Family Reunions

Well, I've been back to work for a couple of weeks now and, I must say, vacation was better.

On July 15th, I did a presentation at the Old Town Museum called "Exploring Davis Street Families: An Introduction to Genealogical Research." The crowd was small, but I think it went pretty well and it got me working on a project I've been thinking about for sometime - a genealogy of the families living on Davis St. while I was growing up. I'm not sure what will ever come of it or when I'll find time to work on it, but I've got a good start now, anyway.

July is almost over, but it was the month when we had those memorable family reunions - when Uncle Archie and family came from New Jersey. In my memory they happened every year, but that's probably not the case. In the Dube/Dubay book that was published for the Dube Family Reunion held in Madawaska in 1989, Mom submitted the picture (1952?) above and added a note that read "It wasn't really a big deal reunion....." but they seemed like a big deal to me. I remember that Grammy would cook a turkey and then grind up the meat to make turkey salad for finger sandwiches. I know that at least one year, I got to help with the grinding and thought it was great fun. I still love finger rolls with chicken or turkey salad and have even been known to grind the meat like Gram did, for old time sake. I was shocked when Mom said many years later that she thought they tasted like sawdust. All of the good cooks in the family would bring salads and desserts and it was all great. I was always a big fan of Aunt Mills Mac and Cheese, but I don't remember if she made it for the reunions or just at Christmas. I don't remember there being beer or other adult beverages, but I suspect there were some somewhere. I do remember there being a baseball game in the field behind the garage, but don't remember being old enough to play. I hope some of you can supplement my memory. How about you younger cousins - can you remember these parties?Here is another photo from the way back machine. This is the family of Francis and Sophie (Soucie) Pelletier, the parents of DesAnge Pelletier Sirois, our grandfather Archie's mother. The children are Celia, Melvina, Mary DesAnge, Natalie and twin Hattie, Alexander, Joseph and John. I can't seem to put my hands on anything that gives their birth order, but I suspect that our great-grandmother is sitting to the left of her father (his right). I'll dig that info up and see if I can put name to faces.
Here's another great-great-grandfather, Jeremiah (Germain in French) Dubay, father of Charles and Grammy's grandfather. I've seen the original of this pic and it seems to be a real photo that was painted over, so looks like a drawing in some places. Jeremiah owned the store on French Island that became Shorty's, and Charles ran it for awhile, too.

Paul is off fishing today, taking part in the annual Jeff Johnstone Memorial Outing. They have a fun day of fishing and raise money for a scholarship at the high school. I'm not sure which years Jeff taught at OTHS, but suspect some of you younger cousins had him and certainly some of our children did.

Well, that's it for today. Time to get the day started. For those of you who are just lurking here (like you, Fenway Frank :-), please take a minute to just click on comment and publish a "Hi" so that I can get an idea of who is reading. Just click on comment, type something in the big box - even just your name, hit the button next to anonymous and publish. Thanks.

I think I have to go make some turkey salad finger rolls now.

Love

Betsy

The Great Lakes Tour 2007

We're back from our trip to corn country. As we were passing by Toronto, (sorry, Pierre, we were visited out by that time and ready to head home) Paul said, "you know, we'll be seeing all of the great lakes on this trip." We went up through Quebec and Ontario, stopping in Pembroke, ONT and Sault Ste. Marie, ONT and finally landing in Cornucopia, WI, where we spent a few days on the shores of Lake Superior with our friends Laurie and Noel and their children. Laurie's parents, who live in IL own a couple of cabins there and they were just right for the 6 of us. The picture above is of a Superior sunset. Here's one of Chloe and Caleb:
She's 4 and he's 6 months, and as you can imagine, they were very entertaining. After a couple of days of fun there, we headed down to Rob and Barb's. Our first full day there was July 4th and some of Barb's family and Michael, Karrin and Ben came over for a cook-out. It was great to see them all and especially great to finally meet Ben. He was a little shy at first, but warmed up pretty quickly. He's a very smart little guy and we had fun playing with him a bit. Gramma and Papa are pretty smitten with him, as you can imagine and it was fun to watch Rob sharing his breakfast with him and then watching Thomas the Train. Rob is still working at the Advertiser and is looking forward to retirement in a few years (I think I mentioned before, how old he is :-) and Barb is off for the summer from her teacher aide duties and in the fall she will be running the library in her school. She is a little nervous about it, I think, but I know she will really enjoy it. The boys are both doing well in their jobs - Michael right there near his folks and Rob the younger is out in Seattle working for Microsoft. I got to talk to him on the phone for a minute and he sounded great. We also talked to Wayne on the phone while I was there. He sounded good and we all vowed to talk to each other more often. He, too, is looking forward to retirement - Man, how did we all get so old???
We did take the train into Chicago one day and it was fun. We went up in the Sears Tower and walked around Millennium Park and saw the "bean" sculpture:It is actually called the Cloud Gate and is by Anish Kapoor. I had seen his Sky Mirror in Rockefeller Center last October and was fascinated by that - this was even more intriquing. If you get a chance, check it out. We also did a double decker tour bus thing and it was a good way to end our day there. We never could have seen everything on our own, and now we know where we want to go the next time we visit. Going in by train was easy and inexpensive and added to the adventure. We didn't get to Great America this time, but did do a little shopping at Gurnee Mills - an outlet mall nearby. On Saturday, we headed home, going around the city and into Canada at Detroit, stopping in London, ONT and Sherbrooke, QUE and arriving home yesterday afternoon. We both have the rest of the week off though Paul will probably spend some time at work and I will be preparing for a presentation I will be doing this weekend at the museum. More about that later.
Here's one last picture for today. This is Toby and his girlfriend Michelle. They are both working at Scout Camp this summer, so I probably won't see him until the weekend - though we may take a ride out one evening, just to say hi.
Next time, I'll work on getting more old stuff on. It's gettin warm up here and it's time to head to the nice cool basement, so that's it for now.
Betsy