Our moving forward

Being a blogger is something I have been for a very long time.

But doing a blog post is something I have not done for some time.

I am going to try and fill my week with a blog or two and this will please me so much.

Many things have happened over the past few years in our lives but both Rob and I are working towards changes and much happiness.

It’s very easy to get down and stay there and I do believe that putting a little positive effort into my day may help me so much.

The books in our home.

Fill our hearts with much joy,

They can teach us so much or even make us cry!

Yet we are happy to keep buying more

So we can read lots, and lots more.

It truly is a wonder that I have room to think!

There is always a new books to spend time with!

And just know today what that one is.

It's arriving by post at noon time I think.

If you have hunted a book for days even weeks

When you finally find it, let the fun begin!

It will be heading your way soon and the excitement is strong!

I know I will enjoy it this is a good one'

AND when it arrives the unwrapping begun!

I am excited to see it, Yes it's the one

Today it's an unusual book and I will learn a lot.

It's Called; 

Cemeteries our heritage

Edited by Celestina Sagazio.

I am very excited to start on page one!

The development of cemeteries......so the lesson begins!

Geneologist's

A Geneologist's who are this amazing people?

What keeps them up at night?

Why do they start a family tree?

Just a few of hundreds of questions you could ask of a geneologist's and their families, they will honestly give you a full and passionate answer to your many questions. Yet to tell the truth, you get the feeling that they secretly wonder about why they started such an all consuming adventure as well.

So not being able so speak for others I can only say while many answers swish around in my head, it started the very moment I discovered a small throw away comment said to my mum by a friend of hers.

 "And does you mothers still think she will find her birth mother at her age?"

I was shocked!

I don't know anything about this!

Was my great nanna not my great nanna?

Why did grans mum give her away?

And that is terrible!

Well it isn't really terrible at all I fact it is truly sad, but at the time terrible is a word I used a lot when I described my grans birth mother.

Then it started.....I will find records.....how do I do that?

Rob for his own reasons, had just started hunting down and finding I might add (way back when all this started) his families information, records that made our mouths from the shape of big O! More then once those first years.......the huge amount of times I would say to Rob my gosh, is that right? And he would say well there it is in the records. 

So following his amuture way (at that time) about hunting down family from his past I decided to follow!

Three days nothing!

Five days mmmm! Maybe!

Two weeks past and still nothing....

Then it happened! The world of geneology came made its true presence in my life!

The face went a bright pink! The mouth made that huge O and I ran around the house and into the garden to find Rob.

 Poor Husband, I dragged him and his spade which he hadn't let go of through the house to our very old and slow working computer to show him the most wonderful record (my very first!) and when I think back now it wasn't a very wonderful record it was about as sad as you can get.

There on our tiny screen was a newspaper advertisement in an Adelaide paper the year was 1910 and it read:

Baby healthy for adoption to be given away!

Child is a girl and born just 10 weeks ago to Clean white parents.

Please contact the woman's father via the papers

Urgent request to have the child removed.

Of course this is not exactly the wording but almost correct, and I have left out the child's family name and the mothers name but it was and is my beautiful grandmother being taken from her mother and given to the only great grandmother I have ever know.

She loved my gran so much and card for her as if she was her own!

I am greatful for her love and she and great grandpa could not be anywhere else but in our family tree, loved by all.

But there was another branch and another woman the birth mother of my gran and I had to know more...........yes the word hooked comes to mind.

So the dictionary we have here defines a geneology as:

A record or table of the descent of a person, family or group from an ancestor or ancestors; a family Tree.

The study or investigation of ancestry and family histories.

That may be true but I feel it is so much more! It's the knowing, the caring and the loving! of family.

A small walk through the years

Today we went looking for a wonderful house we found in an old photo from Rob's small amount of family treasures....but let's start from the beginning.

When rob was 18 years old the last of his grandfathers generation was going into care and while he went to clean out the house in Belgrave he didn't know his uncle was going to burn everything in the back yard. The uncle and his wife has come down from Sydney and like many others before him they neither wanted the junk, or had time to give it away. So very few things were saved.

One photo album of very old photos were given to his mother and she kept them all these years. One photo was of a home in Malvern and so began the journey up to this day.

I will continue this story in a few days on our computer so that we can happily show both the photo from over 110 years ago to the ones we took today.

Just a simple plate!

When my grandmother passed away it was never suggested that anything in her home would be sent to op-shops or trashed.

Every family member took pieces and before we knew it beds, cupboards, dishes....even her preserving jars that once were filled and stored in the cellar of her mothers home were taken and are now used by many in the family.

I like others got to see in cupboards gran would never let us see in before, it felt a little bit naughty, yet was very exciting.

One of these cupboards held lovely old dishes and a meat dish court my eye. It was very well used and it had Aqua around the edges now chipping off and the crazing was a testimony of it's many meals it had carried from the oven to the dining table and I loved it so!

I asked if I could have it and today after these many years I have taken it out of my cupboard to admire again.

But I don't remember the little piece of tape on the bottom with its hand written initials on it B L R it reads and that can only be one name in our family "Bertha Louisa Russell" nee Schliebs. How wonderful to see her initials recorded on this very dish.

Then I took a look at what else was on the bottom of this big platter and I find, I can see the makers mark pressed in the plate but only the letters are clear DRC....then there is the embossed mark on the bottom and the most interesting of all.

It reads:-

Manufactured

For ALEX CUNNINGHAM

31 Rundle St

Adelaide

She must have bought this plate in a most wonderful store in Adelaide, or perhaps it was part of her glory box. Then again a wedding gift purchased in Adelaide and taken to Truro South Australia for a gift that was used time and time again.

This post will only be finished when I can work out why the photos will not download at this time.

This is my Friday!

BUSY LIVES! BUT MUCH LOVE TO ALL

I looked forward to spending a very short time on my blog page today,

As always we are rushing out the door to do one thing or another.

I am not sure why my whole life has been rush! rush! rush! but not a day goes by were I don't spend a moment thinking about my mother, family and friends.

We are going to the OES tonight and while life is very different for us within the grand lodge of Victoria. We do enjoy the ladies association especially when I have little to do other then just enjoy the night. :)

The other news in our lives is that our amazing vacation is fast approaching and my gosh it is filled with great things to see and do. we will be heading to England and then USA after a cruise. I am glad I will be having a few days off work before starting again when we get back.......but we will need the money so it will be hi ho! its back off to work I go.

We also hope that when we get home we will be finishing our little home and selling (yes selling) but wont be going to far......into the paddock in fact to start another home / Residential accommodation. But that is another story for another time.

Just want to mention two very special people here Gena and Ken! love you both to pieces and you are always in our conversations and we think of you both often.....we truly wish we could see you more often but the other side of Melbourne is sometimes is hard to get to. if I have a moment or two over the past years I have been a blog stalker! :) and love! love! your posts.

If anything should happen to us while we are away from our beautiful country please note we love you all dear friends we adore our family and will be with you always.

It may be a little dramatic.......but in this world "things happen"

better to have said "I love you all" then to have not.

There is a time in your life when you start to look at things past! Today is one of those days for me as I sit here in a warm lounge room with iPad on my lap as it gets darker and darker with another hail storm forming above us........yes it's winter time! I know but it's also a time to get back to my roots!

Blogging was something I started many years ago....I loved it, I was not very good on the computer and I learnt such a lot, but then your life's path changes and you start to look for ways out of your busy day. Blogging was the first to go "so much easier to put two or three lines on a FB post instead of sitting a writing a blog post" But I was wrong, So I have decided to get back were I left off and start doing what I truly love blogging!!! So today I may just yes add two or three more lines to this post to tell you I am now the Grand Representative of Idaho here in Australia within the Order or the Eastern Star and am so! SO! Proud.

Lots of love to my old friends from my blogging days past and to many new friends as well.