Happy Birthday Grandma Keener Feb 11, 1924

Edna Reba Keener 11 Feb 1924 - 17 Jan 1995
Her son Jerry Keener 14 Jul 1942 - 22 Mar1983
photo taken in late 1940s 

My Grandma Edna Keener was a strong woman. Her mother died when she was only 9, the oldest of 8 children. Having her own first child at 14, raising three sons along with the many siblings in the home - it must've been a very difficult life for her. As an adult, she worked in some kind of electrical assembly job for most of her life and took care of her husband who was almost 30 years her senior.

Grandma lived nearby when I was young, I recall sunny days on her back porch, in the garden, playing in the yard that seemed so enormous to me. Her kitchen was giant and it seemed she always had something cooking (we were probably there for meals most of the time). Her dining room walls were covered with collected plates and was rarely used, except to pass through to the front of the house. As a child I didn't notice, but whenever I smell old books, or a damp basement - you know that smell? I remember her home smelled just that way.

Edna Keener and her sister Virginia Anderson
photo taken in early 1980s

Grandma moved away when I was in my early teens and I only saw her once or twice when I was an adult,  Too bad that I didn't realize the things that were slipping away at the time - the things that now I would love to talk to her about, her memories, her family, her life.



I am told that I resemble her, tell stories the way she did, and often make facial expressions that were just like hers. Strange how you do those things when you really didn't "know" a person, or spend any time with them to pick up habits such as these.

The last time I saw her, she was on her deathbed. Only a few weeks before she passed away. Oh, the things I wish I had asked! Grandma died on January 17 1995. She was 70 years old. Today would be her 88th birthday.

Happy Birthday Grandma, you're always in my heart!

Wordless Wednesday

John Jerry Keener b. 1942 d. 1983

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Dec 8, Cookies

Nothing makes me happier than giving tins of Christmas cookies to friends and neighbors. Having four girls in the family, there's always a helper around when it's time to spend a day baking cookies, sprinkling the sugar, placing the little decors around or taste testing. Neither of my Grandmothers were big on making Christmas cookies. I have my paternal grandmother's cookbooks - most recipes are for dinner meals and how to cook on a budget. But, my Mom? She was all about making Christmas cookies and decorating them with little intricate decorations.

While I don't have any photos of them unfortunately, some I can clearly remember. Mostly she made cookie cutter cookies - carefully assembling holly leaves with green icing and little red balls, wreaths with silver balls and little red bows, She also made angels and I think her favorites were the stained glass cookies. Mom also made miniature pecan tarts that were absolutely wonderful. Itty-bitty crusts filled with yummy sticky goodness! One of my favorite cookies that she made was her cranberry cookies which were always a staple this time of year.

With my own children we've made many different things over the years. Our favorites are Russian Tea Cakes, and little decorated spritz butter cookies made from a cookie press (pictured above) - how did I ever live without that? While they're not an intricate cookie-cutter cookie, they're yummy, easy to decorate, easy to make and come in large batches so you can make multiple designs in one batch. We also enjoy making fudge, mint bark candy, little minty snowmen (pictured here), peanut butter buck-eyes, peanut butter cookies, and lots of different breads (banana, cranberry and pumpkin). We make lots and lots of this stuff and then pack up tins or plates to share with neighbors, friends, teachers, bus drivers and the milk man.

I'm sure that all of these holiday goodies will be remembered by my own kids, but most of all the memories of cold days spent in the kitchen together making them.

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories Dec 4th Christmas Cards

Christmas cards are wonderful things. I love finding a pile of them in my mailbox during the early weeks of December. Sadly, it's too often that this is the only time we hear from some distant relatives and friends.  We hang ours on a pantry door in the kitchen, enjoying them through the month and adding to them everytime we get another greeting in the mail. In my parents home we did a similar thing, there was a louvered door in their kitchen and the cards easily slipped through it, overlapping each other and filling the door throughout the season.

Now that I have my own family, I do send cards every year to close friends and family. My Mom always sent cards - when I was old enough to help I seem to remember hundreds of them - possibly I just didn't want to help and the task seemed endless :) My own family now sends about 30-40 cards a year.

What do you do with them when Christmas is over? I'm sure that there are some who pack them away every year and others who simply keep any photos sent and drop the cards in the trash. Thankfully, my great-grandmother Margaret McCann Bellew kept some very special Christmas greetings sent from her husband John Bellew while they were apart - she in England with two children and her husband here in the US with another of their sons, building their new life.

While these cards are not what we see today in typical Christmas design, they are beautiful and contained hand-written notes of Christmas greetings from her husband and a son that went ahead with him to the US.

I was unable to scan these cards - they are not made of paper, but rather the fronts are some type of plastic material that is very fragile at this point, so I photographed them some time ago, and they have been put away for safe keeping. The embroidered one in the back appears to have more of a Christmas design and the greeting inside is as follows:

From Your Loving Husband and Son Willie

To Wife and Children
25th Dec 1923

When she finally joined her husband in the US, Margaret had the terrible misfortune of leaving one of her sons (John) in England. This must have torn at her heart for her entire life. When he was older, he sent Christmas greetings from England to his parents:

After seeing these cards in Margaret's things, I knew that she loved them and I will hang onto them and preserve them as best I can for future generations.

Advent Calendar - December 3, Tree Ornaments

So my dates are a bit off and I'm a few days behind, but I wanted to share this post from last year.

Christmas is a magical time - excitement, anticipation and many enjoyed festivities go along with the season, making it a wonderful time to share with family. Nothing gets that excitement started like decorating the house and putting up the tree. I remember as a child growing up, after the Thanksgiving turkey was put to leftovers and the pumpkin pie was gone, it was time to decorate for Christmas!

The tree trimming was my primarily Mom's job, but we all enjoyed looking through the ornaments, straightening the branches of our tree and helping to hang them all. In our family every child got a new ornament every year. My parents carefully put our names and the year on the ornament somewhere. In those earlier years our tree didn't really have a "theme" but was more of what I would call a children's tree. After all, Christmas was all about the children. There were a few sets of glass ornaments that my parents had purchased over the years and we always hung those as well. Over time, there were less and less of them, as various ones got broken. I have two or three such ornaments from those glass bobbles that belonged to my parents when they first started their lives together. These are among my most cherished ornaments and I put them on my tree every year.

On the first Christmas after moving from my parents home Mom pulled all of my ornaments from her boxes and gave them to me - giving me a collection of ornaments to start decorating my own tree.

This Santa is plastic, covered with thin felt and is from 1974 and the Pooh below is from 1978. My children give me a hard time about these every year - "Here Mom, it's that old Santa"

 

When my paternal Grandmother passed away in 1995 I received very few of her Christmas decorations. But among them was this ornament which I have carefully put on my tree every year ever since. I haven't any idea where she got it and I had never seen anything like it but it too is one of my most cherished.

Every year my ornaments get a little older and every year we add new ornaments to our tree for each of our children. My Mom still gives me (and my kids) a new ornament every year. When they grow up I hope that they enjoy taking them out every year, remembering the times we had trimming our tree and adding to their collections for their own children, keeping the family tradition alive.

It's my Blog's Birthday & Happy Thanksgiving Everyone!

Happy Thanksgiving to all of my family, friends and readers! Thanks for following me! 

This photo was taken on Thanksgiving 1957 - look at those mashed potatoes! Getting ready for the feast are: left Pauline Keener Harrington & Joe Harrington, at the back Leonard C. Anderson, on the right are an unknown female and Russell Keener

Happy 3rd Birthday to my blog!  I am so thankful to all the folks who have followed me, contacted me and become my friends.   The genealogy blogging community is a wonderful group to be a part of.



To the Veterans in my family - past and present

In honor of those in my family who served in our military, in the past and in the present.

My Dad, Donald F. Keener

United States Marine



Grandfather Leonard C. Anderson

Army

Served during WWI



Grandfather William P. Bellew

Army Air Force

WWII

Purple Heart Recipient

Uncle Vernon Lewis Keener



Uncle Carl W. Poates (born as Carr Anderson)



For privacy reasons, I will not post photos of living relatives who were, or are currently in the military but I will say..

Thank you Uncle Jack for your long service in the Army and your time in Vietnam

Thank you to my nephew Greg for your service in the Army and time in Iraq

Thank you to my nephew Danny for your service in the Marines and time in Afghanistan

Thank you to my cousin's husband Andy for your service in the Army and time in Iraq

Thank you to my husband's uncle Johnny for your service in the Army and time in Iraq

Thank you to my nephew Christopher for your service in the Marines (just completed basic)

Thank you to all military personnel and veterans for your service, past and present!  





Throwing in the towel? Nah, just needed a bit of breathing space!

This poor, neglected blog!

I have actually been doing research - in my "spare" time (that is, during the wee hours of the morning).   Between the 4 kids at home and one off to college this year, I have been one busy Momma! So yeah, I've been digging up info but haven't had the time or the drive to write.    I've also been teaching adult education for a few months, something I've always wanted to do.  The class topic?  Genealogy of course!  This has been a wonderful outlet for me and helped me meet some fantastic people right here in my own town who enjoy this wonderful hobby.   I am hopeful that we will continue to share, meet and help each other with our research.   

In the meantime, I would really like to revisit my blog and actually start writing again, that is if I can  find that spark to share that seems to have left me after my father died.  

So, if you used to read regularly or if you've just started following,  please come back and read again.  I have so missed this!

Military Monday - Comparing WWII Journals

Researching my Grandfather's WWII history has been a very rewarding endeavor for me.  Looking for the records, finding his discharge paperwork, obtaining his medals, reviewing hometown newspapers for information - all of these things were very worth while.  Lucky for me, he kept a bit of a journal during his time in the Army Air Force and noted the dates he flew on missions, what the target was, the flying altitude, and other details about the weather and enemy fighters encountered etc.  This gave me more of the story behind his time in England, but didn't offer up many details in the way of actual "stories" of his missions.

I was contacted by another researcher last fall for more information on his missions.  It seems our two Granddads had fought together.   He was interested in the journal, to enable him to order mission reports for specific dates.  I provided the information I could and one entry intrigued me (below) and I asked that if he did get mission reports would he mind sharing information with me on this particular mission.

June 25th, 1944 - 16th mission
Target - X
300-500 feet
light flak
2 FW 190S Fighters
9 hours 

About a week ago I received an email from the other researcher. Seems he's been doing his homework and reaching out to others in the same squadron. Luckily, a family member of another serviceman in the same squadron had yet another journal - with an entry for the same date...

Ate at midnite, took off at 4 am for S.W. France with 10 parachute bundles of supplies. Dropped them from 300 ft. in a valley between mountains to the French marquis. We were so low, we could see the grateful smiles on their faces as they waved to us. The group was attacked by one FW-190, but P-47's chased him away. Bombardier (Moe) had a close call by flak. Flew as crew in 138 - new ship with only two previous missions on her.

I was so relieved to read that "target X" in my Grandfather's journal was actually a location for a supply drop and not one of their usual missions.  He wasn't looking down at terrified people, but other soldiers who were happy to see them.    All the official documents in the world can't offer up this kind of information - the actual experience of the individual.

Wordless Wednesday

Edna Keener  b. 1924 d. 1995

Taken on the steps of a school in Frederick Maryland 1946