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Life keeps being life
What a rocky start to this blog, but life keeps being life… A much-anticipated road trip In spring of this year my husband and I took a much-needed vacation, a road trip down through Pennsylvania and Virginia, passing through farmland, over mountains, and by seacoast. The highlight was that our daughter and her partner joined us for a few days in Virginia Beach. We had rooms right on the beach that saw the sunrise over the ocean. Another wonderful part of the trip was Skyline Drive – a place we hadn’t been in more than ten years, with a few nights spent at the truly fantastic Skyland Lodge, which is…
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Time flies, and all that…
Time flies, and all that… Actually, in my case, time slogged through 2023… A lot happened as I faced multiple unexpected diagnoses and learned how to address each of those diagnoses. In 2023 I did also enjoy arts and cultural events, and embraced the great times with family that arose through the year. My husband and I also got to a few cemeteries – we drove through Monsey, NY on a return trip from seeing our daughter and stopped at his dad’s cemetery. I also got to my parents’ sites a few times. But I obviously fell way behind in blogging! This post is just a catching up, hi it’s…
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Assumptions About Given Names
There are many issues surrounding surnames and their variations when doing genealogy, but we can also encounter a lot of assumptions about given names, or first names. To arrange for my dad’s footstone from the VA, I had to provide a few documents to verify his service in the US Army. One of these documents was the DD 214. On this document my dad’s name was listed as Lawrence John Brill. Let me say, this was all kinds of wrong… For most of my dad’s adult life he dealt with the effect of one mistake that was made when he enlisted in the Army. His given name was always Larry.…
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A Wedding and a Divorce
The anniversary of my paternal grandparents’ wedding is approaching. Clarence Lee Brill and Josephine DeBaise were married on April 24th, 1935. Now, this event was not something that was actually celebrated by my grandparents anytime during my lifetime, because they had divorced only a few years later. After my grandmother asked my grandfather to leave, my grandfather moved out of Connecticut, enlisted in the US Navy, and eventually remarried and had another son; my grandmother raised my dad as a single mother, though with great assistance from her mother, her many sisters, and even her in-laws. Since the date was not celebrated, it wasn’t even noted or known by many,…
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Larry J. Brill, my dad
My dad passed away December 18, 2022. I’m not yet up for posting much, so for now I’m just going to share his obit: Larry Joseph Brill, 86, devoted father and grandfather, passed away December 18, 2022. Born January 20, 1936 to C. Lee Brill and Josephine DeBaise Brill, Larry was a life-long Wallingford resident. He graduated from Lyman Hall High School in 1954, and spent two years in the U.S. Army, from which he created some lifelong friendships. In 1965 he married Ann Rykas. He was predeceased by her in 1975, and he raised their two children on his own. As a young man Larry discovered a love of…
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Happy Birthday, Babci
Last night I was perusing housing listings in my hometown, and I eventually browsed my way over to Google Earth where I looked up the house where my mother and her three sisters had grown up. It was on Blatchley Ave in New Haven – or Fair Haven – Connecticut. This was a modest home, to say the least, a very small house with small rooms and a small backyard, on a street that was not known to be very well-off or safe (I do love understatement). My mother and her sisters grew up quite poor, though both of my grandparents worked very hard in rather arduous jobs. My Grampa…
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Among the Bones – an introduction
I collect bones… Skulls and fingers and teeth from smiling jaws, I dig up, brush off, and polish smooth. Many now I have, piled high around me. I know their faces, their voices, can see their walk and hear their laughter. Among the bones I find truth in and of my past. I can search through what these bones really are: names and faces, and words written on faded paper in old-fashioned writing. I have come to know those who have come before, as if I am indeed holding them in my hand, solid and smooth. Once I visited a graveyard in the most perfect spot I could imagine. It…
