 2 mile hike and a 1000 foot rise in elevation.  Remember, 24 hours earlier we were at less than 1000 feet in elevation.  At first the hike seemed doable.   As we continued my heart rate climbed and the breathing started to deepen and the body cells were asking for more nutrients.  The group started to fall apart with one group pushing forward and one pacing themselves on a more leisurely hike.  The top was no longer the goal but a day of enjoying the vistas from Lily Mountain.  We continued to fragment into smaller groups.  My brother and his family reached the summit of Lily Mountain.  Others fell short of the summit and me I found a vista more meaningful than a summit.  My daughter and sister joined me in the vista.  The vista was overlooking the valley floor of RMNP and the sunlight bathed the mountains in their purple majesty.

We started our decent and other family members who reached the top caught up to us and passed us up.  As we reached the road the fast returners were resting under several trees re-hydrating themselves.   We all returned to our cars and made our return trip to Allenspark.  We needed to get ready for my nieces wedding.  It is the reason we all traveled to Colorado.  The day was as perfect and was void of any clouds in the sky.

With our cabin party ready for the wedding we made the short drive to Wild Basin Lodge.  Family members started gathering and started meeting family members of the grooms family.  Dad asked me to video tape Tina’s wedding so I walked down to the meadow where the ceremony would be preformed.  I wanted to look over the site and go over in my mind where I wanted to stand.  I returned to the lodge and waited with the rest of the guests for the wedding to begin.  Than came the announcement to all the guests to make the walk to the wedding meadow.  I stood in the back with the video camera in hand and waited for the bride to arrive.

Dad had tipped me off how Tina was going to arrive to the wedding.  She would be in a carriage.  The wedding planner was flitting about making sure the photographer was in the right position.  She also had her daughter down the road looking for the carriage.  I was positioned between those two points.  The wedding meadow filled with guests and the groom and and other wedding party members gathered behind the meadow.  Than the moment happened.  The bride was in place and the wedding started.

The music started and the parents were ushered in and so was the wedding party.  I looked down the road and from around the corner a black horse appeared pulling a white carriage.  Tina was being escorted by her Grandfather in the carriage.  Tina’s father was at the wedding in spirit, photos and sewn to the inside of Tina’s dress because her father had passed away 16 years ago in a farming accident.  The horse made its way to the back of the meadow and Dad exited the carriage.  He walked around to Tina’s side and helped her down from the carriage.  Then he escorted her down the aisle to the waiting groom.

We all sat down and the officiant started the service.  The sun shown brightly and warmth was penetrating deeply into my skin.  Mount Meeker stood majestically as a backdrop to the wedding service.  As the service finished, the officiant pulled out the marriage certificate and had each person sign their name as required.  Tina and Rich walked down the aisle and stepped up into the carriage for their first ride together as husband and wife.  They quickly returned to the meadow for more photos with family and friends.  After the photos they returned to the carriage for the ride to Wild Basin Lodge for the reception.

We all gathered at the lodge for a cocktail hour followed by dinner.  More photos by family groupings.  That was a major undertaking to align all the people and have their face’s visible to the camera.  We continued to converse with Rich’s family and get to know them.  I spent some time with my one nephew, Daniel, talking about photography.  With the sun setting behind the mountains we started taking photos of the mountain stream.  He wanted to learn how to achieve the silk look of the flowing water.  With the low light we could set our shutter speeds slow enough the achieve the effect.  As darkness descended the time had come for us to return to our cabin.

The next morning was bright and clear.  The morning was a little foggy in my mind.  I must of been over served or too many activities in the high altitude?  We sat on the porch of our cabin sipping on coffee and watched a pack of llamas be lead down the road.  We were going to stop for breakfast before leaving Allenspark.  There is a small restaurant in town serving breakfast and lunch for the locals and visitors who call Allenspark home for the short term.  After breakfast we made the short drive to High on a Windy Knoll.  We wanted to say our goodbyes before driving back to Denver for a late night flight.

We took a scenic route back to Denver passing thru Nederland and Boulder.  We were all exhausted from the weekend.  We didn’t have much energy to do any sightseeing.  It was hours before our flight and we just wanted to go to the airport and hangout.  Our flight was scheduled for 9 pm and rain storms started moving into the Denver area.  As they were about to load the plane lightening was detected close to the airport.  The flight was delayed for an hour.  The airline finally had clearance to load the plane and takeoff.  With the plane loaded and taxiing to the runway I could see thunderstorms in the distance.  As we flew home I watched the lighting in the clouds below the plane and admired the stars above in the heavens.

We landed in Minneapolis after midnight and had to make the drive home.  Again I was driving and moving at a good pace within the law.  All the sudden a deer appeared in the middle of the freeway.  I was traveling in the center lane and the deer was standing on the hash line between the right lane and the center lane.  A quick “Oh S#!T” came out of my mouth as I did a quick move to the left.  I gave the deer a soft love tap with the front of the car.  I pulled over at the next exit to inspect the damage.  I pulled out my cell phone and turned on the light and did a quick look.  Very minor damage and still drive-able.  The next morning I did a little closer look and the deer had cracked the headlight lenses and put a couple of small dents in the sheet metal.  There was deer hair in the bead area of the tire.  Very minor damage and could have been worst.  My wife looked for the deer on the freeway on her travels to and from work the next few days.  She said she spotted a bloated carcass on the edge of the road near were I hit the deer.  I guess it was a little more then a love tap and we returned home safe.

It was a great trip to Colorado and to be there to celebrate Tina and Rich’s wedding day.  Congratulations to the happy couple.

Where Did I Come From?

It has been a few moths since my last post.  I have many thoughts on my mind but I haven’t found a way to move those thoughts to my fingertips.  With a lack of movement of thoughts to my fingertips it has left the keyboard silent.  So here is one of my thoughts.

Over a year ago, me and my siblings gave Dad an Ancestry DNA kit for Christmas.  Dad wanted to take the test to learn more about his DNA heritage.  He knew most of his family heritage was German and he was courious to see if he was more German from Western Europe or Eastern Europe.  Based on his ancestors he was about 3/4 German blood and the rest from Great Britain.  He has two cousins and they did their DNA a few years ago and he wanted to see how his DNA compaired.  Dad’s cousins are different than most cousins.  Dad’s father and his cousin’s father are brothers and also Dad’s mother and his cousin’s mother are sisters.  Double cousins.  With the closeness of the cousins the DNA should be similar.  

He didn’t do the test right away but in the fall he called me to come over to his house so he could take his sample.  I came over to his home and looked over the instructions.  The first thing we needed to do was activate his kit. I activated the kit under my user name and have become the administer of his DNA.  The test uses your saliva to do the DNA test.  The test doesn’t need a lot of saliva until you need to fill the test tube.  He filled the tube with a sample of his saliva and we capped the tube to release a stabilizer into the saliva.  I slipped the tube into a plastic bag then into a prepaid carton to mail it to Ancestry.  Then the wait was on.  The lab received the sample within a week but it would take almost a month before the sample would be run.  

One day I received an e-mail stating the results were in and boy was I surprised!  As I said earlier Dad was about 3/4 German and the question was which side of Germany would dominate, the west or east.  Answer, neither!  The dominate DNA region was Great Britain.  Dad was 45% Great Britain, 25% East Europe, 20% West Europe.  Mathematically he should have been 25% Great Britain but his DNA was 45% Great Britain.  It starting me wondering the power of certain DNA strains influencing our DNA.  How about his cousin’s DNA?  They were prodomintly  Europe and not as much Great Britain DNA.  

After I received the results of his DNA I also started seeing other people who shared DNA with my Dad.  Yep, there were his two cousins.  There were a few 2nd and 3rd cousins.  As of today there are 125 four cousins and closer and about 5000 people with shared DNA with my Dad.  How are they all related?  Some I can figure them out by looking at their family tree, others didn’t post a tree or have their tree set to private.  

At Thanksgiving I bought my own DNA kit from Ancestry.  I filled my tube with a sample and sent it to Ancestry to be analyzed.  Based on Dad’s DNA and my mom’s heritage, I figured I would be 20% Great Britain, 50% Europe and 25% Scandinavian.  My grandfather on my mother’s side imagrated from Norway.  As I waited for my results I continued looking over Dad’s results and analyzing how he was related to some of his DNA matches. Then about 6 weeks later my results were in.

Again I was surprised!  Genealogy DNA doesn’t follow the mathematical logic.  My results stated I was 45% Scandinavian, 25% Europe East, and 19% Great Britian. I had the Great Britain correct but not the European or Scandinavian DNA.  It shows the power of certain lines of ones DNA.  My Grandfater’s DNA had a dominant influence on my DNA.  His dominance may not have as strong of an influence on my siblings DNA.  It would be interesting to have my sibling do their DNA test so we could see the variables in our family’s DNA.     

 Recently my wife and her mother have done their DNA test.  As I sit patiently waiting for their results.  My early guess on their DNA results are for my mother-in-law is she will be dominated by Eastern Europe and have small traces from the surrounding regions.  Those areas include Northwest Russia/ Finland and the Caucasus region.  My wife will be an even split covering Great Btitain and all of Eastern and Western Europe.  I am not sure what the trace regions will be but that is the fun of seeing which region your DNA came from. With the limited traceablity of my mother-in-laws family tree it will be interesting to see how many people she shares DNA with and see how my people are 4th cousins and closer.  

Since I received the results for me and my dad I have contacted some of the DNA relatives.  One of the cousins and and I have my 2nd Great-Grandfather in common.    Another person it is my 3rd Great- Grandfather.  And still another it is my 6th Great- Grandfather dating back to his birth in 1750.  I will be meeting one of the cousins this weekend and I’m in the process of setting up a meeting with another cousin.  

This as been an interesting adventure.  I know I will not find out which thatched roof home my ancestor lived in but I do hope I can narrow down the region where they came from thus opening up more research opportunities and meeting distant relatives across the country.   

Wordless Wednesday

Welcome Mary Ann.