Ruth A. Reed, a 2nd Cousin

Researching a 2nd Cousin, Ruth A. Reed

My second cousin, Ruth A. Reed, was born on 28 December 1920. I have only her name posted on her mother's page on my website, since I am unsure if she is living. See this page
http://www.joanneskelton.com/p625.htm
So I decided I need to see what more I could find out about Ruth.
I began by doing a general search on Ancestry.com. I found her on the 1940 and 1930 census living with her parents, Earl and Ellen (Ward) Reed. Then I realized that I already had that information while researching her mother, although it is not yet entered into my software so doesn't yet show on my website.
While checking some of the compiled family trees I discovered that someone had entered Ruth's sister, Faith, and showed who Faith had married, George Eden. Then I found that both George and Faith were deceased and were both listed on the Minnesota Death Index. So here is more information to enter. Doing a followup on that information led me to Find A Grave and the double stone for George and Faith is in Harrison Township Cemetery, Swea City, Iowa. It appears they had lived in both Iowa and Minnesota.
Since I believed Ruth was born in Iowa I found that FamilySearch.org has a database of Iowa County Births from 1880-1935. I did a search for just their surname Reed for Kossuth County, Iowa and 4 of Earl and Ellen's children were listed including their middle names.
But I really wanted to determine if Ruth was still alive. Since I didn't know if or who she had married I was at a standstill. I used the Death Records website by Joe Beine and checked for Minnesota obituaries and found that Southern Minnesota Historical Center in Mankato, Minnesota had an obituary index online which covered Blue Earth County. Ruth's mother is listed in this index for 1971, so now I must send a copy request with the appropriate fee to them and hopefully it will list Ruth as a survivor and I can learn her married name and then do further research.
In the meantime I have information from the census, death records and birth records to enter.

Christmas Memories

24 Dec 2012

Some Christmas Memories.

As I remember Christmas time, it consisted of at least five events:

• Christmas program at school
• Christmas program at church
• Christmas Eve celebration with the Julius Falk family usually Harrisburg area
• Christmas morning opening presents at home near Halsey
• Christmas Day celebration with the O.J. Albertson family usually Eugene, but sometimes Florence

I can remember one school program when I was to have the narrator part telling about the first Christmas. But that year there was a big flood and our school program was cancelled, so I missed out on my big acting opportunity.

It seems like at both school and church programs each child present would received a paper sack with an orange, chocolate drops and hard Christmas candy.

Christmas time was also the time when my Dad would bring home a sack of chocolate drops. They had assorted flavors and he seemed to really like the chocolate centers. So my brother and I would take a tiny bite from the bottom edge of the chocolates and if it was a chocolate center, we would put that back to save for my Dad.

GIFT GIVING

We exchanged gifts with the Paul Quimby family at Halsey and Roy & Grace Bond from Glide. As I remember it, very often Uncle Roy & Aunt Grace would send us a box of chocolate covered cherries. I did like to see their package come in the mail.

For the Falk family at least in the later years, we drew names, adults with adults and children with children. As I was the oldest grandchild, there came a time where I needed to decide if I would draw with the adults or with the children. For the Albertson family, we tended to give gifts by families. However we grandchildren usually received a gift for ourselves also. My Dad took some home movies of the Christmas celebrations in the late 1940's, so it is fun to look at them.

One year my Dad bought my Mom a stainless steel garbage can, with a removable pail inside and a step-on opener. Then he let her try to guess what it was. He would give a number of hints, but she was never able to guess before she opened it. She laughed when she saw what it was.

Some of the gifts I received over the years that I remember were: a Toni doll, an electric alarm clock, subscriptions to magazines. (such as Movie Story Magazine, Photoplay, Gene Autry comic book, American Girl)