Not only was my dad, Jan Albert Iverson, a loving husband to his wife and a wonderful father to his children, he was also a very talented artist. He loved to draw and was good at it. He especially liked to draw cartoons.
Here's one of his drawings. It shows him listening to a tape sent by my mom (his fiance at the time). He was in Korea when he drew this cartoon.
My dad served in the army from August 1958 until July 1960. He was a Korean War veteran. He was sent to Korea in August of 1959 and spent eleven months overseas. By the time he was in Korea, the armistice had already been signed. So, thankfully, he wasn't involved in active fighting during his service there.
 |
| Jan Albert Iverson |
While my dad was overseas, he and my mom would mail tapes to each other. My mom said that she even sang a song in one of these tapes. Incidentally, my mom told me that when she was younger, she wanted to be a singer when she grew up. Yes, she has a wonderful alto voice.
In the cute cartoon above, my dad included some Portuguese words in the thought bubble. That's because my mom is from Brazil and speaks Portuguese and English. My dad did not speak Portuguese, however, and unfortunately, didn't get the Portuguese phrase quite right. Oh well. It's the sweet thought that counts. His cartoon shows that he was thoroughly enjoying himself as he listened to a tape my mom sent to him.
I remember when my brothers and I were young that my dad would tell us stories about talking cars. He would also draw cartoons of these cars. I wish I had those cartoons today.
 |
| Jana And Her Brothers |
My dad also loved to paint. I have a few of his paintings displayed in our home. Here's a photo of one of them.
The date on this painting says 1972. My dad painted more pictures during his life. I will probably share more of his paintings here on my blog in the future.
Thanks for reading!
Jana
© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved
This is part of the "52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks" Challenge begun by Amy Johnson Crow, author of the blog No Story Too Small.
Last week's 52 Ancestors blog post was about my maternal great-grandmother, Esther Matus Villatoro.
Esther's parents were Nicanor Matus and Raymunda Villatoro Vasques. This beautiful portrait was found in one of the briefcases that belonged to my Grandpa Debs Webster. The briefcase contained many wonderful photos and other family history treasures.
Unfortunately, this beautiful photo didn't contain any information about who this lovely woman was. The photo is rather large. It measures approximately 9-1/2 inches x 7-3/4 inches.
We've wondered if this is a photo of Esther's mother, Raymunda. For comparison, here's a photo of Esther. What do you think? Is there any resemblance?
We have another photo that may show Raymunda. Here it is. It's a very small photo measuring only about 2-1/8 inches x 2-3/8 inches. It was also found in one of my Grandpa Debs' briefcases.
The little boy in this photograph is my Grandpa Debs. And I believe the girl behind him and to the right is his sister, Carlota. As you can see, the writing on the photo says "Mexico." Unfortunately, I don't know who wrote that.
Debs and Carlota's mom, Esther, died in 1919, when Debs was five years old and Carlota was nine years old.
I wonder if this is a photo showing Debs and Carlota visiting their grandparents, Nicanor and Raymunda, sometime after the death of their mother. Perhaps they were even staying with them while their father, Frederick, a.k.a. "The Traveling Dentist," was on a trip somewhere.
Sadly, I don't know a whole lot about my 2nd great-grandmother, Raymunda Villatoro Vasques. I don't know where or when she was born. And I don't know her exact death date. I do know that she died sometime before 7 March 1925. The reason I know this is because that is the date her son, Francisco, got married. According to his marriage record, his parents, Nicanor and Raymunda, were both deceased.
So, if this really is a photo of Nicanor and Raymunda with their grandchildren, Debs and Carlota, then the photo was taken sometime before 7 March 1925.
Nicanor and Raymunda were the parents of four children:
- Esther Matus Villatoro (1893-1919) [my great-grandmother]
- Catalina Matus Villatoro
- Francisco Matus Villatoro
- Crecenciana Matus Villatoro (1906-1973)
I do know who Raymunda's parents were. Their names were Demitrio Villatoro and Isabel Vasques. I'll share what I know about them and their children in a future post.
As you can see, I still have a lot of research to do in order to fill in the details about Raymunda's life. As I find out more about her, I will share the information here on my blog.
Thanks for reading!
Jana
© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved
Have you ever named a recipe after the person who gave it to you? That's what I did with this amazing bread recipe. I don't even know the actual name of the recipe. I named it Angela's Awesome Bread because it IS awesome, and my friend Angela gave the recipe to me.
This bread is really delicious and pretty simple to make. There's no hand-kneading involved. At all. So, here we go. I'm going to show you how easy it is to make this amazingly awesome bread.
First of all, place 2-1/2 cups of warm water, 1/3 cup sugar and 3 (3/4 oz. each) packages of yeast in your mixing bowl.
Mix together with a dough hook attachment and then let it proof until bubbles appear.
Add 1/3 cup of softened butter, 6 cups of flour, and 1 tablespoon salt. Mix. Then add 1/2 - 1 cup of flour until dough cleans the sides of the mixing bowl. It should look something like this.
Remove the dough hook and place a damp kitchen cloth on top of the mixing bowl. Place it in a warm oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, replace the dough hook, and mix for 10 seconds.
Repeat this process for an hour.
Grease a large cookie sheet.
Then dump the dough onto the cookie sheet.
Form the dough into two loaves. Score the tops of the loaves with a knife and place in a 350 degree oven for 15 minutes. Turn the cookie sheet and bake for another 10 minutes.
Remove from oven and place cookie sheet on a wire cooling rack.
Place loaves of bread directly onto wire cooling rack.
It really is that easy! I hope you like this delicious and simple bread. It's especially good served warm topped with butter and jam. And it makes excellent toast too. Yum!
RECIPE
Angela’s Awesome Bread
Ingredients
2-1/2 Cups Warm Water (120-130 degrees)
1/3 Cup Sugar
2 Tbsp. Active Dry Yeast [I use 3 (3/4 oz. each) packages of yeast.]
1/3 cup Softened Butter
7 Cups Flour
1 Tbsp. Salt
Directions
In a Kitchenaid Mixer with dough hook attachment, mix together the water, sugar, and yeast.
Let the yeast mixture proof (until bubbles form). Then add the softened butter, 6 cups of flour and the salt.
Mix together and add ½ cup – 1 cup flour until dough cleans sides of bowl.
Remove the dough hook and place a damp kitchen cloth on top of the mixing bowl. Place bowl in a warm oven for 10 minutes. Remove from oven, replace the dough hook, and mix for 10 seconds. Repeat this process for 1 hour.
Form into two loaves on a greased cookie sheet. Score tops of loaves with knife.
Bake at 350 degrees for 15 minutes. Turn cookie sheet and continue baking for 10 additional minutes.
Remove from oven. Enjoy!
Thanks for stopping by!
Jana
© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved
My Fab Finds for this week are (in no particular order)
- Escape to a New World by Jacqi Stevens, author of A Family Tapestry
- AncestryDNA at the National Genealogical Society Conference - A Report from Angie Bush by CeCe Moore, author of Your Genetic Genealogist
- Confession: I’m a GeneaFreak in My Sleep by Kerry Scott, author of Clue Wagon
- Utah Student to Receive Genealogy Grant by Denise Levenick, author of The Family Curator
- DNA ethics: speak up! AND We’re genealogists… and we vote by Judy G. Russell, author of The Legal Genealogist
- Dropbox Links Security Issue by Thomas MacEntee, author of Hack Genealogy
- Between The Leaves: A Google Hangout from Ancestry.com by Anne Gillespie Mitchell, author of Finding Forgotten Stories
- Ashes to Ashes, Artefacts to Bits by Tony Proctor, author of Parallax View
- A new-to-me DNA cousin, or a scam? by Diane, author of Nuts From the Family Tree
- Will you tell me a story? by Amberly, author of TheGenealogyGirl
- LEARNING ABOUT OUR ANCESTORS IS MORE THAN NAMES AND DATES by David Walton, author of Ancestor Sleuth Hound
- Fold3 Offering World War II Records Through May 31st for FREE by Randy Seaver, author of Genea-Musings
- 4 Lesser Known Genealogical Resources by Valerie Hughes, author of Genealogy With Valerie
- How to Get Kids Interested in Family History by Juliana Smith for Ancestry.com Blog
- Mother's Rings by Jennifer, author of 'On a flesh and bone foundation': An Irish History
- Doctor Saves the Living and the Dead by Guest Blogger for FamilySearch Blog
- The Family Scandal-That Wasn't by theailurophile, author of Leaf Twig and Stem
- Movin' & Shakin'--Getting it Done Before you Move by Heather Collins for Young & Savvy Genealogists
- Website launched to commemorate the Lives Of The First World War by Andrew Martin, author of History Repeating
- Family Tree DNA Releases myOrigins by Roberta Estes, author of DNAeXplained – Genetic Genealogy
Randy Seaver's NGS 2014 Conference Blog Compendium continues to be updated. You can check out the new additions by clicking on the following link.
The 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks Challenge by Amy Johnson Crow, author of No Story Too Small -
New Blog Discoveries
In Case You Missed Them….My Contributions to the Blogosphere This Week
Jana's Genealogy and Family History Blog
Grandpa's Postcards
Thanks for reading!
© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved
This vintage postcard, which was made in Germany, was sent to Mrs. R. Engle in Sioux Falls, South Dakota. My regular readers will likely already know who Mrs. R. Engle was. But, for my new readers, I'll give a brief explanation of who she was. Mrs. R. Engle was Sarah Amanda (Waterman) Engle. She was my maternal 2nd great-grandaunt and she was married to Richard Engle, who was a Civil War veteran.
This postcard was sent by Sarah and Richard's son, Charles A. Engle. The previous Engle family postcard I shared here on this blog was also sent by Charles and it was dated June 30, 1905. That postcard showed Avalon on Santa Catalina Island which is near Los Angeles, California.
It looks like Charles was in California for at least a few days during this trip because the postcard I'm sharing today was dated July 2, 1905 and he wrote it while he was in Los Angeles, California.
Here's Charles' message to his mother:
Los Angeles
July 2, 1905
One of the many ?? here.
Chas. A. E.
It looks like he added another quick message the day he mailed the postcard:
We go to Frisco tomorrow July 4th
You'll notice I put two question marks in the first part of Charles' message. I cannot figure out what those two words are. Or are they two words? Is it really one word continued onto the next line? I don't know. If any of my readers have any idea what Charles wrote, please let me know. I'd appreciate it very much.
Also, I wonder who Charles was referring to when he wrote "we." Did his brother, William, accompany him on this trip to California? I wonder what the trip was for. And why were they going to San Francisco?
Were they in California to find a place for the Engle family to live or were they there on vacation? Charles' mother, Sarah, moved to Los Angeles sometime before or around 1909. Her husband joined her later, and so did her sons, William and Charles.
These Engle family postcards are so fascinating. They give an interesting glimpse into the lives of the Engle family in the early 1900's.
Thanks for stopping by!
Jana
© 2014 Copyright by Jana Last, All Rights Reserved
