Little League and Other Stuff

Hi all! It's been a busy couple of weeks here. I spent last weekend working on a program that I did on Tuesday night at the Bangor Public Library on Franco American Genealogy. I had a very small crowd - it didn't help that it was one of the coldest evenings we've had this winter - but it went pretty well, I think. I created another blog for the class and plan to keep adding to that as well (in my spare time.) If you are interested you can find it at fa-maine.blogspot.com. It has some basic genealogy info as well as links to FA sites.
I saw a bit of cousin Billy last week. We bought a new used car from him and it was a pleasure to do business with him. Since I've been working on this and the other blog and have been going through old pictures, I was struck by how much Bill looks like our grandfather when he was young. (This is where I whine about not being able to scan photos again) Anyway, I'm very happy with my car. It's a Chrysler Concorde, a newer model than the one I traded in, so I'm familiar with it and it feels comfortable. It handled very well the two snowy and messy driving days we had this past week.
We were driving through Great Works yesterday - something I don't do that often these days - and, as I often do when I go by there, I thought about the loss of the little league field there by the mill. I often rode my bike down there in the evenings to watch Roger, Gary and Peter and some classmates play on that field. Of course part of the fun was a visit to the store to buy a soda and Humpty Dumpty bar-b-que chips - still a favorite, though I limit my intake to once a year or so. I'm sure you younger cousins played there as well. I was trying to remember the teams that you all played on, but can't. Let's see there was PCF, and Sewells, and Elks, and...
well, I can think of others, but I'm not sure if they were l.l. teams or farm league teams from when Paul and his brother coached that, like Rotary, Governors, 3E, and KofC. I'm sure you guys can help me out. Who played and what team did you play on? Was that the only field or did you play at the Jr. High too? I remember playing softball at the Jr. High before they built a good field for the baseball team and gave us the old victory field. At least we didn't have to walk a half mile to play anymore.
Well, it's time for me to get ready and go visit Aunt Jeannette, so I can back in time to watch the football games. I'm hoping for a Patriot victory, but I'm not sure they can pull it off.
Talk to you again soon.

Name Those Great Uncles

Dana asked the question I was dreading - Which is which uncle. I get mixed up on the older ones, but I think I have it straight, so here goes.
Front row, left to right: Grammy Dubay, Eugene, Lillian, Rodolph (Chick), Grampy Dubay.
Second row: James, Grammy, William, George.
Third row: Leo, Mary, Charles Jr.

I can remember Gene, Chick and Leo and of course Lil and George. If I made a mistake, let me know.
Betsy

Dubay Family

I just remembered that there were some Dubay family pics on the French Island History page (http://www.old-town.org/nos/archive.htm) and the one with Grammy Dubay that I was thinking about is there so here it is. Doesn't Grammy D. look like she rules the roost? That's our Grandmother in the middle with the white dress and this is before Aunt Jeannette. I think this is a great photo.

This site also has a photo of Gram as a young woman that I like. I believe she was married already when this photo was taken.



Well, there, now I feel better. Read the next post to see what all this is about. Betsy.

A New Computer

Well, new to us anyway. Hi everyone. Sorry to be so quiet for the last couple of weeks. Holiday activities and some car problems (at one point, Toby and I were huddled together in the cold at Sullivan's garage, waiting for Paul's Mom to come give us a ride, because both of our vehicles were waiting to be repaired - funny to think about now, but not at the time) and the constant computer problems, kept me from sitting down to talk to you.
So, we now have a cast off computer that we are buying from Michelle's son Patrick, which brings us a quite a bit closer to being up-to-date. However, our old scanner is just too old to work with this computer, so still no pictures are forthcoming. I've found some great ones though, so when I can post them, you're going to love them :-)
While Paul was setting the computer up, I was filing some of the piles of genealogy stuff that had accumulated around the room. It was fun to revisit some old relatives that I haven't thought much about for awhile. I had printed a fan chart of Papa Sirois' family tree, which is a chart with boxes for each ancestor starting with the most recent in the center, Papa in this case, and getting wider as each larger number of parents are added until it resembles a fan. If you have it all filled in and find every ancestor, back 12 generations or so, it can be a big circle. This one went 8 generations, and was missing about 64 people from the outer edge, but it still was pretty impressive to look at. It made me realize how much work I've done. After getting all the odds and ends put away, while I was in the Franco American mood, I started reading the book that the libraries in Old Town, Orono, Bangor and Hampden are promoting this month as part of a joint community reads project. I'm going to be presenting a program on Franco American Genealogy in a week or so as part of the activities, so thought I should read the book before then. The book is "Papa Martel" by Gerard Robichaud and is about a Franco family living in Maine - probably L/A or Augusta - around the time of the depression. There are lots of kids with an uneducated, hard working but fun loving Papa and a convent-educated, stern but loving Maman, keeping them all in line. In one part, the children are all around the table doing homework, and Maman insists that the house, and Papa be quiet during this time. He has a hard time following this rule and gets shushed by her several times until finally, he gets one of the kids to insist he tell the story of how he met Maman and she loses control of the whole group. It made me think of stories Mom and Aunt Jeannette have told me of Grampy Dubay. He loved his children and loved to play with them, but was not much in the discipline department. That was Grammies job, and I understand she was very good at it. I can just picture their large family in that little house, with all those rambunctious boys, being brought to attention by their formidable Maman - of course in my mind she is always a little white haired woman, but I suspect she was a pretty imposing figure when she was younger. I've read other stories of Francos and French Canadians that portray a similar family dynamic. I wonder if it is typical of that cuture or of immigrant cultures in general, or maybe large families. Well, maybe I'll find out more if I attend one of the book discussions planned as part of the programming.
I hope everyone is enjoying a Happy New Year. I've got lots of things to get done today, including taking down the Christmas decorations, so I'd better get at it.
Hope to hear from you all soon.
Betsy