Category Archives: Let’s Talk About

Let’s Talk About: January’s Name?

by Donna Phillips

January is named after Janus, the Roman god of beginnings,  endings and transitions. Janus was the god of doors and gates and was often depicted with two faces, one looking forward and one looking backward. This is fitting for a new year!

We owe Julius Caesar thanks for reforming the Roman calendar to establish the beginning of the year in January. (So stated Wikipedia.)On this day, Romans simultaneously remembered the past year and looked forward to the coming year. They would make offerings of wine and incense to Janus and exchanged gifts of dates, dried figs and honey to usher in a sweet and peaceful new year. 

January has some important official and unofficial holidays:

* Martin Luther King, Jr. Day on the third Monday in January

*January 14: Dress Up Your Pet Day

*January 19: Popcorn Day

*January 24: Belly Laughs Day

*January 28: Kazoo Day!  (Look it up 🙂 !!!) 

If you, or your ancestor, was born in January by the 19th, you’re a Capricorn and such folks are said to be idiosyncratic and genteel. If born after the 19th, but before February 18th, you’re said to be an Aquarius, said to be assertive and open-minded. REALLY????

Let’s Talk About: What American Ancestors Offers

by Donna Phillips

AmericanAncestors.org is a website offering a million (well, close) ways to help you find your early American ancestor. For instance, these are FREE webinars at www.americanancestors.org/events

13 Feb:  Researching Famine Irish Ancestors in Ireland’s Poor Laws

13 Mar: Friend or Foe: Researching colonial Ancestors During the American Revolution

17 Apr: Best Published Sources for Colonial New England Research

13 May: English Immigration to the American Colonies

12 Jun: Best Published Sources for German Research in America

17 Jul: Top Repositories for Researching Upstate New York

Surely viewing these FREE webinars would help you??????

Here are some Sad & True Genealogy Rules Your Ancestors Followed…shared to guide your research in 2025:

* Thou salt be consistent in naming male children; only acceptable names are: James, John, Joseph, William and Thomas.

*Ditto for female children: Mary, Elizabeth, Ann and Sarah.

*Thou shalt never write down the surname of female children on any document.

*Thou shalt, after naming children from the approved list, call them by nicknames: Polly, Dolly, Sukey, Tommy or Billy.

*Thou shalt never write a surname legibly: let them guess!

*Thou shalt discard any documents created prior to your grandparents’ time; descendants really won’t care.

*Thou shalt bury your people on your land without a headstone.

*Thou shalt leave no family Bible records nor letters or diaries.

*Thou shalt never enter a courthouse to sign any legal documents.

*Thou shalt promote and propagate misleading legends, rumors and vague innuendos regarding ancestral information to mislead descendants. 

Let’s Talk About: Live, Learn & Pass It On

by Donna Phillips

That’s the title of a wonderfully inspirational little book. As the final blog for 2024, may I share some “good stuff?”

I’ve learned that having a baby doesn’t solve marital problems.

I’ve learned that the best thing about growing older is that now I don’t feel the need to impress anyone.

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I’ve learned that anger manages everything poorly.

I’ve learned that there is no substitute for good manners

I’ve learned that it’s better not to wait for a crisis to discover what’s important in life.

I’ve learned that it’s easier to stay out of trouble than to get out of trouble.

I’ve learned that days are long but life is short.

I’ve learned that successful living is like playing a violin…it must be practiced daily. 

That’s the title of a wonderfully inspirational little book. As the final blog for 2024, may I share some “good stuff?”

I’ve learned that having a baby doesn’t solve marital problems.

I’ve learned that the best thing about growing older is that now I don’t feel the need to impress anyone.

I’ve learned that life sometimes gives you a second chance.

I’ve learned that anger manages everything poorly.

I’ve learned that there is no substitute for good manners

I’ve learned that it’s better not to 

I’ve learned that young people need old people’s love, respect and knowledge of life, and that old people need the love, respect and strength of young people.

I’ve learned that an expensive new blouse is always a spaghetti sauce magnet. 

And finally,

I’ve learned that if you smile at people, they almost always will smile back. 

Happy New Year to all my friends!!!

Donna

Let’s Talk About: Remembering Christmas Stories

by Donna Phillips


Today I’d like to ask YOU, dear readers, to share your Christmas memories or stories. What was The Best gift you ever received? What year did you so-want something that you didn’t get? I do invite (and beg!) you to share your memories with me, Donna243@gmail.com.
I’ll start with mine.  The year was 1950, the place Fairfield, California, next to Travis Air Force Base where my dad was stationed. I recall being SO EXCITED to be invited to go with Mom and her friend on the train to Sacramento to go Christmas shopping in a big department store. Oh the joy!
I picked out Daisy……… life-size, soft-fleshed with curly red hair. Oh, she was wonderful. I was in heaven all the train ride home. I knew I’d not see her again until Christmas but that was not for lack of trying! Whenever the opportunity arose, I’d look into every closet, drawer and box but to no avail. Where was she?????
Christmas Day, there she was! In a white bassinette and with plenty of real baby clothes!  (My brother was born in Aug 1950…this had been his bed and some of his clothes.) So where had she been? My parents, knowing their daughter well, had secreted her in the neighbor’s shed!!! 
Here she is today in an outfit that was my daughter’s in 1963…

I have one granddaughter and six great-granddaughters. Who will love her next??????

Let’s Talk About: Snoqualmie

by Donna Phillips

 First off, it’s Sno-qualmie’  not Sno-qual-A-mee. How often have we said it incorrectly?

While my family has lived in Spokane since 1955, and over those years have made hundreds of trips over Snoqualmie Pass, we never got to experience it as it was in those first early days. (Thank goodness.) But in all the years since 1955, I cannot recall one trip where there was NOT road construction. Can you???

In the beginning, the only way the first Oregon Trail wagons could get through the Cascades was via the Columbia River. The clamor for a road across the Cascades became increasingly persistent. Washington’s first governor, Isaac Stevens, back in 1853 was convinced that an old Indian trail over Snoqualmie Pass was the most feasible route. But nothing was immediately done due to Indian hostilities and lack of funds. In 1861, Congress voted $75,000 for a road but then the Civil War broke out and the funds were diverted. 

Tillman Houser was the first to get a wagon over the narrow winding trail through stands of giant Douglas Fir. In 1868 he left Tacoma in a wagon loaded with cargo, wife and 3 children and headed east. “After much exasperating toil…..” the family reached Snoqualmie summit. Once over the summit they built a raft, loaded the wagon onto it, and poled the 3 mile long Lake Keechelus “to more favorable slopes at its outlet.” The Houser family reached Ellensburg “only” after 3 weeks of travel, staked a homestead and stayed put. (Small wonder.)

The 1909 Seattle-Pacific-Yukon Exposition in Seattle created a big demand for road improvements as tourists flocked west. Finally in May 1915, a real road over the summit became a reality. It still took nearly a day to travel the short distance between Ellensburg and Seattle. But the primitive condition of both the road bed and the vehicles barely slowed the progress of east-west or west-east travel. 

If you’d care to read more, I recommend The Pacific Northwesterner, Vol. 21, Summer 1977, article by John Prentiss Thomson. 

We are now so blessed to have the WDOT live camera on the pass so we know to the minute what conditions are………… on the multi-lane paved highway. The only rocks being in sight are uphill!

Let’s Talk About: Galloping Gertie

by Donna Phillips

Still speaking of bridges (from last week), the demise on November 7,  1940, of the Tacoma Narrows Bridge was a “spectacular” collapse. Likely few of us were witness to this event but via the TV news we knew.

Construction began in September 1938. So the bridge was only four months old but from the time the deck was built, it began to move vertically in windy conditions and workers nicknamed it Galloping Gertie. Remedial efforts were made but to no avail. 

The bridge’s main span finally collapsed in the 40-MPH winds on that morning, as “the deck oscillated in an alternating twisting motion and gradually increased in amplitude until the deck tore apart.” 

The only fatality was a cocker spaniel named Tubby but people trying to rescue the dog or flee the bridge did sustain injuries.

Efforts to replace the bridge were delayed by U.S. involvement in World War II as well as engineering and finance issues. But in 1950, a new Tacoma Narrows Bridge opened in the same location. 

Why did Gertie Gallop? “Because planners expected fairly light traffic, the bridge was designed with two lanes and was only 39 feet wide. This was quite narrow, especially in comparison with its length of nearly 6000-feet (the third-longest suspension bridge in the world at the time).” The roadway plate girders were also shallow, another detrimental factor.

You can watch on YouTube a newsreel taken on the day of the collapse. It is a sobering sight. 

Source: Wikipedia

Let’s Talk About: Farragut Naval Training Station

by Donna Phillips

At the south end of Lake Pend Oreille, where Farragut State Park is now near Athol, Idaho, was once nearly the biggest settlement in Idaho. Did your ancestor train at Farragut Naval Training Station?

December 7, 1941, slammed Americans wide awake. U.S. Naval ships in commission on 1 Jan 1942 was 913. By 1 Jan 1944 there were 4167 ships…. over three ships commissioned each day during those two years. Hence the demand for trained men to man this enormous number of vessels. Hence the establishment of the Farragut Naval Training Station on 22 April 1942. Ground was broken that day and a mere five months later recruits started boot camp training.

The logistics of establishing and running this camp were monumental and boggled the mind. A new highway east from Athol was needed; electrical and telephone lines were strung; water and sewer lines were dug. Some 98,000,000 board feet of lumber were used to build the enormous facility on some 4200 acres. 

Farragut was divided into six camps. Each camp accommodated 5000 recruits and was nearly self-sufficient with twenty barracks, mess hall, admin building, drill field, sick bay, rec hall, drill hall and swimming pool. (This was the Navy; the men HAD to swim….but why build pools when the lake was right there? Because it’s COLD.)

Procurement of fresh food was a continuing problem. The bakery produced 8000 loaves of bread A DAY and 700 pies AN HOUR. Milk was trucked in, sometimes from 100 miles away. 

Farragut soon became Idaho’s largest city with 9 ships’ stores, 8 barber shops, a cobbler shop, a tailor shop, a photo department, 9 cafes and soda fountains and a laundry which handled 225,000 items each week requiring 2500 pounds of soap! 

By September 1945, when Farragut was decommissioned, over 300,000 men had been trained there. 

Images of America  (www.imagesofamerica.com) offers a book; if your ancestor trained there, or worked there, this would be a wonderful read. 

Source: The Pacific Northwesterner, Vol. 27, Summer 1983, article by Everett A. Sandburg.”

Let’s Talk About: Spokane’s Bridge

by Donna Phillips

Likely when you think of “Spokane River bridges” your mind jumps to the iconic Monroe Street Bridge, first built in 1911.

But would you have guessed there are nearly 40 bridges spanning a river only 111 miles long? Originating in Lake Coeur d’Alene, the river meanders through the Spokane Valley to empty into the Columbia River. Those are current bridges and don’t count the many that were built and then washed away. 

It had been long realized and known that a bridge was needed to cross the Spokane River in the downtown area. Between 1890 and 1896 several bridges were constructed but all fell prey to The River. Finally in 1902, realizing that timber for such a bridge would not do, the bridge pretty much as we see it today was completed and dedicated on 21 Nov 1911 at a cost of $477,682.67.  (SUCH precise accounting!) 

The biggest problem facing construction of the Monroe Street Bridge was the south side where after the great fire of 1889 tons of the ash and debris were pushed over and deposited there…. making for a very unstable bridge footing. The ash and debris was dumped atop a small stream which continued to flow and be a continual problem. 

On May 4, 1892, Miss Mary Winitch gained fame by becoming the first pedestrian of record to cross the bridge. (I did several minutes of research on Miss Mary but found nothing.)

QUESTION: How many times would you guess you have walked over….. or driven over….. the Monroe Street Bridge?

SOURCE:  The Pacific Northwesterner, Vol. 28k Winter 1984, article by Byron Barber.

Let’s Talk About: Coffee, Elixir of Gods

by Donna Phillips

“Legend has it that coffee was discovered in Ethiopia by a goat herder in the 11th century. He noticed that his goats became energetic and unable to sleep after eating the berries from a certain bush. News of the “magical” plant soon spread and it wasn’t long before Arab traders were bringing the plants hoe and cultivating them, boiling the beans and drinking the resulting liquid. By the mid-15th century, the Ottoman Turks had brought coffee to Constantinople and before long, Italian traders had introduced it to the West. The first European coffee houses appeared around 1650.”

So I read in the Viking river cruises cookbook in spring of 2024.

The article in that big, heavy cookbook which I did not carry home, ran to three pages. Some twenty countries’ coffee culture were stated: 

Italians usually drink their coffee standing up. In Portugal, there is a coffee shop on every corner. In Sweden the word coffee is both an adjective and a noun…. it’s a coffee break where you sit down with friends. Coffee is the essentially national drink in Norway. Germany is known for its kaffee und kuchen, or coffee and cake. 

Did you know that Starbucks was founded in Seattle…… at the Pike Place Market? How many of us today can say they’ve never had a Starbucks (coffee, tea, chocolate)????

Let’s Talk About: Colonial School Rooms

by Donna Phillips

What was the colonial schoolroom like? Google gives this answer: “Colonial schoolrooms were single-room buildings where all students were taught together. These sparse rooms utilized shared resources and focused largely on reading, writing and arithmetic, often through religious texts. Most teachers were men and members of the local church.”
For children living in the 13 colonies, the availability of schools varied greatly by region and race. Most schools of the day catered to children of European settlers who could afford to contribute a fee to educate their children. Massachusetts  towns had “publik” schools in the sense that anyone who could afford the modest fee could attend. Massachusetts passed a law in 1642 that required all children to be educated (either in school or at home). This education included reading, religion and the law. 
For the Puritans, reading was a religious duty. They believed that the faithful could commune directly with God by reading the Bible. Hence, the building of schools outpaced all other types of buildings.
Reading, writing and basic arithmetic teachings were infused with a healthy dose of religious and moral instruction. The textbook of the day was The New England Primer, a pocket-sized volume with drawings and a rhyming alphabet of Puritan couplets:  “In Adam’s fall, we sinned all.” “Heaven to find the Bible to mind.” 


QUESTION: How many ways were colonial schools like today’s schools and how vastly do they differ???


(Source: www.history.com, “What School Was Like in the 13 Colonies,” by Dave Roos, 3 September 2024) Â