WUNDERKAMMER XII
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In snooping around for candidates for this series, I even ventured
outdoors to my Wunderkarkar (or ka’a as we say in Hawaiian), pausing briefly at
my Wunderdoormat. As you can see, we are nearing series end.
Leavitt ancestry Sandin ancestry
My ex-wife continued her interest in ancestry
and was neat and orderly in presenting her findings. My sons elected to
keep all ancestry data together while I am here, since I continue to research
and compile information. So I now have the Leavitt side (left pic) and the
bound portion of the Sandin/Tillner side (right pic - as yet unlabeled binders).
In addition to the binders, I have a two-drawer file cabinet nearly full, and
many mega-bytes of electronic data accumulated mostly on the Sandin/Tillner
side, but also including sibling and in-law families.
In the late ‘70s I visited the Upper Peninsula
(UP) of Michigan. Once when I was driving around with my brother-in-law
Hub, I saw a pile of used poles with the cross-members and insulators still
attached. I mentioned to Hub that I’d really like some of those
insulators. Soon after returning from that trip we got a box in the mail
with these two specimens. At that time I don’t know if the collection of
glass insulators was a popular hobby and never thought about it – I just liked
how they looked.
Hub was always a bit of a character – the box
he used to ship the insulators to us in California was the box we had used to
ship a Thai silk dress to my sister Jean from Thailand some 8 or 10 years
earlier.
These insulators rejoined me recently and I
looked up the subject out of curiosity. The glass and porcelain insulators
hobby is huge. There are some 3000 collectors, with web sites, shows, and
lots of interest. These specimens are “Hemingray-14, Made in U.S.A.” (see
the skirts) and are listed in type catalogs. I still just like them!
The brass mortar with pestle were purchased in
Thailand, I think because I liked them. At any rate, I still like them and
am happy to have them on display again.
On the way home from our stay in Thailand, we
stopped briefly in Singapore. As typical tourists, we shopped there for
pewter and found this tea set. I remember that we had to repack our
luggage, but managed to get it into our existing bags. I didn’t remember
how soft pewter is – I suppose it has lots of lead in it, since it was made some
44 years ago before lead content was a factor. The tray was considerably
distorted with current transport, but it was actually quite easy to reform by
hand.
After moving to Hawaii, one of the kitchen
utensils I missed was a grinder with sausage horn to make potato sausage, a
favorite food from my youth. On a trip to the mainland I found this
Porkert grinder on sale and snapped it up. I had no room in my checked bag
so kept it in my carry on. Now you can imagine how that caught the
eye of the inspectors.
I’ve used the grinder a few times for sausage
and once or twice for Oatmeal Jim-Jams but the security of having it is
valuable.
When I was just a kid – probably only 60 – my
brother gave me this bag filled with goodies. One of the goodies was this
“bottle” of pills which I apparently never felt the need to open.
JR sorted my tools once when he visited me in
HI. He shipped home a big box of items he thought might be valuable to
him, but left behind a bunch that were difficult to pack. The squares and
levels have been useful to me several times but I honestly can’t think of a time
I used the saws. As you can see I have covered them with a liberal coat of
iron oxide for protection.
This is the latest issue of the journal
“Swedish American Genealogist” (SAG). I am a subscriber and a contributor,
having had the following six articles published.
SAG Vol. XXVII, No. 1, Mar. 2007 “The 444 –
Sandin/Tillner Family Statistics” p. 25
SAG Vol. XXVIII, No. 4, Dec. 2008 “Mårten
Nilsson Finne” p.13 – Ponogram #19
SAG Vol. XXIX, No. 3, Sep. 2009 “Interview
with the Widow” Part 1, p. 1 – Ponogram #26
SAG Vol. XXIX, No. 4, Dec. 2009 “Interview
with the Widow” Part 2, p. 1 – Ponogram #27
SAG Vol. XXXII, No. 4, Dec. 2012 “Led by
Words (bouppteckningar)” p. 16 – Ponogram #68
SAG Vol. XXXIV, No. 4, Dec. 2014 “Genealogy
Kicks!” p. 8 – Ponogram #90
If you are fortunate enough to have a library
or Swedish-American group in your town, you might be able to read these articles
there. Also, you can find Ponograms online that are quite similar to the
content of the SAG versions by clicking on the links above. “The 444” etc.
was published in SAG before Ponograms started and anyway the statistics are
quite out of date since the number of direct ancestors found by now is more like
567 instead of 444.
In Tarzana, CA, there was a Mexican restaurant
near our home that we frequented. One particular waiter became a good
friend and we learned more about him as time went on. Turns out he wrote
“El Libro de los Talentos” about Mexicans with various talents, and we bought a
copy. Severiano Jáuregui Pérez signed the book to
our family with a warm greeting. The boys and I think he went by a
nickname at work, but we can’t agree on what it was.
“The book is based on interviews that Severiano held at different locations in
the US and Mexico of several people from Jalostotitlán who were successful in
economic and intellectual activities in the US.” This quote
is a preview of the book found online. I looked the book
over, but don’t know Spanish. Ricardo Montalban is one of the
interviewees.
“Coral Reefs in the Microbial Seas” 2010, by
Forest Rohwer with Merry Youle is not only a fascinating read, but a friend here
in Maui actually used it as the textbook for a class she gave! The book
features activities of Jen Smith and my son Stuart. Through them I’ve met
Forest and his daughter Willow (Forest’s delightful “mini-me”). The bottom
line – microbes rule!
“Swedish Traditions” 2012, by Jan-Öjvind Swahn
is exactly as named. I’m sure you will recognize some of the icons on the
cover, while others are not common to the US mindset. The book was a gift
from a Swedish couple who became very close friends. Kjell was very
helpful in my ancestry research, translation of old Swedish words, and finding
pictures of old objects for my Swedish-English Pictorial Dictionary. Kjell
and Britt with son Patrick and pregnant Jennie traveled to Maui for Kjell’s 60th
birthday and we all attended a luau in celebration. After they returned to
Sweden, Jennie gave K and B a granddaughter Svea very near the time my
granddaughter Poppy was born. Sadly, Kjell contracted a serious digestive
problem that took his life.
“The Egyptian” 1949, by Mika Waltari was
certainly my favorite book for a number of years in my early adulthood. I
read it several times and took the time to make marginal notations.
Egyptology always fascinated me but the notations tended to address human
relationships.
AFTERWORD
In preparing this P-gram, I looked over the
items remaining in the “wunders” list and the good (or maybe bad) news is that
there are only about enough for ONE more in this series. A few on that
list barely interest ME though, but I do have a couple more corners to dig
around in to perk up the last of the series. |
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