Christmas Past

An English Robin

 A look into Christmas past, starting with my parents first tree in 1954. They lived in 'married quarters' in Portsmouth England. Dad was in Her Majesty's Royal Navy.

 Then I came along in 1956 and here I am about two years old at a Christmas party in 1958.  My parents later moved to Canada in 1960. They brought all their English traditions with them.    Such as Christmas crackers, Christmas plum pudding, and an orange and a lump of coal in the stocking.

Here we all are in 1962 living in the middle of the Canadian prairies with a 'real winter'.  The Santa at the base of the tree was on every Christmas tree right up to 1995.

Now its 1965 or so  and I have a new brother and another sister or two....  I'm wearing my new pyjamas that I opened on Christmas eve.

We moved to New Zealand in 1970 and lived there for close on five years. Christmas became this weirdly strange time where we'd go to the beach with a cold roast chicken and have a picnic.  No snow, but hot sun instead....and people exchanged cards with snow scenes on them!

We spent a New Year's Eve at a friend of my parents who owed this beach house right over the water. The tide is out in the picture but when the tide was in, it came right up under the house and you could slip straight into the water via a trapdoor in the deck.  I was close to being fifteen at the time so its a brand new 1971.

Here's the picnic and then a walk in dunes and along the beach....

Dad went through a black and white film phase but let me assure you, the beach is beautiful!

I found a colour version!

Many years later, my strangest Christmas was in 1984 when I spent two weeks on the railroad with Bruce.  He was placed as senior engineer on the Via Passenger train and his run was between Vancouver and Boston Bar.   Of the seven round trips in a two week period, I was on five of them.  Christmas dinner in the beanery,  New Years party by accident and breakfast on New Years morning in a dining car going through the Fraser Canyon in a snow storm, with Bruce running the train back to Vancouver.  It was a fun memory!

Speaking of Bruce, I found this old picture of one of his early Christmases in northern Ontario.  Cute little nipper...  He's only two or three here, so roughly 1948 to 1949.

Bruce with his train set.... an early start at his future career!

So where ever you are in the world and what ever your holiday tradition is, I hope you are in the company of good friends and family!    

Wishing you and yours all the very best, and a healthy 2020!

Down the Rabbit Hole

Where did a month go?    I'm still here...... honest!

Well, it seems that my getting back into weaving that fast was perhaps a bit too much, too fast and I have been resting my knee and leg (other than the mandatory exercises).  

I fell down a proverbial rabbit hole!

Paternal great x3 aunt, only known as Ms Bowers.

I started sorting and scanning old family pictures instead to be useful with my time while my knee settles down.   Its like an old murder mystery but minus the murder part and you track clues and family trees.... and oh, look its midnight!

Olive  age 3, 1924

I have  family pictures for both my sets of grandparents and even some of great grandparents, then add to the mix one paternal aunt and her two marriages, and also two maternal aunts and their spouses  and all of the pictures taken by my father and mother over their lifetimes and I have literally thousands to sort, identify and scan.

Twins 1934
 

Twins approx 1937

Twins approx 1940-41

Twins approx 1948-49

I have an account with Ancestry and so can double check years and dates, family connections and then I have been sending these out one by one to family.   I had thought that 12-15 per day would take me 2-3 years but I decided to speed things up a bit.     So long as they sort using my subject lines, then all photos will group together as an individual or family.

Paternal great uncles Bill and Fred

Its fascinating seeing Life in another place and time, from their births to their old age. Its been a quite cathartic experience and it sure puts what's important .... truly important into perspective.

Paternal great aunt Hilda 

I'm doing my best with each and every one I handle as now that my father has passed on,  I'm the eldest in our family and for some of these people, I'm the only one to have met them or know their names.  

Unknown family member... no one recorded his name on the back. 

I just didn't want them to remain nameless or end up in a garbage bin or second hand shop someday. That is so sad.  

Family weddings....

If you have old style paper photographs, even if you don't organize them, at least write names on the back so someone one day who does organize them has names to go with faces.  Its one of those jobs that everyone says they must do sometime but it never seems important until its too late.

and funerals

Trust me, we all become a line on a family tree someday and with the technology around now, you can add pictures, stories, and even video's.

Consider it a gift to the future family.....

new babies

I did manage to ever so slowly weave off the last portion of my recent  scarves and they are threatening us with some sunshine tomorrow so I hope to put Madge Mannequin outside for some beauty shots.

Meanwhile we had an overflow from our four year old dishwasher and so our four year old hard wood floor is being lifted in places and  replaced with new boards this weekend.   The offending dishwasher is still here and we are hand washing until we decide which route to take: repair or replace.  Hand washing is a very time consuming job.   :(

Then there have also been some mysterious plumbing 'issues' downstairs which has four plumbers scratching their heads while we search for solutions.  

Now you know why the Rabbit Hole has been so appealing....    next post, weaving.... promise!

Smiling Through The Tears

I recently received ten large boxes of family documents and photographs. I had volunteered to organize and eventually scan them into a digital format, and then share them with family.  I knew it was going to take some time but I had no idea of how many photographs there were! Turns out that there are all my parents pictures, my paternal grandparents, maternal grandparents and two aunts and their marriages. Also my Dad's entire Royal Navy career and tours of duty.  We are the 'end of the line' for so many family members.  Its all rather sobering....

I had some large brown envelopes on hand and simply started sorting pictures into family groups, countries, time periods.  In time I had a large box filled with paper and recyclables and another with plastics and garbage.... and have been down the proverbial "Rabbit Hole" for roughly two weeks working my way through the boxes and many albums. Its quite addictive! Besides getting the organization started, I wanted to reduce the sheer amount and bulk of the collection down to something more manageable size wise for storage.   You see, all those boxes are in my studio and I can't move in there!

Its coming along just fine. I have separated out all scenery and non-people shots and they will be stored and done at a later time. All negatives are securely stored; all documents together by family.  Its been reduced down to something I can at least move around now! You see, it all must stay accessible for some time and in my studio space until its all done and concluded. 

Sometime after Christmas I hope to get a new scanner and work out a real plan.  Right now I think scanning one family group at a time and then release them via the Cloud to family here and overseas as they are done so they have something to  view while I work on the next batch.   It will be a long slow process and I reckon two years? Maybe three years?  The documents will be invaluable when it comes to updating and building parts of the family trees on Ancestry!  Some scanners can take six minutes to do a full resolution scan.   The pictures below were scanned by my father...

Great Grandfather Edwin Barton

Great Aunt (no first name known) Miss Bowers

Great Grandfather Edwin Barton and his bride Elizabeth Bowers, 1906

One of their daughters, my grandmother Louisa Barton and my grandfather Reginald Waterfield.

1930.

Great great grandfather Alfred Barton, his son Edwin Barton, my grandmother Louisa and my father as a new born infant on her lap. 1930.

My paternal great grandfather Alfred Waterfield and his first wife Ellen Shaw. They had three young sons and one daughter. Ellen died in 1912.

Alfred remarried. My step great-grandmother Elizabeth Fryer.

Here is Elizabeth (Fryer) Waterfield holding me in 1956

My parents after their wedding ceremony in 1954.

Their first house in Saskatoon, Saskatchewan in 1960. They arrived just as winter was starting. What a welcome to Canada!

The same house today taken from the internet.  My bedroom was the small window below the picture window in the basement. Yes, the house was tiny!

Dad and me in 1957 in the UK.  

Its all so bittersweet and I feel the real need to do this right now, so my looms are waiting for me.  So I have been spending time with my big family every afternoon lately. 

Knee Report:  I have been released from physiotherapy having reached the goals they set for me! I still must do my exercises daily otherwise the knee / leg stiffens up and my bend is reduced. I get swelling daily by mid afternoon.  Its normal and comes from being upright and using it.  Elevation and icing it is how I spend most evenings.   There is far less pain, no nerve pain jolts as nerves heal and fire up again. I take some pain meds still  and will for while yet according to my surgeon. I saw him last week for my 8 week check up and he told me that two months is considered *very* early in the recovery process.  Real improvement will come at six months to one full year.  My next visit with him is next September at one year post op.  

Speaking of one full year.... my new right hip is one year old this coming Friday December 4th!  It hasn't been an issue for me for at least half a year, but they say healing continues for a full year post surgery.  And what a year it has been!

Some fibre news to share:  I have been bombarded with emails from various yarn companies encouraging me to "buy, buy, buy" lately as I'm sure you have too. Today I finally broke down and went and took a look at one, Webs, to see what was truly on sale.  I was browsing and not really finding anything calling to me.  I have lots on hand and was about to close out the page when I spotted something new on their 8/2 tencel page..... new colours!!!

birch

hummingbird 

whipple blue

ecru

They are on the way to me.... of course......   my Christmas present to myself!