Hortense Carpenter: Stepping up to a challenge #ResilientRoots

I've talked about my Paternal Grandmother on the blog before, and I've spoken far and wide about the resilience she blessed me with through a quilt she made for me.  But I've never written much about the resilience she showed in her own life.   She was a strong lady who instilled lots of fortitude in me that is coming in handy right now.

Hortense Snow was born April 25th in 1911.  She was the daughter of  Erastus Beaman Snow Jr. and Rosina Christina Gregerson.  Her mother grew up on a ranch with lots of books, was college educated and taught school before she married.  She loved literature and taught all of her children about the importance of an education.  She loved to travel, entertain and use the good china--all qualities she instilled in Hortense.  

Rosina ran a dress shop in their town and Hortense was always impeccably dressed.  She learned to sew, play the piano and the clarinet, traveled and served a mission for her church.  After graduating from school and returning from the mission, one morning her mother came downstairs and said, ""Hortense, I've not slept all night. I have been worried about you. I don't think you should go to San Diego. You have said several times you might like to go to BYU. Get yourself ready and go on to college. I don't think you will find San Diego the same place now that your mission is over. I would like to keep you here to run the dress shop for me. I have considered selling you the business. I know you could manage the shop and do a good job, but I won't make an old maid, out of you." So Hortense packed up and left for college the next morning.   

Hortense was nervous about going to school but she enjoyed her home economics classes and decided to major in that.  She was president of her sorority and had lots of friends and boyfriends.  When she was about to graduate in the sprint of 1934 her mother took ill and died in April.  Rosina insisted that she graduate and not come home to care for her or she might not graduate.  Hortense did graduate with her teaching credentials and accepted a job at a high school for a year before returning to take care of her father and the dress shop.  

That fall, one of her teachers came to the shop to visit and encouraged her to go on with more school about consumer education and bookeeping to be better at managing the shop.  So Hortense left again after Christmas to continue her education.  There she met my Grandfather G. Alvin Carpenter.  After two years of writing letters, they married June 10th, 1938.  Hortense worked for the State Extension Staff as a clothing specialist until they married and moved to Reno Nevada. 

After stints with Alvin's job in Reno and Berkeley, CA, and getting his PhD at Cornell in New York, they settled in Logan, Utah and began to raise a family.  Hortense put her homemaking skills into her three children, Paul, Don and Colleen.   She was a wonderful mother and taught the children to be hard workers with a couple of acres of fruit trees, gardens. chickens and a horse.  Hortense canned and froze all of the vegetables and fruit that they raised.  She made sure the children all had piano, speech and art lessons.  During this time she finished her work on her MS degree except for the thesis.  She also renewed her teaching certificate.  Little did she know how valuable that would be soon in her life.  

After 16 years in Logan, Alvin moved the family to work for the University of California at Berkeley in 1956.  Shortly after, Alvin was diagnosed with diabetes and Hortense became worried.  To quote her son Don, "She wanted to make sure she could support the family if necessary.  So she began as a substitute teacher and then accepted a full time position teaching home economics at Alhambra High School in Martinez California.  This proved to be a great blessing in her life.  Not only did the extra income help during the children's expensive college years, but it gave Hortense the added peace and assurance, increased self-confidence and new opportunities to serve others in ways that were rewarding and satisfying.  Having raised her own children, she felt more competent, and qualified to teach foods and nutrition, clothing, family finance, and family life than she ever felt as a young college graduate teaching home economics."

After 12 years of teaching, Hortense retired at the same time Alvin retired from UC Berkeley.  They moved to Provo, Utah to be closer to their grandchildren and Alvin worked for 10 more years as a part time faculty at BYU.  It was then that I got to spend most of my time with Grandma.  Each grandchild got to visit by themselves for a week and Grandma taught us how to sew, needlepoint, cook and we went for long walks in the mountains where she taught me the names of all the wildflowers. She organized summer sewing and home economics classes for the children in the neighborhood with her many sewing machines and the room she kept full of fabric. She made her granddaughters beautiful clothes and we had huge family dinners on Sundays and holidays. She loved to hear the piano recitals her grandchildren would perform and she used her many sets of china and dishes for entertaining.   She taught me that I was going to college, it was just a matter of which school I picked.  She knew that it was best for a woman to be prepared to have a career, even at a time when many women didn't.  

I'm thankful for a grandmother who taught me so much about kindness, faith, and courage.  When she passed, 6 years after Alvin did on July 6, 1991, she left a great legacy of determination and drive that I draw on today.  

Post written by Janet Hovorka, Owner, Family Chartmasters LLC

Holiday Heirlooms Can Help Connect Your Family To Their History

When I was about 8 years old, and my little sister was about 6, my Mom helped us create a little salt dough nativity set for my Matriarchal Grandparents Darrel and Eila Dana.  We carefully crafted the pieces and painted them and sealed them with shellac.  We even made a card with our Shrinky Dinks and signed our names.  I was surprised how much Grandma loved that nativity.  It was always displayed in a place of honor at Christmas time.  When she passed, my Mother saved them for me.  They are a sweet reminder of my Grandmother and the love she had for me.  

Another holiday heirloom in our home is a beautiful Christmas ornament that was smocked by my Patriarchal Grandmother Hortense Carpenter.  She was always the consummate homemaker with lavish parties and great food and a whole room of fabric she used to create beautiful things.  She had taken a smocking class in the late 1970s and that Christmas she invited each of her grandchildren to take home an ornament from her tree.  She was surprised when I chose this ornament she had made because she didn't think it was her best work.  But even at that young age, I knew and heirloom when I saw one.  I think she was pleased that I took it and she knew I would treasure it and pass it down in my own family.

Each year when we get out the Christmas decorations, I love to tell my kids about the wonderful ladies that my Grandmothers were and how much they loved me.  I love to think about them as I see these things in my home and honoring them has become part of my holiday season.  Do you have any holiday heirlooms that you use during this time of the year?  Maybe a Menorah that has been passed down, or some beautiful dishes?  Be sure you are telling the stories of these people and helping the next generation of your family feel the appreciation you have for those who have made your family what it is today.

We wish you the happiest of holidays with you and yours.  Thank you for being part of our conversation this year.  We really appreciate you and look forward to spending many more years celebrating our family histories together. 

New (and new to me) Genealogical Serendipity

From our newsletter:

We've been hearing some wonderful serendipitous stories from many of you lately. We are in a wonderful position in this industry where we get to talk to you after you have done genealogy research and gotten hooked. We count ourselves very lucky to get to work with such wonderful people and love to hear about your research.

If you listened to the podcasts I did lately you'll know serendipity has come up in my interviews quite a bit recently. And apparently the subject has been popping up other places with the people who interviewed me too. Lisa Louise Cooke just posted a new podcast talking about some serendipity stories, and I just happened to stumble across an old (new to me) podcast with George Morgan and Drew Smith that they talked about it too.

Besides the times we have talked about it on this site, snooping around a little more recently I've found a couple of other new to me sites:
Granduncle Mark's Genealogy Parlor
The Serendipity Listing on Cyndi's list
Serendipity on Genealogy Today

We've recently had our users tell us stories about searching records and having have a book open right to the marriage record of someone on different line that they thought was in another state. Or traveling to another country to find records and coming up blank, and then a cousin making a wild suggestion about a local place where the records eventually were found. Or having a business client mention someone they were looking for but hadn't been able to find and having that person turn out to be the business person's neighbor. We have heard many, many such stories this year. Thank you for sharing them with us, and if you'd ever like to share them further, we'd love to have you write an article for the blog.

And I have a great story I just realized I've never talked about here too: A couple of years ago we were displaying some of our charts at a genealogy conference. While we change the information on the living people, many of our display charts are of my own ancestry. As often happens, one lady came up and looked closely at the chart looking for people she was related to and she found Rosina Christina Gregerson, my great grandmother who died in 1934. When she said she had a book about my family and that she would sell me a copy, I was skeptical. But the book she brought in the next day was an incredible record of my family. I was actually in it as a descendant, and it ranged up through this line seven generations. It is an incredible 700 pages of stories and pictures and even included a chapter that my grandmother Hortense had written about her mother that we never knew existed. Needless to say I bought it from her and have treasured it. We often find distant cousins of mine at conferences. So if you ever need some help breaking through a brick wall, you can always let us display your chart at the conferences we go to. :-)

One of the important things to remember about serendipity is that the thing that makes these stories so great is how long the person has been looking for the information that has miraculously appeared. So don't get discouraged if you haven't had some serendipity in your research lately. There may be some right around the corner. Megan Smolenyak Smolenyak, in her book In Search Of Our Ancestors, says that if you put 50 genealogists in a room, 45 of them will have had a serendipity experience. So if you haven't had one lately, don't worry. It's coming.

You know I think the word I like the best in genealogy serendipity is "miracles." I think genealogy brings all sorts of miracles into your life. It certainly has brought miracles into my life and it gives me this amazing sense of awe. It's just one of the many things that makes genealogy so exciting and fun.

Planting an Ancestor Garden.

A reprint from our newsletter. Sign up at the bottom of the Generation Maps Main Page.

I went out this week and gathered several vases full of lilacs to fill my house and office. My maternal grandmother Eila Dana loved lilacs and thus they are one of my favorite flowers too. With the smell all around me and everytime I look over at the bouquet on my desk, I remember her fondly. (That is her on the left).

We have planted all kinds of other plants in honor of our ancestors too. Some of them include:

• Tomatoes--for my Dad who loves fresh tomatoes from the garden.
• Beets--for my Grandfather Carpenter who helped prisoners of war weed beets during World War II
• Begonias--for my Grandfather Dana who always had beautiful begonias on his deck.
• Lilacs--for Grandma Dana of course.
• Tiger Lillies-- for Kim's Grandmother Anderson who had big clumps of them in front of her house.
• Impatiens--for Kim's mother who had them all over her front yard.
• Crocuses--for my Mother who got all excited that spring was coming when they would peek through the snow.
• Roses--for my Grandmother Hortense Carpenter who helped me make potpurri with rose petals from her garden when I was a child.
• Hollyhocks--from my Great great Grandmother Schwendiman's house where they posed for many pictures. (That's her in the picture right under the arch with her mother Great great great Grandmother Williams)

What plants run in your family? Plant a few this spring in their honor. Maybe even get some plant markers to show off who you are honoring. And then share them with your descendants. Happy spring!

Holiday Traditions--Carnival of Genealogy

While I have written about sharing your family history by utilizing your family traditions recently, I get to share a few more family holiday traditions thanks to the Carnival of Genealogy. I am so thankful to Jasia for giving me so many great excuses to play with my family history here on this blog. I hope you will check out my previous post for the real information and ideas. I'm going to stick to pictures on this one.

Hovorka

(Carpenter, Snow, Schwendiman, Dana and Romney)

Christmas Traditions.

A photo essay from past to present.

Christmas Trees and Music.

(The Fred and Ethel Schwendiman Family, date unknown possibly early 1930s. My mother's mother's mother's family)

Lining up the family for a picture

(The Rose and Erastus B. Snow Jr. Family 1933. My father's mother Hortense's family)

Sending Christmas Cards

(Patricia and Marcia Dana, 1949. My mother Patricia on left.)

Visiting Santa

(Patricia and Marcia Dana again. Christmas 1954.)

Gathering everyone together.

(Viola Schwendiman Romney Talbot family. Christmas 1963. My Mother Patricia in red, My Mother's Mother Eila in red on the right and my Mother's Mother's Mother Viola in black on the left.)

Spoiling the Little Ones Rotten

(Me on the left and Kim on the right. Christmas 1969 and 1957 respectively.)

Pajamas on Christmas Eve.

My Children--several years ago. (This picture actually started a new tradition--family pictures of each Christmas displayed together on the piano. You'll have to come visit and see all the adorable pictures sometime.)

I have several more posts to write in my Sharing your Family History with your Family series but have been hit with Christmas Rush at Generation Maps lately. That is the most recent Hovorka family tradition I guess--definitely a good one. I'm hoping to get a bunch more of of my series posted this week. We'll see how far I get. We'll get them done eventually. Enjoy your happy holiday season.

My Show and Tell Quilt--Carnival of Genealogy

Taking a break here to show off the item I chose to bring to the Carnival of Genealogy's "Show and Tell." I always loved show and tell at school and could never decide which of my treasures to share. Still can't. So I hope we do this one again.

When my Patriarchal Grandmother Hortense Carpenter died, she left instructions that each of her grandchildren should receive a quilt that she had sewn. She had made many beautiful quilts that were distributed to her 11 grandchildren. All except me--the oldest grandchild. Somehow (and after a certain relative took a couple of extra quilts) all of the grandchildren got one but there wasn't one left for me. I wasn't really upset about it, I had inherited several things from my grandmother, but my mother was really frustrated that I hadn't received one of my grandmother's beautiful handcrafted quilts.

Grandma died in 1991. In 1996, my mother was at the family condo and looking at one of the beds, realized that there was one more of my grandmother's quilts that had been overlooked and was being used as a bedspread there. She snatched it for me and brought it home to give to me. In the days before she could give it to me, I suffered the miscarriage of my first pregnancy, a pregnancy we had been waiting and hoping for for a long time. My mother gave me the twin size, thick, warm, corduroy log cabin style quilt the day after we found out that the baby had no heartbeat. Over the next couple of days, following surgery and through intense emotional despair, I had this quilt wrapped around me constantly. My hormones were adjusting and I was freezing cold for several days, so even at work, I kept this quilt around me. It was like a huge warm hug from my grandmother.

Several years later, I discovered a picture of me and my grandmother while she was working on this quilt. It was Christmas 1974 and Grandma had made one of those typical scrumptious Christmas dinners. Grandma was a retired home economics teacher and there was nothing domestic that she didn't do perfectly. My sister and I played under most of the quilts Grandma had stretched out on the quilting frames. I remember building wonderful forts and playing with our dolls in our own little world under there. And eventually she taught us to quilt. I have one of her sewing machines and I have made several quilts on my own quilting frames.

More recently, as my wonderful children arrived, and grew big enough to understand, I have wrapped them in this quilt, and told them about how much I wanted and waited for them, and how much I loved my grandmother. As we have cuddled under this quilt, they have learned of her sewing talents, but also of her adoration of me, the long walks we had in the mountains near her home and how she taught me the names of all the wildflowers there, and many other things I loved about her. I miss my Grandmother but I am thankful my children and I can have a hug from her any time.