You left this world 18 years ago today. It was our first snow of the year and it was a decent snow! Corey was in Montana, Jenni lived in Georgia but was out of that state on business. Phone calls were made, plane reservations were made and cars were loaded up. I met my big brother John for the first time – he and his wife flew in to meet us and say good bye to you. Bill and his bride of many years also came to the services. In your death we have found each other – I know you rest in peace knowing this! We miss you often and wish you could share in our wonderful lives. Since you left the family has multiplied! You have birth to 6 children, your eldest, David left us while you were still here. How hard that must’ve been for you! It was hard for us – I can’t imagine losing a child at any age!
You had a tough life and were not able to watch the middle 3 of your children grow into very fine people. I love these siblings dearly and appreciate them every day! Your leaving has brought all of us together – so for that we are all grateful. Jenni and I are able to enjoy our big brothers and our beautiful sister! The 6 kids you gave life to – gave life to a total of 17 grandchildren. I love every one of these nieces and nephews and have met all but one! I am privileged to be invited to and attend their weddings. They include me in the day to day happenings of their families. I love being an aunt! 18 years ago when you left us the internet was just coming on the scene in homes – you would’ve loved it! To be able to watch these young adults and their families grow up is an honor!
Your 17 grandchildren have brought at least 30 great-grandchildren (with another one on the way in August).
Here are a few quick moments in our lives … I have 1000’s of photos and they all make me smile!
Lorna’s Legacy!
The following photos are from Jamaica 2008
Kylene’s Wedding – October 2011
Various photos…….
My first blog post was a letter written to my son from my mom – to visit click here.
Missing you Mom! But I know you are never far…..
Dee
PS – thanks for queuing the parade at Disney World to start just as we entered the Magic Kingdom! I so wish you had been there (but you were!)
This is a letter in some of the genealogy work from Morton Curtis. This letter is from my GG-Grandfather to his brother-in-law; regarding the death of my GG-Grandmother. Thank you Ann W. for all the information you have shared! This is one letter out of a stack of documents almost 2″ thick!
For the most part I have tried to recapture his letter as it was written, spelling has been corrected and some punctuation has been added. Where you see _____ in the letter – these were in his original letter. Perhaps an unsavory word he did not want to type? The letter was typed and single spaced.
My GG Grandfather was Elijah W. Curtis, he was married to Mary Chamberlain Curtis. My G-Grandfather was John W. Curtis, his children were Morton Curtis, Cora, William and my grandfather Fred.
Elijah was born February 11, 1804 and died May 8, 1857. His wife Mary was born May 4, 1798 and died Jan 1, 1857. This letter is dated Jan. 22, 1857, Adrian, Michigan
Dear Brother & Sister,
How can I write to you of the death of my dear Mary but she has gone and I feel that I have met with a loss which I can never have made up to me in this world and you Dear Brother & Sister have lost a kind and affectionate Sister. I sometimes blame myself for separating her from you after spending all of our youthful days within miles of each other but I meant for the best and perhaps it is but it is hard for me to see it in that light. God orders all things right and we must submit, she has gone and I do not think that I aught to wish her back in this troublesome world and as you said in your letter you and I but a short way behind. Mary was taken sick the last week in November on Tuesday. Edward on Thursday, Anna on Saturday of the same week. They all seemed to be in a kind of unconscious and bewildered state with a burning fever and I do not think that any of them realized much pain and they remained in this state about four weeks and during this time I should that they had all 4 qts of bloodpus from each of there bowels . Edward came so near bleeding to death that we could not raise him in bed for 10 days without his fainting and he is very feeble yet. Anna has got quite smart she is getting well the fastest of any of them. Mary lingered along until the week before New Years and thought her fever had turned and I think it had but at fatal delusion — destroyer was at work within it seated upon her lungs and she had not strength to throw it off. I had let my nurse go home two days before death she was an old friend of ours formerly from Galway. John was with me through all their sickness and we never was both from them at once until her death. I was up with her the night before her death; her reason returned and she complained of her throat and when it was light we found that it had swollen very much, she was very feeble through the day but had her reason. She said she thought she could not live but still I thought that with good nursing that I should raise her but that night when John and myself lifted her up to made her bed she was taken coughing and began to complain of want of air. She then said “I am dying” and began and called us all by name and bid us farewell and then began and allied the whole of your family and bid you all farewell. I felt of her pulse the beat as strong as they had at any time during her sickness, John went for the doctor but she was gone before he had time to get him, to a far better world than this. I cannot describe to you my feelings but may God preserve you from ever passing through such a time. There is not a day passes but what is something that reminds me of her. I knew not until she was taken from me how dear she was to me. I miss her everywhere. Oh hooch Imiss her and her loss alone has made fully sensible of her many many virtues, kind she was to us all ever ready ever willing not only to her duties in life but to do even more if possible. Her faults were few and by us are all forgotten, but her may virtues will live in our memories as long as memory itself shall live. Peach to her ashes, she was all that constituted a kind and loving wife.
I should have been glad to have had some of the _____ of your family to smooth down her pillow for her in her dark moments but that could not be.
I though when I began the other sheet (1st page of this letter) that I should be fill it but if I should write all that I would like to say to you I should fill 3 or 4 like these. I think likely that it is all for the best that this sickness has happened in this place for if it had not happened I should have in Iowa before this time, all that stopped me was Morton (Elijah’s son) being very sick last fall and we wanted to see him well before we left the state. When the rest of the family was taken sick Morton was not able to leave his room but I and to move him to Jame’s to make room for the rest — after his Mother was taken sick — removed from under their care. I think that he was imprudent in his diet for he got a relapse and run down into a chronic – which has brought him very low so much so that he is confide to his room, he is very feeble. You would not know him if you was to see him. I have him home since his mothers death, Edward is quite feeble, he is confined to his room and the probability is he will not get about until the weather gets warm. I do not think that I ought to charge my sickness to this locality for there is no sickness in the place to speak of, there is or 10 doctors in this place and they all say that it is a general time of health not only in this city but all about the country.
I could not have had a place so well calculated to bring every thing to bear that would be for the comfort of my family through such a tiring time. I had all the skill of the best doctors in the country right at my hand. I had John with me all through and I live in the best and kindest neighborhood that I ever lived in. My own sisters could not have been kinder that the ladies was to Mary all through her sickness. There was not a night but what I had plenty of watchers from the time there were taken ill until I could get along without their assistance and more the superintendent of the railroad gave all of my family or any one connected with it a free pass from this place to Toledo and from that to Chicago, in fact there was nothing that I wanted for their comfort but what I could get at the shortest notice for James went through from Toledo to Chicago twice a week and if he did not call I had only to tell my wants to any of the conductors on the road and they would get it for me.
I presume you would like to know what I thought of doing but I must confess that I cannot you as yet, the great misfortune in the loss of my companion has flustrated all my former plans. If there is no misfortune befalls my family between this and spring and I pray to God there may not, I shall probably make some arrangements for the future. Dear brother in my present state of feeling it matters not where my lot is cat. I know not Brother George how you feel but I feel as if the time for accumulating the things of this world have gone by with me and I being to feel the ——- of old age slowly creeping in.
My health is good, I never was as heavy as I am at this time. George is well and is a large heavy man, I should think would way 195 or 200 lbs.
Remember me Aunt Sally, how I wish I could see her. My love to all the rest of the members of your family and a good share to you and Maria.
E.W. Curtis
E.W. Curtis was almost 53 at the time he wrote this letter, he died a few short months later
What must it have been like to only communicate via letters? No telephone? No e-mail? I often think they were much better at keeping in touch that we are with all of our modern conveniences!
So I must choose something right? Well lets talk about my wonderful husband, his birthday was last week and this year we celebrated our 25th wedding anniversary and we have been together over half my life. He works hard, and like his father he likes to garden, has started dabbling with the guitar over the past few years. He is an amazing man that I am blessed to call my husband and I truly cannot imagine a better life – I am probably the luckiest girl I know!
Anyway – back to the hubby’s birthday. While he worked I ventured out to pick up an item for the house, a steam cleaner for the carpets and teasingly posted on facebook that this would be his birthday present – most of my friends found this a very unimpressive present. Hubby got a quick out of it and told me he would get me a new guitar for Mother’s Day.
We had a nice dinner outside at Boondoggles, pizza, burgers and popcorn shrimp were on the agenda for the family including our son and his family.
I have shared my mom’s family history letter she wrote for our son, now I will share my husbands. This was typed out double spaced about 1992.
Corey D. Green – Life
I was born Corey Dal Green on May 8th 1955 at LDS hospital in SLC, UT to parents Kendrick Lavern Green (SLC) and Norma Jean Robbins (Scipio, UT). Lived the first year of my life in a small house in Kentucky Avenue in Holiday, a small east side section of SLC, later moved to 2895 Cherry Blossom Lane (also in Holiday) where I spent the rest of my youth (my parents still live at this address). I attended a number of different grade schools while I was growing up, the first of which was William Penn a small grade school in which I remember feeling my first earthquake and learning that President John F. Kennedy has been assassinated in Dallas, TX. I also attended Crestview Elementary and Howard R. Driggs both were much larger schools which I have very fond memories.
My junior high years were spent a Churchill Junior High school where I was involved with the chess club and the volleyball team, but most of the time I spent working on gocarts, minibikes and other mechanical things. I purchased my first car (a jeep) at the age of 15, (a year before I could drive) and spent the year fixing it up so that I could have transportation when I received my drivers license. Skyline High School was where I spent my high school years, my jeep and I were invincible and I spent almost every day tinkering with it.
I attended the University of Utah for a couple of years but left early, later I was accepted the FAA academy in Oklahoma City to train as an Air Traffic Controller, which lasted a little over one year.
I met my wife, Denise, at a party and it was love at first sight, were were married about fourteen months later and have been happily married every since. After we were married I returned to the University of Utah, and with a great deal of help from my wife and three long years of study obtained a bachelors degree in civil engineering. I now live in Sandy, UT with Denise and Andy our son and em employed as a structural engineer with an engineering firm here in SLC.
The End
As I re-typed this to share with all of you – I am reminded how important these letters are to our family history. It is what makes us – us! So I hope you will each make a goal to write your family history for your children and grandchildren. If you are lucky enough to still have your parents and/or grandparents around you need to spend time with them, ask them to tell you the stories of their life adventures. Better yet ask your aunt – she has all the really good history on your parents! If they are unable to write it down then you should. I also realized that we have added over 20 years of adventures to our life story and we need to chronicle that for our son and his children.
While many are playing pranks and enjoying a day of Fools – I take time to pause to remember my husband’s father, Ken Green. Today would’ve been my father-in-laws 92nd birthday. Kendrick LaVere Green was a kind and gentle man. He loved to golf and fish. He loved to watch Nascar and Golf on TV also. After a courageous battle with prostrate cancer he lost his battle on July 22nd , 1998. Grandpa also loved to work in the yard, as his grown children were sorting through the house after the memorial service, I stepped outside to weed his flowerbed. The family will remember this flower bed because it is the one that lined the front walkway of their house on Cherry Blossom Lane, Grandpa build that flower bed as he built the rock wall that served as the foundation for the walkway. He also grew the best cantaloupe I have ever tasted. I find it hard to believe so much time has passed.
I realized a few months after grandpa Green left us that a very integral part of our family status was gone. Each family took the time to call and visit with grandpa, updating him with what was new in each of our lives. We had moved to TX by this time I really enjoyed our telephone chats because I would learn what the other families were up to. We no longer had that center command post, and we have not found a way to recreate it to this day, even with email, facebook and more telephone options than one could imagine.
**A short history of Ken’s life as written by Norma, his bride of over 50 years (they didn’t quite make it to 51 before we lost Norma).
Kendrick LaVere Green, born April 1, 1921, Butlerville, Utah. Childhood was spent in Butler grade school, Brighton, Utah working with riding horses and boat renting places. Parents Elva Loraine Staker Green and George Almon Green. He has two sisters (Carole and Iris). Baptized L.D.S. Went to Jordan High School. Entered Mechanic Learners School to join the Navy in 1941. Schooled at Logan University. (I interviewed him for schooling at Hill Field). He then went to Norfolk, VA, where he was 1st class aircraft machinist for the Navy for 4 ½ years… Came home on leave, and as stated above met me and WOW!!!
Happy Birthday Grandpa Green (you were nobody’s fool!)