52 Ancestors: Thankful

We are approaching the end of the Thanksgiving weekend, which is a perfect time to focus in on this weeks’ blog prompt – Thankful.



Sure, I’m thankful for so many things.  Thankful for my family and friends, plenty of food (maybe too much) on the table, a nice warm house, and, of course, my health and the health of my loved ones.  Those are all a given.

I’m thankful to have known so many of my ancestors in real life and through this journey, I’ve gotten to “know” so many more of them.  Who knew I had a 5x great grandfather who served in the Revolutionary War, a 3x great grandfather who served in the Mexican War and Civil War (and lived to tell about it), and numerous other veterans who are so dear to me, most importantly my dad, his brother, and their father?

I’m thankful that I’ve met so many cousins from all sides of my family tree.  For someone with only one first cousin, this has been quite exciting.  Who wouldn’t love to share not just names and dates with family but also stories and photos?  What a gift!

But today I’m especially thankful that my family, mostly on my dad’s side, were packrats!  And I’m even more thankful that my parents, when “gifted” with this stuff, not only didn’t find the nearest dumpster and throw it all in but actually paid thousands of dollars over 30 years to store it.  And could I be any more thankful to my siblings for not really caring about this stuff and entrusting me with it?



I first wrote about finding the stuff HERE.  We decided to tackle the storage unit once and for all, thankfully while my mother was still living, which was an unpleasant task for an arachnophobic – thank goodness for the brave men in my family.  While a lot did go into the dumpster (did we really need that 30 year old artificial Christmas tree?) or to my mother’s favorite charity (how many books can one family have?), much of it came home with me.  I remember finding boxes of letters, all in my grandparents’ handwriting, and when I picked up the boxes, they literally fell apart.  I threw the letters in a black garbage bag and stashed them in the car.

I found photos, scrapbooks, baby books, letters (I haven’t even started on the letters my dad either wrote or received during World War II), military uniforms, handmade quilts, Fresno memorabilia, and so many things I don’t even remember now.

I’m very thankful to have these two quilts that my mother’s maternal grandmother, Mildred (McAboy) Fitzgerald, made.  I remember using them as a young girl and I get a smile on my face every time I look at them.



I’ve done quite a bit of organizing but still have SO much to do – this will keep me busy throughout retirement and then some.

I first organized as many photos as I could identify into “family” boxes.  Those are now stored in several closets and while I know these boxes are not archival friendly, I feel like we’ve come a long way from the storage unit.



From there I scan them, label them with an acid free pen, and put them into archival boxes.  If it’s in the box, it’s labeled and scanned – boy do I love these boxes!



Some of the stuff is temporarily in the garage.  Thankfully we have a large home with lots of storage space but something had to give.  And someday, a few of those boxes, plus other things, will be donated to the Fresno Historical Society – road trip!



Back to the letters between my grandparents from 1916-1919.  From the black garbage bag the letters were sorted into boxes – one from Grandma to Grandpa and another from him to her.  This is what I have left to transcribe.




As I transcribe them, I’ve put them in archival safe boxes – I can’t believe how perfectly the letters fit.




Slowly but surely I’m transcribing them and am so thankful that my grandmother actually numbered each one so that there wasn’t much guesswork in figuring out the order they needed to go in.  I particularly love the first letter I found from August 14, 1916 with my grandfather’s loving words “Dear Miss Gunzendorfer”.  It was a love story they allowed me to share with them 100 years later.  Thank you, Grandma and Grandpa.

But most of all I’m thankful for my husband.  He has helped me clean out the storage unit and my childhood home, packed the car, driven the 1800 mile round trip journey (twice!), and humored me as I spread stuff out, photographed, scanned, blogged, all while listening to my stories.  I really couldn’t have done any of this without him.  I just hope that someday someone will be just as thankful that I’ve not only held onto this stuff for them but, hopefully, will make the journey just a little bit easier for them.