Family Stories

3 Dreams Fulfilled

Many years ago in casual conversation with my eldest granddaughter, I mentioned that tho I had lived 40 years quite near to NYC, I had had 3 dreams I had never been able to consummate. Tho I had been to NC many times beginning in high school when I took a one day trip with the Girl Reserves beginning at 11:00pm Saturday and back home Sunday 11:30 –...

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9/11/2001 Elsy Carolina Osorio-Oliva

May 1, 2011. Osama Bin Laden killed in compound in Pakistan by U.S. forces. I had originally posted this next story as a Memorial Day tribute story. I have been urged to move this to the 9/11/2001 page. Although Carolina was not a soldier, it was my feeling that her death and the deaths of the other vicitims of the terrorist attacks on the 9/11...

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A Stroke of the Clock

They lived in a dome. It was built as an experimental project of the University of Texas architecture department in a time when Buckminster Fuller's geodesic domes were all the rage and students could get involved in projects that taught things other than how to deal with bureaucrats and beg for grant money. It is not surprising that a structure...

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Aimee Whitley-George

Aimee is an artist, real estate agent and raconteur. Her stories seem to focus on her family and friends.

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Along the Artichoke Trail

Until a few years ago, I never thought about artichokes. I didn’t eat them nor does anyone in my household. But that was before Jacki and I became grandparents. Neither, my sister nor I had married. We had no children and expected no grandchildren. A knitting lesson changed everything. Jacki was teaching a group of middle school aged girls to knit...

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An Enhanced Vision

The year was 1974. Barry was eleven years of age, and was a student in the fourth grade, attending an elementary school, and residing in the small industrial city of Waterbury, Connecticut. Barry’s life experience up to this point consisted of the atmosphere and environment of his home and school. He really had little first-hand exposure or...

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Charlie and Whitey, the Rooster

Charlie arrived home on a lovely late Summer Friday afternoon. There was a gentle breeze and it was not too hot. He decided it would be a perfect time for a pre-dinner nap in the hammock. It had been a long week and the kids would be arriving for the weekend early the next morning. The hammock was hung lower to the ground than most, providing easy...

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Christmas Memories

It was early Christmas morning. We could hear giggling and know the girls were waiting at the top of the stairs for everyone to awaken. This was the house rule - we all go down together to see what Santa had left. Harry would light the fireplace and we could start opening gifts while staying in our PJs and robes. There was lots of noise ad...

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Communication

What's in a word? For a person with limited communication capabilities, more than you can imagine My big sister is developmentally challenged, and although she is an avid and accomplished reader, free expression - outward communication - has always been a source of stress for her. Still, Annie loves engaging in conversation and loves small talk....

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Donuts

Donuts. Beignets. Sopapilla. Bread dough, deep fried and coated with sugary sweetness. There must be something universal in our tastes that has led to a treat that crosses cultures with its allure, and like everything that good, a downside. Grease, sugar and simple carbs are a path to weight and health issues that everyone with a cup of coffee...

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Gone Fishing

My Dad was always intent to make fishermen out of my brother and me. One way was to go seining for catfish in a nearby muddy river. Dad and my oldest brother would hold the seine. Ray and I, using large hoes, would juggle under the banks where the fish lived. Bushes hung over the banks and snakes would fall around us into the water. When the seine...

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Holiday Memories

Holidays were very quiet when I was a growing up. It was just the three of us to enjoy a delicious dinner and during the day or evening some friends or a relative might stop by to see us. As a young child on Christmas Eve I was put to bed by seven-thirty and then my parents would put up the tree and decorate it. In the early morning we would all...

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Jeannie Peck

Jeannie Peck's memories of another time and place are full of warm humor, interesting people and lots of pets.

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Jenny, The Mister & the Christmas Tree

Ca 1925 – or so. This is one of those well-worn, beloved family stories (all families have them) that is, with great relish, oft-repeated and never dulls – at least not to the family. It is however, the kind of a story that is incredibly boring to those outside the family, much as someone else’s home movies once were. But it is I who am writing...

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Lost and Found

When I graduated from high school, my mother gave me a beautiful ring – a ruby set in diamonds. I was thrilled! Not only was it a complete surprise, but I treasured it even more when I learned its history – it was old, and had been given to my mother’s mother by her husband when she was born. As I am named for my mom, she chose to pass it down to...

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Marty Acton

It takes a lot of starch and a hot iron to hold the crease in a pair of Wrangler jeans, but save some starch for the white shirt. It takes six sets of jeans, shirts, boots and hats to outfit the pallbearers in a cowboy funeral. Marty Acton's funeral filled the rodeo arena in San Angelo, Texas with starched jeans, white shirts and black cowboy hats...

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My Grandparents

My grandfather, Pierce Stephen Corden (b. April 8, 1872), was the first Corden born on Wall Street off East Main St. in Waterbury, CT. He was the tenth child of eleven born to my great-grandparents, Henry and Bridget Mitchell Corden. Five years later, Bridget at age 45 gave birth to Joseph, her eleventh child. Seven years later, an exhausted...

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My Parents' Generation, by Connie Westreich

My father was born in 1897 and my mother was born in 1900. They were both born in a small town in Russia and migrated to the United States when they were quite young. They met in this country and married when they were in their early twenties. They lived through hard times! My father started out as a door–to-door insurance salesman and worked...

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Nannie King

Mrs. King brought her six year old son to join my 1st grade in Littleton, Colorado. He was an acquaintance and friend all through high school and college. Then he had a scholarship (2 years) as a teacher and student at MIT in Boston. I was planning to teach for two years in a school in Manzanola, Colorado. Before the first year was over, Mrs. King...

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Performing a Family Oral History

PERFORMING A FAMILY’S ORAL HISTORY by Tumbleweed Smith Jan Hart of Temple goes to schools, churches, synagogues and libraries performing the actual words spoken by her grandmother, Annie Harelik Novit. Jan’s presentation is called Annie the Immigrant. It all stems from some tapes she found in storage closet. In December of 1968, Annie sat down with...

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