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December 2209 Everything’s Relative

By Family Tree Editors Premium

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All in the Family: September Winners
 
Something’s Fishy
We doubt quite so many adults would enjoy a relaxing day on the lake if, as children, they were forced to get chummy with fish big enough to eat them. What could be going through this young lad’s mind? Plenty of you had ideas—and each of the clever readers here won our Organize Your Genealogy Life! CD.
 
 
 
Next, they’ll probably make me hold hands with a girl.

—Pat Maas, Lawrence, Kan.
 

Mama! Can I use your big iron skillet?

—Mildred Freeney-Hilton, Denver, Colo.
 

What do you mean I have to clean it? It just came out of the water.
—Janice Goudy, Effie, Minn.

 
Eat or be eaten, I always say.

—Karen McAndrew, Bellevue, Neb.
 

In a flash, young Ahab knew what his future would be.

—Fred O’Connor, Lady Lake, Fla.
 

Hi, I’m Jonah. Are you the whale?

—Juanita Calvin, Fairmont, Minn.
 
Reader Stories
Lucky 13

Family members would always tell me, “You’re the one born on Grandmother’s birthday.” My great-grandmother, Adelia Hamilton Ball Young DeCourcy, was born July 13, 1830. I was born July 13, 1939, 109 years later. But there’s more: a set of twins was born to my niece July 13, 2005.
 

I started looking at other birth dates in the family, and found my dad also has a three: Dec 30, 1911. My oldest daughter was born Aug 13, 1960. My son was born April 3, 1961. In September 1969, I waited for the birth of my third child and watched the days go by. Sept. 3 and 13 passed, and our daughter was born on the 23rd.
From the rest of Adelia’s descendants, five more were born on dates containing a three.
—Annette DeCourcy Towler, St. Cloud, Minn.

 

Genealogy: The Best Medicine?

I’ve always said genealogy is a small world. My son is a medical technologist at a small hospital. One day he was working with an elderly lady from another town who was in the hospital. He struck up a conversation.
 

He asked her where she grew up, and she replied, “Oh, a little town that you’ve never heard of in western Kansas.”

“You might be surprised. I know a lot of little towns in Kansas,” he replied.
 
“Sun City,” was her answer.
 
“What can you tell me about that little one-room brick schoolhouse about 2 miles north of there?”
 
She nearly fell out of bed. “How do you know about that school?”
 
My son went on to explain that his grandmother (my mother) and her siblings attended school there when they lived on the nearby ranch where their parents had moved in about 1910 to work. The woman knew all about the ranch owner, my great-uncle J.W. “Buffalo” Smith.
 

Over the next couple of days, my son and his patient traded stories until she got better—quicker than expected—and went home early. But she stopped in occasionally after that to say hello.

—Ivan L. Pfalser, Caney, Kan.
 
From the December 2009 Family Tree Magazine

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