Sentimental Sunday - Those Kodak Moments

This weekend I've begun the task of removing my photographs from those horrendous "magnetic" photo albums. I remember when those came out and were all the rage. Who knew then that they would turn out to be a terrible option for preserving photographs?

Removing the photographs has been a rather tedious task and I'm only going through a couple albums each day. That results in hundreds of photographs! Those of us who are baby boomers and younger grew up with cameras. Our friends and family took photographs of everything. That was all before video cameras and YouTube. Now, just about everyone has a camera - and video - with them 24/7, so it's easier than ever before to capture a special moment.

As genealogists, imagine our excitement if we had discovered this many photographs of our family and ancestors from say, before 1930? Were there more photographs that were thrown away? Why did so few survive? Are there photographs of our family in the hands of the descendants of their friends from the turn of the century (the 20th, not the 21st!).

As I look at the thousands of my own personal photographs this weekend, it becomes quite overwhelming. Questions face me about my own personal photograph archive: Do I keep all of them? Which ones should I scan? Will I attempt to rewrite my history by shredding photographs of former friends or toxic relationships? Will I keep photographs that elicit a bad memory? Even if the photographs are gone, those memories are still stored away in my brain somewhere.

I've just been through an album from the 1970s. If a stranger were to look through that album and try to create a story of my life, it would probably indicate that I was quite the party animal. Nothing is probably further from the truth. During that decade I was working hard, both at my day job and starting a magazine publishing business with a colleague (it didn't last!). I was also doing quite a bit of freelance writing on the side. Those stories are not represented in my photo album.

Hard at Work in 1977

I've included the photo above since it's one of the few that I have of myself on the job. Other photos are social events and vacations. Take a look to my left. That's a rotary dial telephone! You don't find many of those around any more. There's no computer to be seen anywhere! On the other hand, some things never change. Thirty-three years later, I still have my To Do list propped up in front of me.

What I've been enjoying about going through these photo albums is looking in the background of the photos - noticing the furniture and wall decor that were sold at garage sales. Some even have a little bit of significance in my family history.

1980
Nebraska State Capitol, Lincoln

This was in a series of photographs taken when I was about to audition for a job of host of "PM Magazine" in Omaha. That was probably one of the most disastrous moments of my journalism career - when I realized once and for all that I was better off behind the camera instead of in front of it. There's nothing like a cattle call audition to weed out the people who couldn't cut it in show biz. I'm still surprised I stuck it out and didn't walk out before my 30 seconds in front of the camera. Fortunately, my tape was not included in the "gag reel" that ran on the six o'clock news that night.

I digress - what does the photo have to do with my family history? See the parking garage directly behind me? For many years, one of the houses that stood there was 415 South 15th Street, Lincoln, Nebraska. My great grand aunt, Nellie Kelly Rector, lived there for years and various members of the Kelly and Fitzgerald families came and went through that residence over the years. It then became the home of Lum and Ruth Fitzgerald Doyle, whose son I'll be writing about on this blog on Tuesday. I'm sure you'll recognize him! I have been looking for some vintage photographs of the house and believe that I actually discovered one in my own collection - a photograph of what was then 15th Street - before it became Centennial Mall. I have several photographs that I took from the top of the State Capitol. It's not a great photo, but it's the only one I've found so far. I shall keep looking.

Family Heirlooms in Everyday Life 

This photo was taken at a wedding shower I cohosted for a coworker. On the left, in the china hutch, is the teapot that belonged to my great grandmother. It always sat on display at my grandmother Kelly's home, then it was passed along to my Mom, and then on to me. The other family heirloom in this photo is the pedestal cake plate my friend is holding. That, too, was passed down through the family and I've used it often for cakes or other pastries.

So, if you're still with me after this little trip down memory lane, I'm curious to hear what YOU are doing with your collection of contemporary photos from your lifetime. Are you keeping everything? Are you tossing out the bad, blurry or unflattering photos? Are you tossing out the photos of the ex? What kind of photographic history will you be leaving behind for future generations? What photographs will survive? Please share your comments below. I look forward to reading about how others are dealing with the avalanche of images we have created in our lifetime.

Sentimental Sunday - faded photographs and memories

I've been sorting through stacks and boxes of old photographs lately and put my latest discoveries in the middle of the kitchen table yesterday so my Dad and I could look through them. A few years ago I had borrowed some family photos from his cousin to make photographic copies - this was well before scanners and digital cameras. This was all done on a copy stand with a 35mm SLR camera and closeup lenses. But I digress.

We spent the better part of the afternoon looking through the photos. Apparently we'd gone through this process once before because his handwriting was on the back of several of the photographs, with identification of who was in the photo. But there were still quite a few photos that weren't identified. As we went through them we were able to make identifications on everyone in the photos with the exception of a man Dad called an "unknown soldier." It was a photograph of Dad and his first cousins and a soldier in Army dress. Dad said he wasn't a member of the family but was spending time with the family that day and ended up in the photograph.

There was another photograph of his aunts and uncles with his grandmother and an unknown little girl. He thought it was me and I pointed out that his grandmother died about ten years before I was born, so it most definitely was not me. A few minutes later we came across a picture of him with his parents and younger sister. He pointed out that his sister was the unknown little girl in the other photograph because she was wearing the same dress. What a eye for detail! I had certainly missed that one.

It's fun to look through the photos because they open up conversation about Dad's childhood memories - and those go back 70 - 80 years. Because of the number of photographs of him and his cousins, I asked if the families spent a lot of time together. He replied that they did - his family frequently spent weekends at his grandparent's home (about a two hour drive, even today). The cousins from the home town also came to Lincoln to visit. He told how his aunt lived with his family for a while when she was attending cosmetology school. And his uncle lived with them for a while until he got settled in a job.

As we looked at the photos he had an embarrassed giggle and asked if I'd ever heard the story about when he was a small boy and his mother and aunt were sewing at his aunt's dining room table. This story did not sound familiar to me, so he went on. Somehow, he managed to get a pair of scissors and became fascinated with the fancy lace tablecloth draped over the sides of the table. So, quite meticulously, he began cutting lengthwise strips of fabric from the tablecloth. He said he got about half way around the table before his mischievousness was noticed. Understandably, his mother was furious, but he said if his aunt was upset, she certainly didn't show it. It seems that little boys, scissors and fancy lace tablecloths are a recipe for disaster!

Sentimental Sunday - Missing My Mom

It's been 27 years since my Mom died. That seems like such a long time. She died at age 55, which seems very young to me. Her strength through her struggle with cancer helped me be strong during her illness.

To this day, I feel a void in my life, an empty space. But I also sense that she is along for the ride on my genealogical journey. It was from her that I heard most of the family stories. Don't I wish I had had the foresight to have written some of them down! Too many of the stories have faded from memory over the years. Once I  got started dabbling in family history, Mom frequently said she wished that her Dad and Aunt Etty were around to ask about certain events.

The Kelly family was Irish down to the bone. In my younger years, I always said that I was half Irish and half Danish. Over the years, I've discovered that my heritage also includes ancestors from England and Germany.

The days have passed since Mom's death when I would go to the phone to call her, only to realize I couldn't. Now, I talk with her on a spiritual level.

Perhaps one of the reasons I am trying to preserve my family history is to make it a lasting tribute to my Mom. I think she would like that.

Sentimental Sunday - Happy Father's Day

Here's one of the earliest photographs of me and my Dad. I'm either a few days or a few weeks old.

My generation is known as the post-war Baby Boomers. Many of our Dads served the country during World War II, and those who survived the war came home, got married and started families. Tom Brokaw was right when he called them The Greatest Generation.

Many of us grew up in traditional environments with a working Dad and a stay-at-home Mom. At least I did. It was a good life.

I learned life's most important lessons from my parents. Get a good education, have a solid work ethic.

Even now, as I'm becoming a senior citizen (egods, I even get Senior Discount at some places!), I'm still learning lessons from my Dad. For example, don't plan on today's income covering retirement expenses twenty years from now! And that health care is expensive, even with Medicare and insurance. Who knew?

I'm fortunate that my Dad is still a big part of my life although our roles have reversed and I am now in the caregiver role. Today is his day with all of his favorites - chicken fried steak with mashed potatoes and white gravy and carrot cake. Maybe I'll even get off the computer long enough for us to go for a Sunday drive.

If your Dad is still with you, treasure him. If he's gone, take some time to think about the good memories. And for all of the Dads - your kids love you, even if they don't always say so.

Happy Father's Day.

One of my favorite books about Dads by one of my favorite journalists, the late Tim Russert:

Sentimental Sunday - Good Ride Cowboy!

I enjoy reading posts by other genealogy bloggers, and a recent post from Genealogy Gems News was about Pretty Little Pony pictures.

Unlike the photos shared in that post, my Kelly family grew up with horses - they were used for transportation, farming and even fun for the kids. So I thought I would share a few of the photos from my family archive.

This is the earliest known photo I have of my mother, Patricia Landon Kelly, at the age of 18 months on Teddy, the family pony that was ridden by Mom, her siblings and visiting cousins. Ted was around until Mom was well into her teens.

Mom later became an accomplished rider. In fact, she told me of her childhood dreams of running off to the circus so she could ride horses!

Here she is in her riding gear, circa 1940s.

Bill Kelly, Greenwood, Nebraska

Here's my grandfather, (Mom's father), Bill Kelly, on one of the work horses.

I remember two of the work horses that were still around when I was a youngster. The family always named the horses, and the team I remember were Babe and Tony.

Sentimental Sunday - Paul Kelly

Paul Daniel Kelly
26 June 1897 - 30 May 1946

This Memorial Day weekend, I pay tribute to Paul Daniel "D.R." Kelly, who was my grandfather's brother.

He died 64 years ago today in Portland, Oregon. He was crossing a street shortly before midnight when struck by a car. The accident was front page news in Portland the next day. Until a few weeks ago, all I knew was that he had been killed in a car accident in Oregon in the 1940s.

Just this week, I finally found a funeral notice in the Oregonian newspaper which indicated he was buried at Mount Calvary cemetery in Portland.

Two weeks ago, my sentimental Sunday tribute was to Paul's wife, Elsie Stambaugh Kelly, who returned to Nebraska some time after Paul's death.

Paul Daniel Kelly and his brother (my grandfather), William Leroy Kelly.


How can you not love those ties!

Sentimental Sunday - Elsie Stambaugh Kelly and her twin daughters

Elsie Stambaugh Kelly of Greenwood, Nebraska was the daughter of John and Belle Stambaugh. She was married to Paul Daniel "D.R." Kelly, who was a brother of my grandfather, William L. Kelly, Sr. I never knew Elsie or "Uncle Paul" Kelly, but the box of family photos has a lot of pictures of their twin daughters, Lucille Kelly and Irene Kelly.

Paul Kelly was killed when he was struck by a car in Portland, Oregon in 1946.

The twins are two of the brick walls in my search for members of my Kelly family. The girls were born in Nebraska circa 1918. Irene was married to Raymond Johnson and Lucille was married to Edward Butler of Scottsbluff, Nebraska.

My leads for the twins run dry about 1940. If you're related to this family, I would love to hear from you.

Funeral card for Elsie Kelly, 1964

Sentimental Sunday – how I got started in genealogy

As a young girl, I remember that I was always fascinated by the old sepia toned photographs of these people I never knew. My Mom would tell me who they were and relate some of the stories she remembered about them.

But it was in the late 1970s when a strange letter found its way to us. It was a letter written by a woman in California, addressed to my grandmother, Mrs. Sina Kelly, in Greenwood, Nebraska. Why so strange? My grandmother had been deceased for about 25 years at the time. But – small towns being as they are, the postmistress in Greenwood had been our neighbor and long time family friend. She forwarded the letter to my mother.

Sina Bellinger Kelly, age 17



The lady in California was doing research on Sina’s family, the Bellingers. The researcher got Sina’s name from Sina’s father’s death certificate and decided to write to Sina, not knowing she had also passed. Always up for a good investigation and mystery story, I stepped up to respond to the letter.

Mom and I got out all of the old boxes of photographs and documents and began going through them, identifying the names of people in the photos as best as Mom could remember. You have no idea how many times I have been so thankful that we took the time to do that. Even then, Mom commented how she wished that her Dad and Aunt Etty were there to help us with that task. By the time we had finished, there were only two or three photographs that we had not been able to identify.

The California genealogist had requested we complete some family group sheets, which I did. As one might expect – finding a willing participant to provide more information on the family had to have seemed like a gold mine.

From this point, I began working on other lines of the family, on and off for several years. In the early to mid 1980’s this lady from California and her mother planned a research trip to Nebraska and we made plans to meet and visit some cemeteries. It was then that I met “cousin Joy” – Joy Deal Lehmann, who went on to publish her family history books on the Deal family, and our related Bellinger and Landon families. It was then that I saw the commitment and dedication of a true genealogist as I followed Joy around the cemeteries, tracking down people in town who kept the cemetery records. I drew the line, however, at entering a vastly overgrown cemetery which I believed had to be the home of hundreds of snakes!

Over the years, I would spent a month or two at a time working on the family history, then set things aside when life got in the way. But over the last two years, I’ve renewed my commitment and continue the quest with the kind of obsession that I saw in Joy more than twenty years ago. I may not have been doing this today had it not been for that letter she wrote to my grandmother.

Sentimental Sunday - My search for long lost relatives

One might wonder why I would want to have yet another blog and domain Long Lost Relatives.net when I already have information posted on Ancestry.com and its affiliated sites as well as the relatively new social networking site Genealogy Wise.com. Well, when you're obsessed with seeking information on hundreds of long lost relatives, you never know how you might get in touch again. The Internet is a vast and amazing repository of information and each day millions and millions of searches are conducted. My hope is that some of those searches will point some long lost family members in my direction and we will be able to share information on our families, and perhaps some photographs and other documents.

Some of the primary family surnames I am researching are: Beal, Beale, Bell, Bellinger, Cagney, Casey, Clapsaddle, Conneally, Doyle, Fitzgerald, Kelleher, Kelly, Landon, Langdon, Laymon, Loder, Manahan, Pecht, Petersen, Stover, and Welch.

In addition to these names, I have hundreds of other surnames who have married relatives - or relatives of the relatives. When I come across documents or articles about someone who ends up in my family tree, I save it (on Ancestry.com) so that, hopefully, I am able to save some other researchers some time and effort. I know that the work of others has definitely aided my work over the years.

United States locations where my primary research focuses are Nebraska (Lancaster, Cass, Gage, Nuckolls, Douglas, Sarpy, Saunders); Minnesota - St. Paul; Missouri; Kansas - Republic County. But I have discovered that while the families were in these locations for many years, they eventually spread out to nearly every state and I have found some family members in the west coast in Washington, Oregon and California.

I definitely look forward to hearing from other Long Lost Relatives and hope that we can, together, put together this ever growing patchwork of family history.