52 Ancestors: Cousin Bait - Mrs. Gunzendorfer's Nut Cake

One of the best things about having the name Gunzendorfer in my tree is that the name is cousin bait all by itself.  My first blog post told about my start with genealogy when my mom exclaimed "there are no more Gunzendorfers in the United States", which you can read about HERE.  Here's a post from early this year talking about the Beginnings of my blog where I can finally admit that she just might have been right.    

Early in my research I connected with George Fogelson, the author of a book that was my #1 Top 10 Genealogical Find of 2017 - you can read it HERE.  Over the years we've kept in touch and shared information and photos - it's so great to talk with someone who "knows" my family.  A few weeks ago I received an e-mail from George with the subject line Gunzendorfer.  Boy did that pique my interest and I immediately opened it up to see this:

Mrs. Gunzendorfer's Nut Cake?  What the heck?  George was with a friend, Ann, cleaning out some things and this was in her mother's cookbook.  Where and how did her mother get this?

The three of us talked on the phone and it turns out that her grandmother lived in Monterey which is where my Gunzendorfer's lived from about 1860 until 1944.  While my grandmother wasn't born in Monterey, she was raised there and two generations of the family owned/operated the mercantile The White House.  You can read some posts HERE and HERE.

The White House, Monterey, California

Ferdinand Gunzendorfer on top step

Since I had two Mrs. Gunzedorfner's who lived in Monterey - my 2x great grandmother, Fannie, and my great grandmother, Bertha - I didn't know which one made such a delicious Nut Cake that someone would hang on to the recipe all these years.  But her grandmother and mother did!

I don't know too much about censuses but I did determine that in 1900 Ann's great grandparents lived at 422 Franklin Street and my 2x great grandparents lived nearby on Webster Street.  Both families can be found in District 0009, her family on page 18 and my family on page 10.  I'm sure Monterey wasn't that large in 1910 but they were almost neighbors.  Since they weren't too far apart in age, my guess is that the two ladies 'hung out' together and maybe made Nut Cake!

So while not really a cousin, the name Gunzendorfer (who can forget that name, anyway?) "baited" me a new recipe.  Thanks for the introduction, George!

52 Ancestors: Mother's Day - Mabel Viola McAboy

This week's blog prompt is Mother's Day.  I've written a lot about the mothers in my life - you can read some of them at Memorial Tributes  The Mothers in My Life  Meet My Grandparents  Memories of Mom - but this time I'm going to focus on my maternal great grandmother, Mabel Viola McAboy.

Mabel was the sixth (and youngest) child of William Warren McAboy and Rebecca Waller.  Years and years ago I sent away for Mabel's birth record and once I received it, I stuck it in a file for "later" (you've done the same thing, right?) and today is finally "later".  Back in 1883, the birth was hand noted in a "register" that seemed much like the old financial ledgers we used 50 years ago.  

Yep, that's her - born 6 June 1883 in Clinton, Illinois to Maria Rebecca (I've always seen it Rebecca Moriah) Waller McAboy and Wm. W. McAboy.  Interesting to see that she was the sixth child.  I have record of all six children, although the oldest, William L., died in 1881 at the age of 17.

I recently was given a photo of Mabel from a cousin I connected with - it is so wonderful to see her as a young woman because, of course, I only knew her as an older woman.  I think she's beautiful!

Sometime around Mabel's 4th birthday, the family moved from Clinton, Illinois to Fresno, California.  I can't imagine what it was like to move halfway across the country with five children.  Did they take a train?  What took them there?

The first time Mabel shows in the census is 1900 (darn that missing 1890 census!) where she is living in Fresno with her parents and brother, John.

November 18, 1901 marked the marriage of Mabel and my great grandfather, Edward Francis Fitzgerald.  One interesting note is that the two honeymooned at a cottage at Copper King Mine - you can read about it HERE  - but I've added the photo of the honeymoon cottage below.  Quite the spot!

Fresno Bee Republican, December 3, 1961

Their first child, my grandmother, was born 22 January, 1903 and two children followed within the next few years.

By 1910, the family was complete and living in Fresno on Butler Avenue, although the census shows Butter Avenue.  And in 1920, they were all still together on Dwight Way.

One thing I've learned about this family is that they moved around - a lot.  In 1924 they were at 3844 Liberty, in 1930 they were at 3833 Lyell, 1932 back to Liberty, 1934 at 338 Michigan, and by 1940 at 1023 Thorne Avenue.  Some of those addresses found their youngest child, Stanley, with them so I can't be sure if he was living with them or they were living with him.

I loved Mabel dearly but I do recall that she always looked a little stern as evidenced here with her first great grandchild, my sister.

Mabel (McAboy) Fitzgerald and my big sister

And in the blink of an eye, Mabel died on 12 November, 1966.  She was the first person close to me who died - I remember that I didn't know what to say or do.  There was a nice service for her but I don't even remember if we attended or not.  You can read about it at the Memorial Tribute link above.

Interesting to see that her mother is listed as Rebekah M. - the spelling is something I've not seen before.

RIP, Mabel Viola McAboy Fitzgerald, my great grandmother.

52 Ancestors: Favorite Place - 1945

My Favorite Place seems to depend on my mood and what I'm doing at the moment.  And right now I'm immersed in transcribing letters that my mom wrote to my dad while he was in basic training in 1945 so I'll say this is currently my Favorite Place in Time.

Gordon Levy, 1945

I have so many of the letters Mom wrote to Dad starting in the summer of 1944 when he went away to college at Stanford University.  She was about to enter her junior year in high school and even though I don't have the letters that he wrote back to her (she, apparently, didn't have the pack rat gene), I can tell that their priorities were a little different.  

From his Army records, I've learned that he entered into active service on June 16, 1945 and separated on December 1, 1946 - more on that in later entries.

After nearly a one year gap in letters (did he lose the packrat gene for awhile?), she's back at it in September, 1945 when Dad was at Keesler Field, Mississippi.  I've surmised that he didn't like it so much there but I'm sure he was happy to hear from her every day.  She talked about what was going on at school - this person went out with that person, I made the square dance team, the football team won 7-0 - and added every. single. detail. about every one of her classes every day.  I've learned that she nearly failed Physics the first quarter of her senior year (she ended up with a B!), loved Trig, and also took Civics, English, and P.E.  She "scolded" Dad when she didn't receive a letter from him and longed for him to come home.  She shared her feelings about her friends, some of whom were boys, and I'll just leave it at that - some things are best left unshared.  At one point she talked about a dog named Butch who sat at her feet while she typed - could this be him?

Geraldine Martin, 1945

As I was preparing for this post, I pulled out the letters I'd stashed away that Dad wrote to my grandparents (remember, they were the King and Queen of packratting) while he was away at school and then in the military.  In just a few short minutes I've learned a lot more about his experiences so now that I'm finished transcribing Mom's letters, it's time to get started on his parents' letters.  

A few things stick out from the first few letters.

Upon his arrival at Keesler Field on June 28, 1945, he wrote to his parents:

Dearest Mom & Pop:

Well, well, well!!  Outside of the heat, this place isn’t as bad as everyone said.  But of course we just got here last night and haven’t seen anymore than our own barracks.  They don’t seem to know what to do with us yet so we just sit and wait.  Out of my two weeks of “battle” service, I wouldn’t be exaggerating if I said we’ve sat & waited 13 of them.  Now I see why they call it a standing army.

From what I can gather, by listening to a million different guys who don’t know a thing but think they know it all, I think we’ll be in basic training for 35 days and have to stay on the post the first month.  After that almost everyone becomes an aviation mechanic.  But with something like 40,000 men here, there’ll have to be some other jobs open.  No one knows the actual story.

And then on July 1, he wrote:

We get up at the bright hour of 5 in the morning (3 o’clock your time) and get off about 5:30 at nite.  Our basic consists of from 30 to 60 phases of training (30-60 days) and we begin #1 tomorrow.  A five day bivouac in the hills comes in the twenties.  Then you either get classified or continue in advanced basic.  Nobody knows how we’ll be classified, but I do know that some will be sent to OCS (I think) and some are made pre-aviation cadets.  Others are made gunners, mechanics, etc.  Um-m how I would like OCS – now I see why everyone wants to be an officer.  We will be temporarily classified within two weeks after we take more tests.

Our class is still scattered through a bunch of barracks waiting to be put together.  Some of us are with a bunch of draftees from NY (over 30 yrs. old) who have the same training we have and will probably get pretty good jobs.  They are the “work or fight” bunch – mostly married and fathers.  I’d rather be with young fellows – I think we will.  A pre-aviation cadet is in charge of us, a private, so it’s not like being bossed by a sergeant.  There are about 60 in a class – two classes go through together.

This is going to be an interesting project so I'm off to tackle those now.  I'll report back when I've come up for air!