Handwritten Family History

Looking at an obituary in the newspaper the other day led me to the discovery of a relative, whom I haven't heard about in a very long time. I clicked on a genealogy website...just on a lark, and found someone that I knew.This piece was from 2008.  A long writing about this young woman's search for information on her family members. I recognized the name of those she searched for. It was my deceased aunt and her family. I quickly reread the piece and thought to myself..."Should I email this woman?" I have so much information that she would like to know. Old pictures and other things from the past. I didn't hesitate long...I sent the email. She returned the email quickly and we have been back and forth this week with picture sharing and wonderful remembrances for me and new knowledge for her.Circumstances made it impossible for her to know her Grandmother. She never knew that my aunt was her grandmother...only a good family friend who brought her lovely clothes to wear.  A broken marriage and new location, an adoption...a change of name for her made us lose track.  She lives in a nearby state, so we may meet someday.A week of discovery for both of us.

In searching for things for her, I was deep in my family memories. Sometimes boring Joe to death with some tidbit of information. I was searching for a hand written cookbook that her Grandmother had made for my Mom one Christmas. It is full of her Grandmother's 1st husband's family recipes and my aunt's  family as well. Looking through this box of treasures, I came upon so many pictures of my aunt...from a newborn baby on up to her death. She and I were close. I knew about her grand daughter, but never met her. I found the cookbook and put together some of the pictures to send her. 

All of the things in this box were handwritten. I recognized my aunt's hand writing and my grandma's and saw that they were very similar.. Grandma always wrote her notes and recipes on stenographer's tablets with a spiral at the top. Every recipe I found of her's was written on paper from one of those tablets. My aunt wrote her's in notebooks. She was a great saver of articles in the paper that pertained to raising little boys. She had three. She kept the family history...I found a book with dates of all the people way back...births, weddings, divorces, deaths. My mom kept spiral notebooks of recipes. It must have taken so much time to copy all the recipes that my mom had. She also collected cookbooks. and could read a new one like a novel. 

I have a basket by my chair that holds all my "little books about Christmas" I put those away for another year and filled it with these same spiral notebooks, old pictures, and other special things from my family's past.I will look through some of them once again... before I send them off to this "new"   relative that I just found.

Balisha