I honored my son in the blog yesterday. I wished he would have been older because I had so many more memories of him! As I wrote, thoughts of the other two children entered my mind. Near the keyboard was a piece of paper with three columns; one for each of them. What I saw was some over lap. I wondered if this was natural or they had learned from each other.
We know the families of Mellems, Rye, and Ranum had many children. My question is, where their talents birth gifts or where they learned skills? Did all of the Ranum boys like to do carpentry or was it a skill? OR, was it survival? Will my children ever sit down with a three column pad and pencil and mark their gifts and skills?
We know that doctor's take a family history. What your ancestors had is what you may have. Can you diagram genes of eye and hair color and say, "John probably had blue eyes". For those of you who had males who signed in for the service, this information is available on the draft card. If you don't know an ancestor's height, build, hair, and eye color, this card will tell you. However, as Benhard's above, it gives a birth date of 1881; he was born in 1879. Did he purposely give a false year so he could be a soldier? A question begats a question, does it not?
In a tinted photograph taken in 1950, my Mother wrote on the black that her hair was dark brown and her eyes were hazel. Look on the back of old pictures and see if there is any information for you. Do you have pictures taken of yourself that you might wish to mark for future generations?
My children inherited brown hair and brown or hazel eyes. The parents of their parents had light brown/dark brown/red hair and brown/hazel/light hazel eyes. The parents of their parents offered much the same although their are red heads on both sides of the family. Yet, of the twelve grand children of Lloyd and Ella Anderson, there is only one red head with freckles! Most of the children were blond when they were younger and their hair turned to light brown or darker. Bud's picture, posted yesterday, shows him with navy blue eyes! I assure you they are no longer that dark; nor is his hair that light!
Let's try this: Make a column for every sibling. See if you can find common threads. Not only looks and health. Here is an example:
Rachel worked at Jennings Daylight Doughnut Shop, Bud worked at Runza and delivered for Pizza Hut, Ryen worked at Paradise Cafe. Clara Jenson Lundberg and Julia Clara Opseth Ranum both worked in restuarants. Remember the blog about the dishes and how Mrs. Ranum liked to wash the dishes on holidays because she learned to wash them fast while working at NuWay Cafe? I washed dishes for the Lawrence School System. If you expand generations you might see this happening. Oh, we need a lot of columns, don't we?
It isn't so much that all the folks washed dishes. I know that Ryen could tell me what he learned about people from restaurant work. I will tell you that washing dishes for the school system was a part time daily position to earn a little pin money. I liked it because it was a job with a daily end. It started out with dishes, advanced to roving substitute and on to a kitchen manager although my primary goal at that time was my children. What does that tell you about me?
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