Preserving Memories ~ The Mystery of Grandpa Webster's Property

As I've mentioned previously, I've worked on a large family history project. I've scanned photos, slides, and negatives of various sizes that I inherited from my parents and my maternal grandparents. I have also scanned photos and negatives from my own collection. I'm not finished with this scanning project yet.

Part of my family history scanning project included scanning small black and white photos from a Kodak envelope. The writing on the outside of the envelope looks like my mom's handwriting. She wrote, "Pictures from the lot Dad had and Oswaldo Silva is the agent."

My mom's dad was Debs Warren Webster. Regular readers of my blog may remember that Debs and my mom were born in Brazil and immigrated to the United States of America in the summer of 1952, along with their family. I wrote a series of blog posts about their immigration trip, which can be found by clicking "The Debs Webster Immigration Story" tab at the top of my blog.

The Kodak envelope contains eleven photos with writing on the front and/or back of each photo. They were written in Portuguese. Unfortunately, I can't speak or read Portuguese so I turned to Google Translate for help. I won't share all eleven photos here.

I wish I knew the story behind these photos. Sadly I can't ask my mom about them because she passed away in October 2018. I'm thankful she wrote what she did on the Kodak envelope to give me a sense of what was happening in the photos.

From the photos, it looks like my grandfather, Debs Warren Webster, owned a piece of land (lot) in Brazil. I think the piece of property was in Brazil because the sign indicating my grandfather was the owner of this property is written in Portuguese, and my grandfather was born and lived in Brazil.

According to Google Translate, the writing on this photos says, "Sign on Site" and the sign says, "Property of D. Warren Webster, Attorney Dr. O.A.Silva," and I assume that is the telephone number at the bottom. Unfortunately, I don't know the specific location of this property.

Here are more photos from the Kodak envelope.

I believe the man wearing a tie was Oswaldo Silva, my grandfather's attorney (agent). I don't know who the other men were in this photo.

As you can see in these next few photos, it appears that my grandfather's lot was subsequently enclosed by a wall and a door was installed to access the property.

This looks like my grandfather's Attorney (agent), Oswaldo Silva in front of my grandfather's lot. The arrow is pointing to the "Property of D. Warren Webster" sign in this photo and in the next one.

Here is a photo of Oswaldo Silva in front of his 1950 Chevrolet. On the back of the photo Oswaldo wrote that his car was a dark green 1950 Chevrolet 4 door Fleetline, that he owned it for four years, and that it only had eighty-thousand kilometers on it.

I have questions about the circumstances surrounding these photos. When were these photos taken? And who took the photos? The information about Oswaldo's car is an interesting clue. The car was a 1950 Chevrolet that Oswaldo owned for four years. Did Oswaldo buy the car when it was new or later as a used car? Were these photos taken in 1954 or later? My grandfather and his family immigrated to the U.S.A. in the summer of 1952. Did my grandfather go back to Brazil in 1954 to help oversee the sale of his property? Or were these photos taken by Oswaldo Silva and sent to my grandfather at his new home in the United States? I know my grandparents visited Mexico in 1955 because I have their pictures from that trip. But, I am not aware of any trip they may have taken to Brazil in the 1950s. They did visit Brazil in 1986. And my grandfather visited Brazil in 1992 after my grandmother passed away.

In any case, this is an interesting find in my scanning project.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2025 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

Ancestor Relocation Information in US-City Directories

In my previous blog post, I shared that death dates can be found in US-City Directories. I also said that I would write a blog post about another interesting and helpful item that can be found in US-City Directories. Today I'm going to tell you about that helpful item.

While indexing the record set, US-City Directories, 1902-1935 [Part I], at FamilySearch.org, I noticed that instead of a street address, the words "removed to" followed by a specific place were listed next to some people's names. "Removed to" next to a person's name means that they moved away from that particular city. In other words, if a person moved from Kalamazoo, Michigan that person may not have been excluded from the Kalamazoo City Directory. Instead, the city directory may include that person's name and the place to where that person moved. How cool is that?! So, if you've been wondering why you can't find an ancestor in the place you think they should be, a US-City Directory may be able help you find them.

Here is an example from the 1891 Seattle, Washington, US-City Directory.¹ James S. Adams is listed with an occupation as a printer who "removed to S F, Cal." (By the way, this is not my ancestor.)

I did a search for James S. Adams in San Francisco, California and found a James S. Adams in the 1891 City Directory for San Francisco California, living at 743 Pine.² His occupation was listed as a compositor. Wikipedia has several definitions of Compositor, one of which is the following: "Compositor may refer to: Compositor (typesetting), a person or machine which arranged movable type for printing."³

This James S. Adams, compositor, living in San Francisco, at 743 Pine in 1891 very well could be the same James S. Adams, printer, in the 1891 Seattle, Washington, City Directory, who removed to San Francisco, California.

US-City Directories are very valuable resources for family history research. Removals (where someone "removed to") are just one of many items listed in the Potential Content section of the FamilySearch Research Wiki article, United States Directories.

Have you been able to trace your ancestor using US-City Directories?

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

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1 U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, image 70 of 597, James S. Adams; image, “Seattle, Washington, City Directory, 1891.”, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 October 2024).^↩
2 U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, image 101 of 1668, James S. Adams; image, “San Francisco, California, City Directory, 1891.”, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 11 October 2024).^↩
3 Wikipedia (www.wikipedia.org), “Typesetting,” rev. 20:27, 25 August 2024.^↩

Death Dates in US-City Directories

Last week I was doing some indexing at FamilySearch.org. One of the record sets I indexed was US-City Directories, 1902-1935 [Part I]. While indexing this record set, I noticed that some of the entries included the age of the person and a death date. Here is a screenshot of one of them.

Wow! I don't remember seeing this kind of vital event information in US-City Directories before during my personal family history research.

I looked up United States Directories in the FamilySearch Research Wiki and saw that death dates are included in the long list of potential content found in directories.¹ How awesome is that?!

These death dates should be taken as clues that can help us find the actual death record for an ancestor. While preparing this post, I did more research in US-City Directories and found another person with a death date and age next to their name.² (This is not one of my ancestors.)

Highlighted in this directory is a Bernard M. Desenberg (aged 74) who died on September 14, 1901. I did a search for his death certificate and found it in Ancestry.com. His death certificate listed his death date as September 27, 1901.³ So, yes, the death date listed in the US-City Directory is a helpful clue, but as you can see, his death day was incorrectly listed as 14 in the directory instead of 27.

I was curious about the source of the death information found in US-City Directories. And I found my answer at the Library of Congress website. I learned from their US-City Directories Research Guide that "City directories are compiled through door-to-door surveys...."⁴ Interesting! So, it's possible that whoever was providing information to the survey-taker that day gave the wrong day of death for Bernard M. Desenberg. But, they were correct about the month and year of Mr. Desenberg's death.

US-City Directories are fantastic resources. I found another interesting and helpful item that can be found in US-City Directories. I'll share more about that in an upcoming post.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

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1 FamilySearch Wiki (www.familysearch.org/wiki), “United States Directories,” rev. 03:29, 21 March 2024.^↩
2 U.S., City Directories, 1822-1995, image 121 of 355, Bernard M. Desenberg; image, “Kalamazoo, Michigan, City Directory, 1902.”, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 September 2024). ^↩
3 U.S. City Directories, Library of Congress, (www.guides.loc.gov/united-states-city-telephone-directories/city-directories, accessed 4 September 2024).^↩
4 "Michigan, U.S., Death Records, 1867-1952," database with images, Ancestry.com (www.ancestry.com : accessed 4 September 2024); certificate image, Bernard M. Desenberg, 27 September 1901, no. 400; citing Michigan Department of Community Health, Division for Vital Records and Health Statistics; Lansing, Michigan.^↩

Preserving Memories ~ Disneyland in the Summer of 1955

As I've mentioned previously, I've worked on a large family history project. I've scanned photos, slides, and negatives of various sizes that I inherited from my parents and my maternal grandparents. I have also scanned photos and negatives from my own collection. I'm not finished with this scanning project yet, but I'm taking a break at the moment.

Today I want to share some digitized images that were scanned from medium format negatives that belonged to my maternal grandparents, Debs and Willis (Quillin) Webster. They are photos of a trip they took to Disneyland in the summer of 1955. I have some printed photos from this trip that have an August 1955 date stamped on them. Disneyland opened on July 17, 1955.

My mom's mother, Sarah Vasques Madeira, died when my mom was almost four years old. Her father, Debs Webster, married Willis Quillin a couple years later in 1944. Willis was the only maternal grandmother I knew. And she was a wonderful grandma to my brothers and me. Although technically she was our step-grandma, she was lovingly referred to as grandma by us. So, that's how I will refer to her in this post.

My mom, her parents, her brothers, and grandmother immigrated to the United States from Brazil in the summer of 1952. They settled in the Los Angeles area, specifically Pomona. I think it's so awesome that my mom and her family went to Disneyland three years after their immigration to the USA. And it's awesome that they went to Disneyland shortly after it opened. I wish I knew if they were there on the day it opened or not. But, even if they didn't go on opening day, they were there soon after Disneyland opened, which is very cool. My mom turned seventeen years old on July 24, 1955. I wonder if they went to Disneyland for her birthday. I'm so glad they took photos of their time there.

It's also neat to see what Disneyland looked like in the summer of 1955.

Here they are on Main Street standing in front of the Wurlitzer Music Hall. My mom is the third from the right. She's standing next to her younger brother, Edwin (second from the right). Her other brother is seventh from the right. He's standing in front of my grandma (in the plaid skirt). My mom's grandmother, Helena Rohwedder Quillin, is the sweet lady holding her purse (sixth from the right). Apparently, the Wurlitzer Music Hall closed sometime in the late 1960s. Something else is there now.

Here's another photo in front of the Wurlitzer Music Hall. My grandma (in the plaid skirt) and her mom (my great-grandmother) are standing next to the man in the baseball cap. 

And here's another photo of Main Street. My mom and some of her family were walking on the sidewalk close to the street. My mom is the one with her left arm up and a bow in her hair. Her two brothers are on her left and my grandma is on her right. It's pretty cool to see Main Street back then.

Here's my mom and her family walking along at Tomorrowland. My mom is second from the right in this photo. My grandma is on her right.

It's difficult to see my mom and her family in this photo but it's a pretty cool photo because it shows Autopia on the left. See that Richfield sign above all the people on the left? That was Autopia. I had to look up what Richfield was and learned that it sponsored Autopia back then. My mom and her family are facing away from the camera in this photo and are close to the TWA Moonliner. My mom had a bow in her hair.

Speaking of Autopia, here is a photo of my grandma in an Autopia car. She's in the light car on the left. Interestingly, there wasn't a center guide rail on the track like there is now. Wow!

Well, that's it for now. I hope you enjoyed going down memory lane with me as we visited Disneyland in the summer of 1955 with my mom and her family.

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved

Have You Tried The MyHeritage In Color™ Tool?

In 2020, MyHeritage announced their new MyHeritage In Color tool. In just a matter of seconds it can colorize black and white photos. I used this tool to colorize a black and white photo of my mom. She was eleven years old when this photo was taken.

Here is the black and white photo of my mom. By the way, I absolutely love this photo.

And here is the colorized photo.

MyHeritage's tool also includes an Enhance and a Repair feature. You can see those features in the photo at the top of this post. I decided to try the Repair feature on the colorized photo of my mom. Here it is.

I then decided to add the Enhance feature to my mom's photo and here is the result.

For some reason, the color of my mom's blouse became discolored in several areas. However, the Enhance feature did improve the photo by eliminating the pixelation in the original photo. The original photo is a rather small jpg file at 146 KB.

What do you think? Which version of these colorized photos do you prefer? Have you used the MyHeritage In Color tool? How did it work on your photos?

I really do like this tool and appreciate being able to colorize black and white photos. It's really fun to see this adorable photo of my mom in color. Thank you MyHeritage!

You can read more about this new tool at Colorize your black and white photos automatically with MyHeritage In Color™

Thanks for stopping by!

Jana

© 2024 Copyright by Jana Iverson Last, All Rights Reserved