Looking for the good . . .

I am so glad this week is done. It's been a long one, and I'm afraid not a very productive one. I worked hard all week and didn't even take the camera out of its bag. It felt as though all I did was work, eat and sleep - and much of the eating (breakfasts and lunches) was done at my desk.

I was selected as a panel member this week to review tons of papers and determine if the ratings on them were correct. My fellow panel members were great, we got along well and were able to reach a consensus on all of them. However, that panel took up all day Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday and half of Thursday. That gave me just a day and a half to catch up a week's worth of work.

That made me very grateful to have a wonderful staff who kept the office running smoothly and picked up some of my tasks on top of their own work. They are a great group of people - I missed their company while I was locked up in the panel work.

Friday the temperature dropped to -30 at work. Somewhere on the way to work, one of my tires went flat. I have no idea where this happened, as there was no change in performance until I was about 1/2 mile from the office. At -30 I wasn't about to let it sit along the road - towing and repairing a frozen car would be more costly than towing it and replacing the tire. It was 5 a.m. and there was no one on the road. As it turned out, I damaged the rim, so it had to be towed anyway, but is now back in my driveway, plugged in and happy.

Once again I was pretty grateful. I have a service station with a great reputation and honest mechanics. They towed my car, dropped me off at home to let the dog out and came back to get me when the tire was replaced. They're looking for a replacement spare for me today.

I've had some experiences with shady mechanics and these guys have been great. I started using them after one guy at another place quoted me more than $400 for a fix, then told me he would do it at his home garage for $350 because he was trying to build up a clientele so he could start his own business. I decided to get a second opinion and went to the place I now call my shop. They replaced a $15 part in 5 minutes and didn't charge me for the labor. I've been going there ever since.

Normally, all of this would have had me stressed out and ranting wildly. Instead, I'm simply glad it's over. Maybe it's because I pulled out an old commentary I once wrote and spruced it up a little. It was about keeping Thanksgiving separate from Christmas (they ARE two different holidays, after all), and being thankful for what we have. Perhaps that spilled over into my week, because I don't feel any stress and I'm pretty content despite the fact that it's really cold outside.

I'm looking forward to phoning my family in Pennsylvania Thursday and wishing all of them in turn a happy Thanksgiving, and to having a wonderful dinner at Pike's Landing. I'm taking much of the week off, so will probably cook at least a turkey breast if not a whole bird - I love the leftovers. But I also love having someone else cook and clean up on a holiday, and Pike's always has a wonderful spread.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Veterans' Day

Today is Veterans' Day. Originally called Armistice Day, it noted the end of WWI.

I have a few ancestors - and still living relatives - who have served in the armed forces.

Andrew Burd, in my maternal line, served in the Revolutionary War. He enlisted at age 14 and served as a fifer until his release at the end of the war - at age 21 - according to records. His tombstone says that legend has it the fife was shot from his hand as he was playing it, but he was uninjured.

Both William Portzline (my dad's mother's grandfather) and John Hamilton (my dad's maternal grandfather) served in the Civil War, in the same company. One record says that William Portzline was shot in the wrist and was briefly a prisoner of war. I'm still looking for confirmation and more information on the POW story.

My paternal grandfather served in France in WWI. He conducted recon, then drew maps of the terrain. I remember being cautioned not to ask him about the war when I was a young girl. I suspect he had some horrendous experiences. He was a very quiet, gentle man. I never saw him lose his temper or heard him raise his voice. I can't imagine how terrible that war must have been for such a gentle farm boy. After the war, he stayed on in France to study art, and he created so many things. He had a woodshop in the back yard where he would spend hours crafting furniture with curlicues on the feet of the tables and chairs. He made the dining-room table, so many chairs my grandmother had to tell him to stop and small boxes to hold various items. I have one wooden box, with a bunch of grapes carved onto the lid, that he made to hold a 35-mm camera (I have the camera as well). I also have a painting of a stream and spruce trees that he did. I treasure them both.







My grandfather, Cleve Hoffman, with his weapon









My mother's brother served in Korea. I can remember seeing him in his Army uniform when I was young. I didn't understand the excitement among my mother, grandparents and aunts and uncle then, but I remember thinking he looked pretty official in that uniform.

My dad, his brother Neil, brother-in-law Raymond and my cousin Don all served in the Navy. My cousin was primarily in the Mediterranean.

From top to bottom: Uncle Raymond, Dad, Uncle Neil

Dad spent time in the South Pacific - Philippines mostly. He was a sonar technician on a Canadian hospital ship called "Letitia."

LETITIA / EMPIRE BRENT / CAPTAIN COOK 1924



Built as the LETITIA in 1924 by the Fairfield Co, Glasgow for the Donaldson Line of Glasgow. She was a 13,475 gross ton ship, length overall 538ft x beam 66.4ft, one funnel, two masts, twin screw and a speed of 15 knots. There was accommodation for 516-cabin and 1,000-3rd class passengers.
Launched on 14th Oct.1924, she sailed from Glasgow on her maiden voyage to Liverpool, Quebec and Montreal on 24th Apr.1925, and she ran a joint service with the ill-fated ATHENIA to Quebec and Montreal in the summer and Halifax and St John NB in the winter. In 1927 her accommodation was altered, to carry 298-cabin, 310-tourist and 964-3rd class passengers.
In 1939 she was requisitioned by the Admiralty and commissioned as an Armed Merchant Cruiser. She later became a troopship and was extensively damaged in 1943 and was temporarily repaired in the USA.
In 1944 she was taken over by the Canadian Government and converted into a hospital ship with a medical staff of 200 and a capacity for 1,000 wounded. Over the next year or so she carried over 7,000 sick and wounded back to Canada and was on her way to the Pacific theatre of war when Japan surrendered. She was then used for the repatriation of Canadian troops and families. While still engaged in this work, she was sold in 1946 to the Ministry of Transport and renamed EMPIRE BRENT. While on route to Halifax in 1947, she collided with and sank the STORMONT in the River Mersey and had to be drydocked in Birkenhead with stem damage.
In December 1947, she was completely overhauled on the Clyde and refitted as a troopship. Used for trooping voyages to India and the Far East until 1949 when she commenced an emigration service between the UK and Australia with a capacity for 965 emigrants. Withdrawn from this service late in 1950, she was laid up for about six months and was then completely reconditioned as a New Zealand emigrant ship with accommodation for 1,088 passengers in two-, four-, and six berth cabins.
Renamed CAPTAIN COOK, her ownership was to pass gradually to the New Zealand government, who were paying for her by installments. She commenced sailings from Glasgow via Panama to Wellington on 5th Feb.1952, taking about 33 days, sometimes being used to repatriate troops from the Far East on the return voyage. From April to October 1955 she was chartered to Donaldson’s and made seven round voyages between Glasgow, Liverpool and Montreal, but then went back to the New Zealand service.
In 1957 she had a fire while in Wellington, but was able to sail to the UK for repairs. She arrived at Glasgow at the end of her 25th New Zealand voyage in February 1960, was laid up at Falmouth and was then sold to British Iron and Steel Corporation, towed to Inverkeithing and broken up. [Donaldson Atlantic Liner "Letitia" of 1925 by Captain J.H.Isherwood, Sea Breezes Magazine, September 1967]

I had several friends in college who were VietNam veterans, and I work with Iraq and Afghanistan veterans. Their strength - and that of their families - is incredible. The telephone calls home and the occasional hook-ups via the Internet can't erase the  fear, the separations and the everyday challenges they all face. It requires a special strength.

It's a hard job, and it takes a tremendous toll on those who serve combat tours as well as on their families.

Today I will attend the Veterans' Day observance in Fairbanks, where I will stand at attention when the band plays the Army Song. I'll remember my days in the Women's Army Corps. I'll remember my ancestors and my living relatives who served and who had to overcome hardships and long separations from their families, without the benefit of telephones and Internet connections. And I'll say a special prayer for those who are serving today.

I salute all of you.

The lost are found

In an effort to use up some annual leave (I'll lose it in January if I don't use it up), I took last week off. Instead of driving all over the place with the camera, I hit the doctor for flu shot and the computer for some much-neglected research. I spent an average of 3-4 hours a day trying to track down some long-lost ancestors.

I started tracing my ancestry in 1999, when I visited my family in Pennsylvania for a couple of weeks.

My parents were able to give me some background on their families - parents and one grandfather's name for my mother; parents, grandparents and one side of great-grandparents from my dad. Fortunately, my mother's cousin was happy to provide some insight into one branch for me.

That trip and the thrill of finding information online when I returned to Fairbanks kept me going. I joined a genealogy group that met monthly here and solidified my interest. Each time I found another ancestor the excitement increased.

Several of us from the genealogy group made trips to Salt Lake City to visit the genealogy library there. We would go down for one week, spending hours at the books and microfilms. I became expert at loading and unloading the film spools and zipping through them to the page I needed. My bookshelf at home is now loaded with research books, papers and magazines.

Subsequent trips to PA to visit my family had me visiting the local historical society and the county courthouse archives. We took drives to local cemeteries to photograph tombstones. My dad took us by the old family homestead, where both my grandfather and his father were born. It's still owned by the (second) wife of one of my ancestors.

I backed off the genealogy for a couple of years when a serious illness and astronomical medical bills not covered by my insurance made it tough to justify paying a lot for the subscription to the best websites for the research.

However, I decided to get back into the work. I'm pretty much an indoor person during the winters here, as the cold really bothers my arthritis, and I didn't want to become just a lounger. So I reactivated my subscription. The website has improved tremendously since my last visit, and I found a quaking leaf on nearly every name in the tree I had started 10 years ago. When I clicked on the leaf, I was led to hints on the specific ancestor. WOW! Much of the information was not new to me, but other bits had me looking for sources to confirm. Once confirmed by a census, newspaper, Social Security death index, WWI and WWII draft card or other official document, I could then say with certainty this belongs in my tree.

In my maternal grandmother's line, I had her parents and her father's father. However, that line stopped there. I was relatively certain that George (my grandmother's grandfather) was the son of Jacob. But I couldn't prove it. All I had was a hunch, however strong it was. I had managed to get Jacob's family traced to France in 1520 - but still needed to link him to George.This week I FINALLY managed to get that confirmation thanks to a quaking leaf that led me to church records. So I have my mother's maternal side back to France (to America via Scotland and Ireland) in 1520 and her paternal side to Switzerland in 1634.

My dad's families are primarily of German heritage, as are many of my mother's other lines. I've hit a couple of brick walls with two of Dad's lines, but again this week, thanks to those little leaves and a much larger library available online, I got the Hoffman (my maiden name) line back to Germany in the 1600s.

As I'm working this project, I'm astounded at what these people who are all part of me must have faced - poverty, hard work, persistence, long ocean voyages - and HUGE families. Many of them had 12 or more children. Many of them lost a number of those children before they reached adulthood. Most of them were poorly or uneducated. They were simple folk - farmers, laborers, boatmen. They had no modern conveniences to help with cooking, baking, laundry or cleaning. But their obituaries describe them as "well respected citizens." The church was important to them. Thus far, all but one family line has arrived in the US through Philadelphia, and that one line came in through Baltimore. They all moved a bit northwest to what are now Perry and Juniata counties - and many of them are still there today.

As a teenager, I thought our family was rather uninteresting because they didn't come from somewhere else. As I started tracing these people, I became very grateful they were grounded in one spot. I heard my friend mutter, "He's in New York in 1850 and he's in Idaho in 1870. Where was he for the 20 years in the middle? How did he get there? Why doesn't he show up anywhere in the 1860 census?"

This past week hooked me again. I've felt once again that thrill of success. I know that the farther back I go, the sparser the records and the more difficult to find information that is verifiable. But I will press on. My greatest regret is that I didn't start this before my grandparents died. My greatest joy in it is that my granddaughter is interested in the project. Hopefully I will be able to continue finding "lost" ancestors to share with her and generations still to come.

My paternal grandmother's grandparents

My dad's parents

My dad's paternal grandparents

the Hoffman homestead

My mother's parents and me

It's still autumn

Winter is still holding off. It's been a beautiful past few days - temperatures in the 50s and sunshine. They're calling for 50s again today, and my friends Mae and Cindy and I are planning a drive to no where in particular. I'll take the camera and see if I can get a few more fall shots.

Friday I got a new flat-screen television set, 37", which looks great in the living room. I really think anything much bigger would be a bit too much. It's much sharper than the old square one and the HD is great. My friend came over to help me set it up, and after breakfast, we headed over to Creamer's Field to see what was happening.

I was surprised to see a small group of Canada geese still hanging around. I thought they were all gone by now.

I also noticed the fireweed, though completely brown and cotton, is still standing tall. Fireweed is one of my favorite plants - I love it at almost any time of year.

fireweed in bloom, July

fireweed topped off and near the end

end of the road for this fireweed plant - I love how it contrasts with the aged dark wood of the fence








We are all reveling (except the snowmachiners and skiers) in the lingering warm temperatures of autumn. My little dog loves to sit in the yard sniffing the air. Occasionally he will run from one corner to the other. Twice Saturday, when we were moving televisions in/out, he escaped and ran off down the street. My arthritic back and asthma HATE this. We got him back, but I was winded and not happy with him.

Happy October to all. I'm hoping to get more photos today.

snow

I knew the snow would eventually get here, but kept hoping I could hold on to summer and fall just a little longer. But Saturday morning I woke to a dusting in my yard. That melted pretty quickly as the temperatures warmed up a bit, but it continued to rain and/or snow all day at my house.

This morning, on my weekly trip to the grocery store, we stopped to gas up the vehicle and I noticed Birch Hill still had some good spots of yellow. The deep dark green of the spruce and the yellow of the birch trees were highlighted by the small amounts of snow and frost. Very pretty.

more gold, more cranes and moose

I had to travel with another woman from the office to Delta Junction Wednesday. We left about 8 a.m. with mostly sunny skies and some clouds. As we headed down the Richardson Highway, the gold colors on the trees were vibrant and seemed almost fluid.

About 30 miles or so before we reached Delta Junction, there's a turnout. It sits on top of a bluff overlooking the Tanana River with the foothills and the Alaska Range in the background. In the 30+ years I've lived here, I've traveled that road many times, but never stopped there.

Wednesday, we decided to stop for a short while to take some photos. It was worth it.

I love the different colors, the meandering Tanana and the mountains. On a clear day, the peaks stand out crisp and sharp. Some heavy clouds hung near the summits, but they weren't enough to hide the beauty of this spectacular range of mountains.

I also decided this was a good spot to try out the sweep panorama on my new camera. I'm not disappointed with that feature.

We got a briefing and a look at some of the off-road area near Delta, and managed to get in a little wildife viewing as well.

I have to admit I'm a little embarrassed by this one. I know (and I've been told MANY times) to not shoot photos through the windshield. But I did it anyway, and this one was covered with smears from insect hits. But I wanted to get a shot of this very young cow and her calf. They were near the road, and I know I can't outrun a moose, so the windshield it was. When they figured we weren't moving soon enough they moved into the trees where they watched us as we shot a few more photos before leaving. They were almost perfectly camouflaged among the spruce trees. We took a few more (got more moose's butt than anything else) photos and left them in peace.

We were talking with several of the people we met there and heard a babble overhead. I looked up to see sandhill cranes that apparently been disturbed. It seemed they wouldn't stop coming. I managed to catch a few in flight.

It's trips like this, even when I'm working, that sometimes leave me breathless with the beauty of this land and so very grateful that I live in a place where I can see the spectacular scenery and the wildlife in their habitat.

It's not done yet...

We had a lovely day yesterday, with sunshine and temperatures reaching 70 degrees at my house.

I spent the morning with my daughter and granddaughter. Maddy, 4, "helped" me fill the bird feeders and entertained herself looking through my mini binoculars and running from the camera.

After a nice lunch we headed over to Creamer's Field to see how many birds are left. We didn't see a single sandhill crane, but there were about 100 geese resting in the field and a handfill of ducks. Maddy didn't have quite the same level of interest I did, but she did enjoy looking through the huge public binoculars set out for visitors. They're mounted on a pole and are like those that often require coins to operate, although these don't require payment for use.

The geese were busy feeding and flying. The flight photo is one of the first I've been able to accomplish without too much blur to identify. The camera was on a long-range setting, so the picture is a little soft, but at least the geese are recognizable.

The fireweed is nearly done completely now, with much of it nothing more than red leaves now. I was able to capture this one with a bit of fluff still on it, but those little white seeds were flying all over the place yesterday!

I'm still working on building my photographic skills. I envy people who can look at something and see a story. I upgraded my camera this week, but still haven't gone to a DSLR. I like the ease of transport and convenience of my high-zoom camera. It's got the ease of a point & shoot, but a better zoom and the option of using either an auto setting or a manual one. I have lenses from my old film 35mm cameras that are compatible with a DSLR (I checked), but I know if I go there I'll be toting around 40 pounds of camera gear. And since I like to simply toss the camera into my purse when I go out, I'm staying where I am for now. I keep a small point & shoot in my purse all the time just in case something comes up, but I really prefer the high zoom when I plan to shoot.

These high-zooms have given me a lot of great photos and a lot of pleasure. However, I can't come close to some of the photographers I know. I need a lot more practice and ultimately I may have to move to a DSLR. But for now, I take photos of things that please me. It's a great hobby and I'm never without a camera.

My friend and I went to the Salmon Bake for dinner last evening and the ducks at nearby Mining Village (part of Pioneer Park - http://co.fairbanks.ak.us/pioneerpark/) were either swimming in the water by the sluice or resting on the grass. As I stepped onto the grass to take a photo I startled one very pretty duck who got up and moved away. His left leg must have been injured, as he hopped away on his right one, then stood with the left foot tucked up near his tail.

I'm not sure what the injury is, but I'm a little worried for him. I hope it's a minor one and he will be able to survive either the flight south or the winter. I suspect the ducks at Mining Village may be some of those that winter here. Hopefully he will be ok.

It's another sunny gorgeous day and 59 degrees now, so I think I'll pack up the car and head out with the camera. It's too nice to waste indoors.

Happy Labor Day weekend.