52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Weddings

Week 35: Weddings. Tell us about your wedding. You may also talk about your future wedding, the wedding of a relative or shape this question to fit your own life experience.

Wow.  I started this, then got sidetracked.  Then decided I wanted to do a bit more with it than just write a brief narrative.  Then got sidetracked some more.  Now it's the end of the year, and this is the last of the 52 Weeks series I have not done. 


I was married in July of 1987.  July 3rd, to be specific.  My fiance and I had been dating for about four and a half years at that point, and got engaged the previous winter, at Christmas time.  In fact, we got her ring the same night I went and spoke to the Navy recruiters about the possibility of enlisting.  I told them I was holding out for a particular job specialty, Photographer's Mate, that was relatively small and hard to get into.  They said they'd let me know if anything came along, but they weren't optimistic.

Funny, but they called me back within a couple of months, and things worked fast, causing me to enlist and go to Boot Camp in February, well before we were ready to get married.  We knew we were aiming at summer of 1987, moving it up to February wasn't going to happen.  So I left for Boot Camp, and she continued to plan the wedding.

Mom and Me, Boot Camp graduation 

 

Apr 1987, Orlando, FL

Boot Camp graduation was in mid-April.  She came to see me graduate, with my mother.  That was followed by more time in Photography School in Pensacola, Florida.  Now, when you're enlisted, you are required to get permission to get married.  This involves a series of interviews and discussions with your chain of command, getting a signature from each in turn.  It's really a formality, but each one tries to give you a realistic picture of being married while in the military, which has a much higher divorce rate than the rest of society.  It's hard. 

Needless to say, while I was taking care of this, my fiance was planning the wedding details.  Communication during Boot Camp was very limited - a few phone calls and occasional mail.  "A" School in Pensacola was better - I could phone home daily, if desired - but she was still left with the bulk of the work and planning.

I graduated from that school on, if memory serves, July 1st.  Our wedding was planned for July 3rd.  I flew home to a whirlwind of final preparations.  One thing that made it easier, we were planning to hold our ceremony in a local city park on the bank of the Mississippi River.  A little last minute decorating on the morning of, and we were set on that score.  Our officiant, a friend of my parents who is an ordained minister, was set to do the ceremony, and had arrived.  We were holding our reception in a restaurant downtown, so some last minute decorating was in order there, as well.  One of my future sisters-in-law made the cake. 

To make an already long story a bit shorter, the Day came, the weather was (thankfully!) beautiful, and a wedding happened in the park. After the ceremony, we were whisked off to our downtown reception via horse-drawn carriage, to a restaurant that is one of the historic buildings and business establishments for the city, having been in existence since the 1880's.  We couldn't have asked for a better day, everything came together as if it were just meant to be.  As we're still married, I think it might have been...

This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Advice

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 52. Advice. Do you have any advice for future generations who may be researching your family? For example, was there a name change or a significant relocation in your past? This is intended to be a very flexible question. Answer it any way you wish.

 And here we are at the last week of the year.  My first whole year of blogging, I started (a few days late) with the 52 Weeks series and made every entry save one, and I'll try to get that one out this week as well. 

Advice for future generations looking back on this family?  Perseverance.  Keep looking.  Even if it's not a constant active search.  Perhaps especially not a constant active search, you'll get tired and burned out.  Things will come to you when you least expect it.  Put out lots of feelers and wait for a hit, sort of like fishing.  Hopefully it will be easier for you, as more records get digitized and become more easily searchable.  Hopefully they get digitized before they get lost.

I started doing this in the very early 1990's, and got a kickstart from my grandmother, Alta May (Day) Dillman.  She handed me the information she had, and some hints of where she might look.  This was pre-Internet, almost nothing was digitized.  You had to visit courthouses and other records repositories in person, or at the very least contact them by postal mail, a lengthy process.  There were computer Bulletin Board Services (BBS) that a savvy person with a computer and a modem could dial into, and leave messages for other users.  I was an early adopter of those, and made some early genealogy contacts that way, but the vast majority of my data waited until after the Internet became strong before it became accessible to me.

If you're my descendant and you're reading this and interested in genealogy, I'm going to assume you got your kickstart from me, since no one else is very active with our family history right now.  What I've left you is just a smattering, far too much of it is undocumented, or under-documented.  It is correct, to the best of my knowledge, but there are a bunch of assumptions which may prove over time to be false.  I'm not finished, I will keep working on documenting the data, and working on citation so you can spot check me to be sure I've got it right.  I'd also like to get more medical history information in there.  As we learn more about such things, we find family history and genetics playing a major role in our overall health.  If you don't know your history, you can't be sure of your future...


Keep working on it, keep adding to the data, correcting it where you find error.  And you will find errors!  But most of all, have fun with it!  It's the sort of thing that can become dreadfully dull if you're not enjoying it.  Don't lose your sense of wonder at what our ancestors went through to get our family to this point.  If it helps, think of it as an ongoing story, not just dead history full of names and dates and places.  Who were those ancestors, and what did they have to do to survive?  How was their life different from yours, even if they had a similar occupation?  Most people were farmers, but farming has changed considerably in the last 150 years.  I'm a computer technician, but computers change even faster than farming methods.  Your idea of an IT technician may be radically different from what I do now.

I hope that wasn't too long-winded.  Do the best you can, but DO it.  It doesn't have to be perfect, it never will be.  This is one thing where "good enough" will have to be good enough.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Holiday Events

Week #51 – Holiday Events

Week 51. Holiday Events. Where did your family gather for the Christmas or Hanukkah as a child? Which family members and friends attended the event?

This challenge runs from Saturday, December 17, 2011 through Friday, December 23, 2011.

 Wow, can you believe we're already at week #51?! 

My family mostly stayed at home for the holidays.  We mostly gathered at the house, which was small, so it was a good thing our family wasn't large.  I have only two brothers, both younger than me, so it was just five of us (and the dog).  We did go to my paternal grandparents' house in Yankton, South Dakota, for Christmas a couple of times, I think only before my youngest brother was born.  Their house wasn't much bigger, but it was neater with just my grandparents living there, so it felt roomier.

Once we started finding girlfriends, things got a bit more crowded at home, but it never got overcrowded until all of us boys got married and started having kids.  Now, it's hard to do, with the five of us, plus my three kids, plus my brother's seven kids.  That house really isn't set up for that many people, especially when half of them are rambunctious youngsters.

I do recall having a couple of holidays at a nearby hotel, but I think those might have been Thanksgivings. 



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Historical Events

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 49. Historical Events. Describe a memorable national historical event from your childhood. How old were you and how did you process this event? How did it affect your family?

The hard part of this will be for me to pick just one event.  I'm young enough to have missed John F. Kennedy's assassination, just young enough I don't remember Robert Kennedy's assassination either.  I do vaguely recall Richard Nixon resigning and flying off in a helicopter.  I would have been about 8 years old.  I vaguely recall thinking it was a good thing he was resigning, but I'm not sure I had a real good understanding of why it was happening.  I do remember Watergate being in the news a lot, and thinking Watergate was an odd name.  I don't remember there being any direct effect on my family, though my parents didn't really talk about politics with me at the time.

More of my remembrances deal with the space program.  I remember some of the later lunar landings in the Apollo program, and I remember Skylab being manned.  I was about 9 years old at that time.  And I also remember it falling back to Earth.  I really remember the Viking probes landing on Mars, and the full-color supplements in the newspaper with color pictures from the Red Planet.  I was 10 years old when they landed.  I remember the Apollo-Soyuz joint mission with the Russians, and the special docking module they had to use to join the spacecraft.  It was a major milestone, being done during the Soviet era, between two normally competing space programs.  When I was this age, I really planned on a career as an astronaut.  I don't think my parents cared one way or another about anything in the space program, but it was quite important to me.  Later, I remember being shocked by the Challenger tragedy, and still later by the loss of Columbia.  Fourteen astronauts died in those two accidents.

I remember the hostage crisis in Iran, and how every day the Days counter on the news programs would increment by one.  I remember it dragging on and on, and finally coming to an end after Ronald Reagan got elected President.  Was Iran afraid of what President Reagan was going to do to them if they didn't release our people, or was the timing coincidental? 

I remember hearing about the terrorist bombing of US Marines barracks in Lebanon.  

I remember the first gulf war, Operation Desert Shield, later Operation Desert Storm.  I remember this one very well, because I was on active duty at the time in the US Navy.  In fact, I was in VF-32, a squadron of F-14 fighter jets assigned to USS John F. Kennedy (CV-67), and our battle group was the one tagged to go over first.  At that time, I was preparing to transfer to shore duty, and I wasn't sure if they would drag me overseas and send me back at some later time, or if they would leave me behind to transfer on time.  It ended up the latter.  I transferred to the Photo Lab on the base I lived near about a month after the squadron left for the Gulf.  That month I spent standing watches in an empty hangar full of the files and equipment they hadn't taken along, cleaning and basically just waiting for my transfer.  I remember watching on CNN as the reporters filmed and described the night time attacks with tracer fire looking like fireworks.  I was glad I wasn't over there, as we had no idea of Saddam Hussein's capabilities and whether we would have been in danger (turns out the ship was safe enough), but was concerned for the well-being of my former squadron mates.

A bit later, I remember the fall of the Berlin Wall.  I was about 23 when it happened, and I remember being stunned that it actually happened, and watching people on CNN with sledgehammers breaking down parts of it.  Of course, any time prior to this, people would have been shot for doing that.  I remember when the Soviet Union collapsed, with a similar sense that it wasn't real somehow, that we would always have our communist rivals. 

I remember again watching CNN as a white Ford Bronco made its way slowly down an abandoned freeway followed by a lot of police cars as O.J. Simpson ran from them.  I remember watching more of his trial as well.  CNN figures prominently in my memories, as it seems I caught a number of major events as they happened that way.

As I watch world events today, I wonder which ones we will remember in years to come as being the major, pivotal events that changed history.  Will the Occupy movement make a real difference?  Will Iran get nuclear power, or weapons?  Will they use them if they do?  Will we ever finish the War on Terror?  The War on Drugs?  Any of the other "wars" we're fighting?  Will our leaders manage to fix our country and economy before we go down the tubes?  Will global warming actually come about, or will we do something to mitigate it?  The problem with historical events is that by the time you realize what events were really important, and what effects they had, you're past where that knowledge can be of any real use to you.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Thanksgiving

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 48. Thanksgiving. What was on your family’s Thanksgiving table? Do you serve the same dishes now as your family served in the past?

With bot my parents and my in-laws being local to me, I usually end up with two Thanksgiving Day dinners, which might explain why my pants are a bit tight lately...

This year, we spent Thanksgiving at my in-laws, a large family that has a very traditional Thanksgiving Day dinner.  We had turkey, stuffing, mashed potatoes & gravy, sweet potatoes, corn, cranberries, dinner rolls, coleslaw and more, all served buffet style to accommodate the 40+ people who typically show up at these family dinners.  Another tradition in this family is having finger jello - jello that has extra gelatin so it's very firm, and can be picked up and held in the fingers of small children in squares or whatever shape someone chooses to cut.  I don't remember a major family meal without it!

This has been the Thanksgiving Dinner in that family as long as I have been around, currently 29 years.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Fall

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 47. Fall. What was fall like where and when you grew up? Describe not only the climate, but how the season influenced your activities, food choices, etc.

Fall.  As this comes around, it's late fall here in Minnesota, and in fact I've been watching the first serious snowfall of the season all day.  So on a day that feels more like Winter, what can I say about Fall?

I've been Minnesotan virtually all of my life, so Fall as most people know it starts in early September with the days starting to get noticeably shorter, the leaves begin to change colors, and the temperatures get cooler.  One can start to smell wood smoke in the air as people use fireplaces in the evening.  The big yellow school buses start roaming the streets, and the kids who walk to and from school clog the sidewalks for brief periods in the morning and afternoon.

We don't usually get a hard frost until late September or early October.  That's about the time people bring in the last of the garden produce, and prep the flower beds for winter.  People begin raking leaves, as they are usually falling in earnest by this time.  One of the best things to do on a sunny fall weekend is to go somewhere and view the fall colors, which peak over several weeks in different parts of the state.  Usually late September to early October is peak color up north along the north shore of Lake Superior, with many miles of excellent hiking trails and state parks to visit.  By the end of October, the colors have all faded to browns and a few dull yellows, and most of the leaves have dropped off.

Halloween has always been one of my favorite times.  My wife and I even met while working in a haunted house many years back!  Late October is a bit dicey with regards to weather in Minnesota, though.  It rains for Halloween fairly often, and in 1991 there was even a major blizzard that made national news.  I was in the Navy at that time, and missed it.  People get used to trying to make costumes fit over snowmobile suits or heavy coats if there's a sudden cold snap.

Fall usually brings in the holidays, family gatherings and the traditional meals of turkey and stuffing, cranberry sauce, and so on are anticipated by everyone.  Deer hunters go out hoping to fill the larder with venison of all sorts for the winter.  Duck, goose and pheasant are also prized.  

Fall this year has been rather extended.  It's mid-November and we're just getting our first serious snowfall, which usually comes earlier in the month, and sometimes in October, though it doesn't always stick around if it comes that early.  At this point, though, any snow we get is usually with us until spring.  Minnesota is noted for its winters, and people here know what to expect, so any extension we get to nice fall weather is appreciated by everyone except people who sell snow gear.  People use the extra time to do home maintenance projects, more yard work, or whatever they can that lets them enjoy the outdoors just a bit longer.  They know that soon enough, it'll be winter for months!

As I looked at what I've written, it occurred to me that the title of the blog is Indiana Dillmans, and I've only talked about my experience in Minnesota.  What was Fall like for my Indiana ancestors?  Indiana is further south, and situated on the other side of the Great Lakes which moderates their climate somewhat, so they don't get the massive snowfalls and extended deep freeze that Minnesota takes as a matter of course.  Still, it can get very cold, and their houses were not built the way our modern ones are, being far less-well insulated, and heated by wood stoves instead of oil or natural gas.  A big part of their annual work must have been cutting wood to prepare for the coming cold season, alongside the farming that most of my ancestors did.  Hard, heavy work.  Shorter days, meaning less hours of daylight in which to get the work done, let alone any hobbies or pleasurable activities.  How did they cope?


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Politics

 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

Week 46. Politics. What are your childhood memories of politics? Were your parents active in politics? What political events and elections do you remember from your youth?

This challenge runs from Saturday, November 12, 2011 through Friday, November 18, 2011.

Politics, eh?  They say to never discuss religion or politics if you want to keep a conversation friendly.  If this blog post is really short, you'll know I wrote a whole bunch and then decided against posting it for one reason or another.  I'm actually concerned that posting this could come back and bite me at some future time, depending on where our country and world go from here.

To the best of my knowledge, neither of my parents were politically active beyond voting every four years, and I'm not entirely positive they always did even that much.  People in my neighborhood didn't seem to talk about politics that much, at least not with us kids around.

I am young enough that I wasn't around when Kennedy was shot.  I don't really remember Lyndon B. Johnson.  I do, however, remember Richard M. Nixon saying he was not a crook, not a quitter, and then resigning before he could be impeached. I remember liking Gerald Ford despite the lampooned trips that would get laughs for many years afterward.  I thought he should have been elected in place of Jimmy Carter.  Not that I didn't like Jimmy Carter, I just didn't think he was the right man for President.  Looking back, I still think we'd have been better off with Gerald Ford.

I was still too young to vote in 1980, but I was pulling for Ronald Reagan to win.  Apparently I was quite a little conservative in my youth.  In 1984, I came of age and voted for his re-election.  Then I joined the Navy as he was building up to a 600-ship force.  George Bush the Elder continued that plan in 1988, and as I was on active duty, that meant more possibility for me to get advanced, and pretty much guaranteed pay raises even if not advanced. 

I was still on active duty in 1992 when Bill Clinton got elected.  Again, I thought he was the wrong man for the job, though in hindsight, the country did pretty well on the whole under his leadership.  I never did favor him while he was in office, and I still think he and Hillary got off easy with their scandals.  However, by the end of their terms, I was beginning to like where the country was at, and headed, and it looked like Al Gore might move further in that direction.  I especially liked the push toward renewable energy and lessening our dependence on foreign oil.  That has always struck me as a poor thing from a national security standpoint, and it still does. 

Unfortunately, Al Gore didn't fight for the presidency as hard as George Bush the Younger.  However you may feel about that election, I still believe the Republicans stole it from the people.  And that's the turning point when I realized the Republican Party no longer represented my interests.  Neither, though, did the Democratic Party, and to this day I have no allegiance to either.  In fact, I never officially joined any political party.  It has become apparent to me that all of them have greed and corruption of one sort or another, none of them represent anything but power grabs for their top players, and even more so for people behind the scenes like Karl Rove during George W. Bush's terms, and the Koch brothers in the current political situation

I tend to agree with whoever said that anybody who actually wants the job of President should be automatically disqualified from holding that job.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - High School

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 45. High School. Describe your middle and/or high school. Was it a large or small student body? Is the school still in existence today? How has it changed since you went there?

 I attended St. Cloud Technical High School in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  It's called Technical because at one point, there were classes available in many vocational skills, including automotive, photography, printing, aeronautics, woodworking and so forth. My class was approximately 450 in size, and as much as 496 at one point.  I graduated in 1984 somewhere in the middle of the pack. This was mostly because I wasn't serious about grades until my senior year.  When I attended, I lived about seven blocks away, and walked to and from school daily.  Not many students drove at that time, and parking for students was in the park across the road from the school.

 The building itself was first constructed in 1917.  It has since been added on to, and remodeled and such, so that now it's two buildings connected by two overhead walkways and a long extension.  Each building is three stories, with the walkways at second floor level.  Needless to say, students here get plenty of exercise going from class to class across the walkways and up and down the stairs.  Each floor of each wing is mostly separated into subject matter, for the most part. 

As I've implied, the school is still in existence, and my kids are going there.  For that reason, I've had recent opportunity to revisit the building to see the changes.  Mostly it's the same as I remember it, with a few changes including the conversion of a space for the Alumni Association, a Snack Shack for students to purchase snacks and beverages.  Many students now drive to school, and it had become such a problem for the surrounding neighborhood dealing with an excess of student parking that special permits were created and sold to be able to park on the city streets nearby, so homeowners would have some chance at parking spots.  Reducing student parking on nearby streets also cut down on vandalism and other petty crimes students were committing.

As for Junior High, I attended South Jr. High.  It is also still in existence, and one of my kids attends there presently.  It really hasn't changed much either, except one room remodeled for a computer lab, and the Upper Media Center removed for office space.  As with the high school, I've had recent opportunity to visit this building again.   The school seems smaller than when I attended, no doubt because I have grown taller since I went there.  It's a fair-sized one story, with a second floor above parts of the building.  Science is all upstairs, and Social Studies and some Math classes.  At the other end of the building, the Band, Orchestra and Choir rooms are all on the upper floor.  In between is the Gymnasium, which is two stories plus high.  This building is a twin of North Junior High on the north side of town.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Elementary School

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 44. Elementary School. Describe your grammar/elementary school (or schools). Were they big or small? Are any of these schools still in existence today? If so, how have they changed since you went there?

I had three elementary schools.  For Kindergarten, I attended Foley Elementary in Foley, Benton County, Minnesota.  My teacher was Sandy Traverse, and she is now well retired.  I had a long bus ride for this school, as the population of that area is largely rural farm families, and I lived miles away in the country on a farm.  The school is still there, though I haven't been in it decades.  The one interesting thing I remember from this school is that every year there is a 500 mile snowmobile race through Minnesota, and the year I was there, the race ran right behind the school, and we got to watch them go past.

 My next school was Central Elementary in St. Cloud, Minnesota.  I attended this school for four years, first through fourth grades.  There were two classes of each grade, each class about 22-25 students.  The school started out as the only school in St. Cloud, then became the High School, then eventually down to an Elementary School.  Due to shifting demographics and budgetary concerns, the school was closed at the end of the 1975-76 school year.  I still have my yearbook, produced only that year as a good-bye for the school.  The building subsequently re-opened as the Area Learning Center, an alternative school for students with difficulty dealing with regular school curricula and operating environments.  That lasted for several years, then the school district sold the building to become the new City Hall when the city outgrew the existing structure.  It remains City Hall to this day, and has been much renovated and remodeled, but the stairway railings are still the same as when I attended school there.

For fifth and sixth grades, I moved to Lincoln Elementary, also in St. Cloud.  This school building is still there, and still an elementary school.  I recently had opportunity to attend an academic event there for my daughter, and it was interesting to see how my perception has changed.  The building seems much smaller than it did when I was a student.  Also, there have been some modifications to the building, additions and changes that were disorienting.



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Worst Subject

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

Week 43 - Worst School Subject. What was your worst or least favorite subject in school and why?

If I had to pick one, I'd say Art was my worst subject.  I'm not terribly artistic in the classic sense.  I do all right with Photography, but in school, Art was drawing and painting and such.  Oh, and in 8th Grade, Mr. Trisko's Art class was largely jewelry making.  Trisko and his family have a jewelry business in the area, and make very unique rings and such, so naturally he wanted to teach some of that.  It wasn't my strong suit.

As far as my least favorite, that might have to be Math, at least it became my least favorite subject in high school.  That was due to hitting some roadblocks, and to having other things on my mind that were more interesting than Math.  About that time I was noticing curves rather than plotting them.



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Teachers

Week #41 – Teachers

Week 41. Teachers. Did you have a favorite teacher when you were growing up? What class(es) did this person teach and why did he/she make an impact on your life?

I don't know that I had one favorite teacher.  I had many teachers I liked, and some I didn't.  I remember all of my teachers until I get up to 7th grade and onward, when we got lots more teachers, some for relatively short amounts of time in junior high.

In Kindergarten, I had Mrs. Sandy Traverse.  I don't really remember much about her but I do remember positive feelings about her. 


In first grade, I had Miss Joyce Manuel.  I had a rough year for first grade, as I moved to a new school in the city, and they taught at a different level than my old school, so I basically went back through my kindergarten year again, same curriculum.  Miss Manuel was nice enough, but we had issues, mostly because I was bored and resistant to reworking all of that stuff when I could be learning new stuff.  Miss Manuel later married and became Mrs. Cheeley, and my brother had her for a later grade.

I had Mrs. Newman for 2nd grade.  Again, not many memories of her specifically, except I remember liking her.  She drove a brown 1972 Mercury Capri.  Why I remember that, I have no idea.  I don't remember her first name.


Miss Doreen Dooher was my third grade teacher, and she was very nice.  She was tall and very thin, and young.  I don't know why she didn't strangle me, as our initial meeting was a before school open-house.  She was hanging stuff on the bulletin board, standing up on a chair, and I peeked into the room and hollered, "BOO!"  Scared her half to death.  Miss Dooher, wherever you are, I'm sorry!

Fourth grade was Mrs. Laurel J. Knettel's class.  She was a great teacher.  She actually went out of her way to find advanced, challenging things for me to learn, especially in my favored area of science.

Fifth grade once again found me in a new school, as they closed the old one after the end of my fourth grade year.  Mr. Warrick was a nice teacher, I enjoyed his classroom.  He had probably the first VCR and video camera I ever saw.  It was a black and white 3/4" deck, and the camera was just a camera, it had to be plugged into the deck to record anything.

Sixth grade was Mr. Sigurd Langerud's class.  He was rather strict, but I don't recall having any major issues with him.

Seventh grade began junior high, and modular scheduling with many teachers over the course of a day.
Ms. Partridge taught English, Mr. Christensen taught Math, Mike Mack taught Social Studies and once got Teacher of the Year (I think for MN, but might have been national).  I specifically remember learning about the Tasaday tribe recently discovered in the Phillipines during that class.  Mike Gabrielson was my Science teacher (Biology).  I don't remember who taught Band or Phy Ed.  Mike Costello taught Industrial Arts, and I would later see him for other classes in High School.

Eighth grade, Mary Parent taught English, and I liked her a lot.  She nurtured my love of reading and introduced me to some books I still re-read today. Mr Carstens taught Math, and I occasionally see him today with computer issues.  Herr Babitzke taught German, and I still remember some of the stuff that came out of his class to this day, in spite of several years more German in high school and about 30 years of intervening time.  Mr. "H" taught Chemistry, and was my homeroom teacher.  I cannot remember his full name.  Mr. Wolfe taught Social Studies, but I had that class with another teacher.  What I remember Mr. Wolfe for, was Gun Safety.  Yep, I took a Gun Safety course as one of my elective activities during 8th grade.  In school.  And there were guns present as illustration and example.  Times change... 

Ninth grade brought senior high, and another school.  Again, I had many teachers throughout the days and years, so I don't remember them all, but I do have memories of some.  Mr. Anhorn taught Grammar.  Mr. Tom Costello taught Photography, which I took more than once as an elective.  Mr. Haug taught Aviation (and Math, but I had others for that.)  Mr. David Nass taught Algebra, and was still teaching there when my oldest started at that school a few years ago, but has since retired.  Mr. Mike Leach taught Health.  Mr. Leroy Pauley taught German, and this was another subject I took more than once.  I took German for three of the four years in high school.  I still remember some of it!  Mr. Pauley was one of my overall favorite teachers. Mr. Jack Tofte was my Phy Ed teacher, a typical ex-Marine looking guy (I don't know if he was ever in the military or not, but he had the high and tight haircut).  Mr. David Hall taught Band.  Science was Earth Science with Mr. Ward.  I did well in that class.

Tenth grade is a bit fuzzier, it isn't as distinctive in my mind for some reason.  I had Geometry, but I'm not remembering the teacher's name right now, though I had his name recently.  I may have to cheat and get out a Yearbook here!  Mr. Tofte was once again my Phy Ed teacher.  I'm sure he was as glad to get rid of me at the end of the year as I was to be finished with Gym.

Eleventh grade saw more German classes with Mr. Pauley.  Math was Algebra-Trig with Mr. Ron Kerr.  Mr. Kerr was a nice guy, I'd actually met him before from a summer school class, back when those were elective and not just class extensions for kids who weren't keeping up during the school year.  Unfortunately, Mr. Kerr wasn't the best of teachers.  I could watch him do a problem on the board and follow it okay, but he could never really help me with problems when I wasn't getting it.  I didn't do well in that class.  Chemistry class was fun, with Mr. Deutz.  He used to tell the worst jokes in class. I also took a Silk Screen Printing class with Mr. Costello as an elective.  That was fun, as I got to print my own t-shirts.

Twelfth grade.  More German classes with Mr. Pauley, this time also counting as Social Studies as they were covering History and Social Studies, but taught in German.  That was fun!  I took the Silk Screen Printing class again, but this time as a Student Assistant to help the teacher and assist other students.  This time, Mr. Irv Swanson was the teacher.  (Side note: Irv's wife was the librarian at my first elementary school.  There are a lot of husband-wife sets in this school district to this day.) For Social Studies I had Mr. Kjera (pronounced Chair-uh.)  This guy is the only teacher I actively dislike from the whole time.  The reason is, he's also the only teacher who ever gave me detention, and I didn't do what he claims I did to deserve it.  Fortunately, I never saw him again. 

College?  I remember a few of my professors from the first go-round.  Bill Langen taught Russian, which is a rather difficult language to learn.  But my German sure came back while trying!  Dr. Linda Ricketts taught Ancient History, and was a fun, dynamic professor.  Unfortunately, she liked to give all essay exams...  But really, I think the exercise was aimed at the regular K-12 experience, so I'll leave off on the rest of my college professors.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Favorite School Subject

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 42. Favorite School Subject. What was your favorite subject in school and why? Was it also your best subject?

Undoubtedly, Science.  And I can't just limit it to one field, either.  I enjoyed most science classes I took.  The only thing that slowed me down was the advanced math needed for some later classes like Physics.  And I was interested in sciences from a very early age.  My goal in elementary school was to become an astronaut.  I studied astronomy when I was that age, and even some later.

I really enjoyed the applied parts of the courses.  Chemistry was great fun, despite a crucible that exploded molten salt on my hand in 11th grade.  Biology was fun, as I got to handle the critters everyone brought in.  Snakes, frogs, salamanders, etc. 



This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Trouble

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 40: Trouble. What happened when you got into trouble as a child? What was punishment like in your home?

That's easy.  Punishment was usually physical.  It was never excessive, and I agree in hindsight it was probably necessary to use physical means in most cases.  It has a way of focusing the attention of the child on the error of their ways.

My father has a fairly large hand, or so it seemed to me when I was little.  I seem to remember dad's belt being used more than once, but not terribly often.  I also recall a largish hairbrush being used on occasion.

My mother is all of five-foot-nothing, and usually used an implement of some sort to instill discipline, at least once I got older than about 3-4 years old.  To this day I shudder when I think about Hot Wheels cars plastic tracks.  They leave a vivid double welt on the backside, and sting like the dickens!    We lived in town, and lacked the appropriate trees to be told to go out and cut my own switch with which to be disciplined.

I also learned that soap doesn't taste good.  Like, REALLY not good. 

Punishment wasn't always physical, though.  Sometimes there was loss of a privilege, or being sent to my room (timeout, but before people started calling it that).  I had to pay for a window I broke once, with saved allowance. 

For all of that, I never felt my parents didn't love me, never felt they were being cruel or unfair (at least in hindsight when I'd had a chance to think about it).  I believe there is a place for physical punishment in child rearing, a position I know will alienate some people.  But it sure looks to me that our society started rapidly degenerating about the same time the "experts" said we shouldn't use physical punishment on our kids.  That said, used correctly, it should be a rare occurrence, and should always be followed up with a caring revisit as to why it happened, and what was expected to avoid repeats.  

I've rarely had to use physical punishment with my kids.  They are wonderful, respectful kids for the most part, and really are usually good with a verbal reprimand if needed, or at most temporary loss of a privilege.  But I've always held physical punishment as an option.  Rather, I never explicitly took it off the table.  I don't go around telling my kids I'll beat them if they don't do something, or do something wrong.  I've never hesitated to get up in their faces, and very loud, if needed, and usually that gave them pause to reconsider their behaviors.




This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Least Favorite Foods

Week 39: Least Favorite Foods. What was your least favorite food from your childhood? Did your parents make you eat it anyway? Do you still dislike the same food today? How have your tastes changed since your youth?


Easy.  Liver.  Mom made it once, forced me to try it.  She got it back.  It's the only thing I ever ate that I disliked so hard I threw up.  Mind, I've always been a picky eater, but I usually was stubborn enough that I resisted most foods that I didn't want.  I don't remember why I actually knuckled under and tried the liver. 

In my defense, that liver was bad enough my mom agreed, and she didn't eat it either!


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Hobbies

Week #38 – Hobbies

Week 38: Hobbies. Did you have any hobbies as a child? Which ones?

This challenge runs from Saturday, September 17, 2011 through Friday, September 23, 2011.

I had several hobbies when I was a kid.  I messed with electronics and chemistry sets.  I tinkered with small engines.  I liked model rockets and airplanes.  I build a number of plastic model kits.  I disassembled a number of things to see how they worked.  Always old, unneeded things, like old TVs or lawn mowers.

I liked to read a lot.  I read science books when I was younger, then in about 7th grade discovered science fiction and fantasy.

I did some photography, when I could wheedle the cost of film and processing out of my folks, or during summer school when it was part of the class I took.  I even did some cinematography with 8mm and Super 8mm cameras, and some TV studio work (also through summer school).

Out of all of that and other things I've no doubt forgotten, I still read a lot, and I still do photography, though all digital still photographs now.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Road Trips

Week 36: Road Trips. Describe a family road trip from your childhood. Where did you go and why? Who was in the car? How did you pass the time?


I remember in particular one road trip.  My parents took us to Mount Rushmore near Rapid City, South Dakota.  At that time, I was about 12, and my youngest brother had not yet been born, so there were just two of us kids.  We stayed at a campground on the hillside overlooking Rapid City.

We spent most of our time on the trip swimming in the pool at the campground.  I remember looking at the city lights at night..  I don't remember how many days we stayed there.  We did visit Mount Rushmore, though I don't think we walked the trails or visited the exhibits.  One other stop we made on that trip was the Corn Palace in Mitchell, South Dakota.  I remember thinking it was over-hyped, a feeling I still hold about it. 

I remember this trip in particular, and a few years ago, made a similar trip with my own kids.  We visited Mount Rushmore, walked the trails and looked at the exhibits, and even watched the night show there.  We also visited Reptile Gardens at Rapid City, and made side trips to a gold mine where we panned for gold, and the Mammoth digs at Hot Springs, South Dakota.  We drove the Needles Highway through the mountains, and rode the 1880 Train to Keystone.  It was a busy week!  There were other stops and activities between home and Rapid City, too.

I hope one day my kids will take their kids on a similar trip.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Earliest Memory

 

Week 37: Earliest Memory. What is your earliest memory?

This challenge runs from Saturday, September 10, 2011 through Friday, September 16, 2011.

I have a vague memory of climbing onto the wing of a small plane.  The plane was white, but there was a strip of black non-skid on the wing next to the fuselage.  The only time this could have happened was at age 2.5, when my mother took me for a sightseeing plane ride in Sioux Falls, South Dakota.  It was well over a decade later before I flew in a small plane again.  I don't know what kind of plane it was, but it would have been something like a Piper Cherokee, and not a Cessna. The Cessnas have the overhead wings.  I don't think we were the only passengers on the flight.  Unfortunately, my mother doesn't remember any details from that day to corroborate what I remember.

I have some other brief snippets of memories from age three through five or so, after which I have much more recall.

Why is it, then, that I can't remember why I came into the living room?

This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Grandparents' House

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 31: Grandparents’ House. Describe your grandparents’ house. Was it big or small? How long did they live there? If you do not know this information, feel free to describe the house of another family member you remember from your childhood.

My grandparents Estel and Alta Dillman lived at 1603 Pearl Street in Yankton, Yankton County, South Dakota for several decades.  It was a small pink house with two bedrooms on the main floor.  It had an eat-in kitchen with a door to the driveway.  The living room was also on the main floor, and there was one bathroom.  The living room had a large picture window that looked out to the street, and a door to the sidewalk, but no one used that door, they all came to the kitchen door on the side.  The major items in the living room were the console television and an old upright piano.  The basement was open with concrete block walls.  It had two beds, a dresser and an armoir in one corner for a makeshift bedroom, which was where my brother and I slept when we visited.  My parents had one of the main floor bedrooms.  The laundry was also in the basement, and some storage space. 

There was a single-car detached garage.  The garage and driveway were adjacent to the neighbors' driveway and garage, making for a pretty big space to be cleared after snowstorms.  The yard wasn't huge, but was decent.  There were several trees in the back yard, and my grandmother always grew flowers, most notably tulips, in several areas around the house.  She took after her mother in that.


This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Smells

Week 34: Smells. Describe any smells that take you back to childhood. These could be from meals, fragrant gardens, musty basements, or something entirely different.

Well, there are smells that will take me right back, and smells I remember even though you can't smell them anymore. 

For instance on the latter, I remember liking the smell of regular gasoline exhaust.  Regular gas has been gone for decades, so you can't smell that anymore, and unleaded gas exhaust smells different. 

A smell I remember, and which I still come across on occasion is the Church Kitchen.  Usually there's a mix of overdone coffee, several types of  casserole, and so forth.  There can be some variation, but it's instantly recognizable when you smell it.  Must be from the church potluck dinners when I was young.

This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Dinner Time

52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History by Amy Coffin is a series of weekly blogging prompts (one for each week of 2011) that invite genealogists and others to record memories and insights about their own lives for future descendants. You do not have to be a blogger to participate. If you do not have a genealogy blog, write down your memories on your computer, or simply record them on paper and keep them with your files.

• Week 32: Dinner Time. On a typical childhood evening, who was around the dinner table? Was the meal served by one person, or was it a free-for-all? What is dinner time like in your family today?

Childhood dinner changed over the years, depending on the employment of my parents among other things.  We often ate as a family when everyone was home, but there were stretches when one parent worked nights.  As we lived far from any relatives, there was never an extended family dinner situation unless someone came to visit, or we went visiting.   Food was cooked and set on the table usually by one person, but then we each served ourselves for the most part.

Currently with my family, we share cooking responsibilities in that each of us cooks dinner one night per week, including all three kids, which leaves a couple of nights unaccounted for each week.  Each person has their scheduled day to cook, and they need to plan their meal ahead of time to ensure the proper ingredients get purchased on the weekly grocery shopping trips.  Once cooked, the food is set out, and each can grab a plate and serve themselves.  We don't often sit around the table as a family, as schedules have become chaotic with one son working, another doing odd jobs and Boy Scouts, and so forth.  We tried to purposely "enforce" family dinner for a while, but it just didn't take, long term.  Too many variations in schedules.

At least with everyone sharing in the cooking, I know my kids will be able to feed themselves when they get out into the real world.

This and all other articles on this blog are © copyright 2011 by Daniel G. Dillman