Index 1940 Census: Illinois, Kentucky, Maryland

I have been crazy busy this week.

I finally got to indexing this morning, so I did three states to make up for not being able to work on the census in the past few days.

Illinois was very diverse in it's employment.  Many 'homewifes' is how it was indicated.  There were several heads of house who were not employed.  Some other occupations were teacher, veterinarian, clerks, salemen, and 'homeworker'.

I forgot to look at Kentucky.

I loved doing Maryland.  The census taker wrote boldly in all capital letters and there was no problem understanding any spelling.  Some occupations I noticed were:  laborer, stone mason, manager of a bond company, manager of a drug store.  Printer, mechanic, packer, clerk.  Foreman at a steel company.  Also a bender and 'helper' at a steel company.  Minister.  Baker, salesgirl, and a barber.  It seems to me that on this street you didn't need to look much further than a neighbor for all your needs!

I am almost at my 10 hours required for my YW project.  I'm kind of thinking I may keep doing it.  I like it.

Daily Q

Question:  What is your favorite restaurant?  Why?

Answer:  I don't have one.  We really don't go out to eat very often.  We never really have.  Guess it comes from our early dating, courting, and marriage days of  'it doesn't fit in the budget'.  But I really love SuperMex for great authentic mexican food.  It is a hole in the wall and those are often the best kind of restaurants.

I love our local Tutto Fresco for Italian, and other than that, I like Wahoos, In 'n Out, Wood Ranch.

Indexing 1940 Census Georgia

I've decided to go down the batch choices in alphabetical order now.  That means that Georgia was next on my list of indexing.

The batch was neatly done and each column was completely filled out.  Sometimes the census taker would use ditto marks and leave certain columns blank.  Not this one.

All the families were farmers or laborers.  Every single one.  This county must have been all agricultural.

On another note:  I received a 'report card' for my work.  I have been 97% accurate on my indexing over all so far.  Once I submit it, it goes to arbitration for a second look.  I didn't know that, but had wondered if familysearch just took my word for it or if they had some way to check it.  Checking it would make sense to me because of how hard some of the census records are to read.  Being all done by hand back then means as many different penmanships as people.  The good thing about this 'report card' from arbitration is that I can go back and see what I made a mistake on and learn from it.  Some of my errors were silly mistakes, and others I learned from the handwriting analysis how some letters were written in 1940.  It helped a lot.

"Mom. Can I Go Over To Cindy's House?"

Today, my childhood friend, Lisa Birk Kowallis, came over.  She lives about an hour or so away.  Wished we got together more, but life gets in the way sometimes of that.  The good thing though, is that she is the kind of friend that you can pick up right where you left off with no matter how long it's been. 

One of her daughters is having her first baby in September, and she wanted help to make some of the self-binding receiving blankets and burps for the new baby.  She got a new sewing machine for her birthday this month and took a lesson on how to use it.  It's a nice machine.  A Singer Curvy.  I know 'Martha' recommends that particular one.  I liked it a lot.  It threads itself and has some darling decorative stitches on it.

I measured and cut and she sewed and we both ironed and during it all we talked, gabbed, laughed till we cried and cried till we laughed.  She got 3 blanket sets done and did a great job.  Becky will love them and be SO surprised that her mom made them. 

It was a beautiful day.  Sometimes you just need those old-days-gone-by relationships to anchor you for a while again.  I was grateful for that today.

BBQ with Jan and Ann and Families

Jan and Ann and their families are in town for vacation.  Tonight everyone came over for a family BBQ.  I took no pictures.  Christine took some of the cousins swimming next door.  I'll have to get them from her later.

Ann and fam came in the afternoon and they all went to see Brave.  I hear it is a really cute movie.  Jan and fam decided to get one more day in at Universal Studios.  Only bad thing about that is the drive after on a Friday night in LA traffic.  It was BAD.  Poor guys.  We sat around the table and talked and talked.  Cleaned up and then the guys divided between the bonus room and family room.  We gals took the living room and talked and talked and played with the baby who went back and forth from many sets of loving arms to the play mat.  The kids went between the pool and playing Nertz in the dining room.

All too soon it was 10:30pm and time for them to get back to their hotel.  Lots of hugs and kisses and more hugs and lots of waves and kisses blown as they drove away.

Great day!

Daily Q

Question:  What is your definition of contentedness?  Are you satisfied with it's presence in your life?

Answer:  At first I didn't know what to think of this question and almost put it back in the jar in order to draw out another one.  I think what bothers me about this question is the word 'contentedness'.  So I looked it up in the dictionary!  (so me....)  It says: "having or showing no desire for something more or different; satisfied."

I guess on the one hand I'm 'satisfied' that I'm not 'content'.  I want to learn more, do more, be more, improve who I am, keep growing.

On the other hand,  I am more content now than I have been at earlier times in my life when I compared myself to others, tried to keep up (now let's be honest, we've all done that...), and was figuring out who I am (and the later is an on-going process).

Index 1949 Census--District Of Columbia

I worked on the District of Columbia this morning.

I try to do my indexing in the mornings.

This batch was SO easy compared to some of the others.  The handwriting was perfect, and it was cursive!  This is in no way meant to be offensive, but my observations are that this was a very professional state and the penmanship and execution of the form reflects it.  Everything was neat, tidy, no scribbles, and thorough compared to more agrarian areas.  None of that occured to me until I did today's indexing.  This area had the most diverse employment as well:  salesman, chauffeur, statistcal clerks, printers, stenographers for the US Federal Trade Commission, auditors, clerks, secretaries for US Federal Reserve, florist, teacher, chiropractor, palentologist, superintendant of a publishing company, and an accountant for the US Treasury.  There were also a lot of females who were heads of their households which has not necessarily been the case in most other batches I've done.

I got an email from familysearch.org thanking me for completeing my 10th batch.  That's gone by fast for me.  Just a little bit of time each morning.  So far, I'm surprised at my feelings.  I began this for my Personal Progress goal, but now I'm fascinated by the people and the areas they lived in and a little glimpse into how they lived.  It amazes me how different we all are and yet connected by each individual contribution we make every day of our lives to each other probably without even knowing it.

It's A Wrap.

~~Christine slept until 11 am.
~~Kellsie came to weed the garden.  She comes every Thursday.  She is almost 1/2 way to completeing her project for Faith.  She does a very good job.  Today I showed her how to water with the wand.  She liked it.
~~Mike and Adrianne made ravioli for dinner.  Yum.
~~I did laundry.
~~I trimmed and started the blessing blanket for Mike and Adrianne's baby.  Hope to have it finished for the shower next week.
~~Impromptu movie night with Christine's friends.  Popcorn and root beer.  They took over the bonus room and had a good time.  I fell asleep on the couch waiting for everyone to come home and go home.  Chris woke me up at 12:45am.
~~Had a long talk with Natalie tonight.  She had a horrible day at work.  Dealing with cps in a divorce case.  She is bound by law not to talk about details, but needed to talk out what she could.  I listen and interject ohs, ahs, wows, hmmms.  Sometimes you just need someone to listen.
~~Yeah.  The first week of summer is here.

Daily Q

Question:  What is your favorite season of the year, and why?

Answer:  I'll have to go with Fall.  I like the colors, decorations, holidays, foods, feelings.

That being said, I must say that I love all the seasons for different reasons and it is hard to pick one for me.  I love winter for all things 'Norman Rockwell'-ish.  I love Christmas, snow, rain, homemade soup on the stove and warm bread/rolls/biscuits in the oven, candles, a fire in the fireplace.  I love Spring with everything blooming and sprouting and warming up.  It is fresh and new.  I love Summer to relax, take a breath, do nothing if I want to or do everything if I want to.  I like the brightness of the sun and the length of glorious sunsets.  I like lakes and the beach (sand included--just not in my house), pool towels hanging over the patio chairs, and bbq's.

Index 1940 Census Connecticut

I just completed indexing a batch in Connecticut.

This is by far the hardest batch I have done.  The handwriting was very difficult.  There were scribbles, cross-outs, wavy lines.  When it first came up on the screen, it let me know that someone else had started it and it wasn't completed and would I complete it.  Once I got started I realized why.  I'm sure this person did the best they could, but back in the day it was all done by hand and they were at the mercy of individual styles of printing and handwriting.  It made me wonder what it would be like to have a census worker going door to door with an ipad or something similar today.  Probably not as many mistakes at least as far as penmanship is concerned!

These people were farmers, truck drivers, stenographers, professors.  Quite a mix for one area.

School's Out For Summer!

It's OFFICIAL!!!  School is out as of 1:20pm today.  Christine is a SENIOR.  Good gravy!  She walked in the door and announced she was a senior.  We looked at each other and hugged.  For me, the hug was happiness, clinging, wanting to stop the clock and yet wanting it to keep going, love, trying to quell the pit in my stomach that a year from now not only will her world change in a big way, but so will Duff's and mine. 

I looked at her, so pretty and grown up, as she walked out the door to go to an end of school party at Maddy's beach house in San Clemente tonight.  I felt like that scene in Father Of The Bride where George see's Annie as a 7 year old in pigtails while she's trying to tell him she's engaged.  She was my two year old sitting on the stairs in her blue and white shorts outfit licking a big jaw breaker with the biggest smile on her face, because Natalie was sharing with her.  And then here she was, hair and make-up gorgeous, cute outfit and keys in her hand walking out to the car.  Almost 18.  Sigh.

Bring on SUMMER.  We are ready for it.

(I watched Ainsley this morning while Meredith went to work and Duff got the car seat out of the car at Josh's work.  She was so happy and we had fun talking and playing. ~~ Duff and I worked in the garden and yards.  I like to be out there the day of or before the gardner comes so I have things deadheaded and see anything I might need him to work on.  Our rosemary pot is dead.  I learned some new things about that.  I've been wanting it to grow and been trying to shape it into a cone topiary. The mistake I made was letting it get too tall for the pot.  It was terribly root bound and not distributing water the right way because of it.  We decided to pull it out and start over.  It took some work to get the root ball cut away that had formed outside the hole on the bottom, but when we did and pulled it out, the odor was terrible.  Lot's of rot.  So we will start over and now know what to do better.  It's been a great plant for us the last three years.  I have loved going out and having fresh rosemary so readily available.  ~~I finished another of Adrianne's baby blankets.  Her family shower is next Saturday.  I won't have them all done by then, but the sisters wanted to have it while Apryl is in town.  Apryl did the invitations and it looks like something out of a Dick and Jane reader.  She is so talented.  I know I've mentioned before that she is one of the illustrators for the Friend magazine.  All the sisters have themed the shower as 60's vintage and it will be darling.  They are holding it at our house.  The gals have everything planned and almost ready.  It will be a waffle bar brunch and Patti and I are on waffle duty. ~~ Natalie went to the doctor today.  She's been fighting a sore throat.  They put her on a z-pack, but then the doctor measured her and told her she is measuring 35 weeks.  She is only 32 weeks.  Maybe another big baby, like John?  She has her regular OB appointment on the 29th and they will most likely do another ultrasound to see what the deal is. ~~Robert got a job offer from Natalie's firm.  They want to grow the criminal law end of the firm.  He took the position.)

Daily Q

Question:  What makes a happy family?

Answer:  Faith, Fun, Forgiveness.

These attributes involve patience, compromise, service, communication, work, putting someone else before yourself.  Life is hard.  Someone in a family always has a challenge, sometimes all at the same time or one at a time.  Happiness isn't an arrival.  It is the journey to eternity.