“Family Archaeologist” explores a century of family letters, diaries, and artifacts, and how they illuminate history and our shared humanity. To get an overview of the blog, click: “Welcome to Family Archaeologist”
LATEST BLOG POSTS
First Responders on 9-11 and today
With the 17th anniversary of the 9-11 attacks drawing near, my mind is drawn back to the images of the First Responders, laden with gear, climbing up the stairs at the twin towers as everyone else was coming down to escape. I am thinking about all the lives lost that horrid day, including the lives of the First Responders- the fire fighters who put their lives on the line every day.
Texas, disaster, and my family
The unprecedented rain, flooding, displaced families, and ensuing misery in Texas this past week takes me back to memories of my dad's stories and my good times in Texas. Dad was an engineer for the National Board of Fire Underwriters (NBFU). His job was to inspect cities to check on their preparedness for disasters.
Memoir and Chicago History: Interwoven
WHAT THE HECK IS THIS STORY ABOUT? That’s the critical question every author, fiction or nonfiction, has to answer. In my case, I had so much material–the thousands of pages of letters, diaries, documents, etc. I found in my parents’ attic after their deaths, I felt overwhelmed, but knew the only way to start was to read through it all. [...]
Blacks denied entry
I wanted to find a way to connect this week’s blog post with last weekend’s display of hateful bigotry: white supremacists violently protesting the removal of Confederate General Lee’s statue in Charlottesville, Virginia. Demanding that Confederate symbols remain is another way of saying “We approve of the Confederate stance that blacks should be enslaved; that they are subhuman.” Even if only the most racist of Americans would actually mouth those words today (like the white supremacists in Charlottesville), back in the 1950s and 1960s, whites spoke openly against blacks entering their communities–and thought they had good reason.
The “Mankini” as cutting edge beach fashion
Chicago and family history buffs (no pun intended) –and anyone who enjoys a good laugh, should get a kick out of today’s blog post. Summer is waning, giving way to back-to-school ads (sigh), and later sunrises, but the Lake Michigan water is nice and warm (71-73º) after a summer of sunshine. I thought it would be fun to celebrate beach [...]
Evicted
At age 17, my mother became the sole support of her parents The Depression had destroyed 50% of all manufacturing jobs in Chicago. Her father was a tool and die maker, a machinist–and sixty-years-old to boot, so...tough luck for him. He got the boot. When the banker came around to demand their mortgage payments, he said, "Why don't you take your daughter out of school and send her to work to pay the mortgage?"
OJ and the lynched effigy
I was inspired to write this post by an article in the Guardian by @NatalieYMoore, Chicago’s South Side reporter for WBEZ. ("Don't let Simpson Blind us to Black Victims of Injustice.") Last week the focus was on OJ’s parole from prison for the 2008 sports memorabilia robbery. After serving nine years, he’ll probably be released early, from his thirty-three year sentence, in October. It took me back to another October–twenty-two years ago, 1995, when a jury acquitted OJ of murdering his ex-wife, Nicole Brown Simpson and her friend, Ron Goldman. The media were all over the story: Most blacks cheering; most whites were outraged.
“He knows all the little innuendoes of kissing…”
Oh it was heavenly! He knows all the little innuendoes of kissing and I ain’t so bad m’self, if I do say so We kissed for about an hour and a half. Tonight was like a page from a storybook, and he definitely is the man I want to marry. Dear God, please let it come true!!
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