Friday, August 24, 2007

Tatting

Last week I went to the cemetery where my father's mother and grandparents are buried. I hadn't been there in about 15 years. Shame on me. It was a very small cemetery surrounded by fields and woods. I was sure I could find the graves. You could look at every one of them in the cemetery in twenty minutes. Oh what the years have done to even this very rural place. The road is still gravel. The cemetery is still without a sign saying it's name, but it has expanded and had lots of graves added to the old part.
I didn't remember the stone designs accurately and couldn't find them. I would have given up, but my friend Shirley, who went with me, said no way. We called and went to the township office to look at the plait map. The had put the names on computer but couldn't find my family. My great-grandparents were buried in 1906 and 1933 but my grandmother was buried in 1979. They could find none of them but I knew they were there. Finally she looked through all the "W" names and found a last name with the great-grandparents first names. She showed me the original hand written book from which the names were taken and it seemed very wrong too. When I finally found the grave markers, the name was correct. The only record the township had was of who bought the original plots. When that name had been put in incorrectly, it was hopeless. Funny system. Oh, well, I got it corrected. And I discovered that in 1906 four grave sites had been purchased. One was still empty. I asked how I could claim it. I'm an only child, as was my father, so there could be no conflict as to inheritance of it. So I came home to find death certificates and obituaries to send to the township clerk. They also wanted as much family history as I could provide. I spent a couple hours at my local senior center using their computer program. I found my great-great- grandparents on the 1860 census. They were born in 1801 and 1822 and were living in the area in 1860 with their five children. I want to go spend some more time on that computer to see what else I might find. Maybe next week. I have dragged out the boxes of family information and treasures. I definitely come from a line of pack rats. I've tackled the job of trying to put it all into some kind of family book several times, but I am determine to finish it this time. I kept thinking I would gather more information first. Now I'm just going to organize what I have into a loose leaf notebook that can be updated later. Today I started sorting things into individual files. My mother's is large and will probably be the last one I do. I found some cards she made using her tatting skills. I hope you can enlarge the pic so you can see it. I never learned how to tat. Do any of you know how?
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4 comments:

Paula, the quilter said...

Those are some very sweet cards. I know how to needle tat, but have never learned to shuttle tat. Good luck on organizing the family 'stuff'.

Lindah said...

Such sweet cards. I never learned tatting either, although an aunt entertained me as she did her magic with the shuttle. As a 9 year old, she thought I should begin by learning to crochet, but then she passed away before we got to the tatting. I'm glad you persevered in finding your family's gravesites. I think I must do as you are....arrange what genealogy stuff I have in looseleaf form. It is no good to anyone the way I have it now. If your family is like mine, they will appreciate anything put together in a sensible form. Enjoy the process!

Finn said...

Hi Katie, have you gotten our week of rain yet?? It exited late on thursday, after one final "DUMP" on us...sure did make our complex construction interesting!!
So happy you discovered what had happened at the cemetary and get it straightened out. Just think, if you had been going every year or two,you might never have know.
All's well that ends well..*VBS*

Love the look of your nearly finished quilt....you did a great job! And the 'boys' look so very happy to be vacationing together. A nice change for Kipper. take care and have fun with the family search. Hugs, Finn

Libby said...

What darling, dainty little cards. I've never learned to tat. My grandma was one of ten children (four girls) Each girl was taught a different home art with the oldest sister learning to tat - I do have some lovely doilies and a beautiful table cloth that that aunt made. Grandma did tailoring - and I didn't learn that either *s*