Old Christmas Photos from My Grandma: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “Holidays”

Christmas 1962 and 1964: My Brother and I
Photographs by Ivan Macbeth and Nora Macbeth

 

During my childhood, holidays were usually spent at my grandparents’ house on their farm near Eagle Lake, Minnesota, or at my family’s farm near Hanska. While looking through photos I inherited from my Grandma Nora Hoffman Macbeth, I found two cute holiday pictures of my brother and I from over fifty years ago.

The first photo was taken Christmas Day 1962 at the Macbeth house and features a three-year-old me and my baby brother Kent. This photo sparks so many memories. Kent is happily lying on his back in a little footed baby outfit, smiling at the camera, legs kicking in the air. He would have been nearly five months old on Christmas day.

I am sitting on the blanket next to him, wearing a light-colored long-sleeved tee and dark pants, probably accompanied by a pair of hard leather lace up shoes that came up over the ankle and had stiff, hard soles—popular footwear for toddlers then that would probably inspire horror among pediatricians today. I remember them as being reddish brown in color—I think they were Buster Brown shoes, but I’m not sure. My hair was cut in a pixie cut—a popular style in 1962 for girls—and my expression was equally pixie-like. My hair was mussed as usual—I rarely appear in photos with neatly combed hair. I must have always run my hands through it or rolled around while playing.

The blanket was resting on my grandparents’ patterned carpet. I remember the swirls of color and the stiff feel of the fibers although my memory of the shade has faded. Behind me is a comfortable chair that was a sort of silvery gray color as I recall. The arm of the chair is piled with Christmas wrap and tissue—the presents had been opened. It looks like someone got some new clothes, piled amid the wrap. I had obviously received a new doll, who has been abandoned to recline stiffly against the other chair arm. It looks like she has a thermometer sticking out of her mouth—was she a doll you could do doctor exams on? Or is that some other object that sticks out behind her? I don’t remember her very clearly—later in my childhood her shoes and clothes were no longer pretty, and she’d lost a lot of hair to my over-enthusiastic efforts to comb and style it. Poor dolly.

To my left in the gloom of the wall near the living room door is another chair I remember—an adjustable piano stool that could be spun around to go up and down in height. Unlike many piano stools, it had arms, which I would hold tightly as I spun slowly around. I think that chair eventually ended up back at our farm.

The next photo was taken two years later, Christmas 1964. The printing on the back says “Roxana age 5, Kent age 2.” That Christmas the family had gathered at the Peterson farm. I’m seated on the living room couch, with the window that faced the road at my back. Kent is standing next to me, a huge smile lighting his face, probably due to the new teddy bear his hand is resting on proudly.

We are dressed up for the occasion. Kent is in a cute little vest, dress shirt and pants combo with a tiny little bow tie at the collar. He looks adorable! I’m in a checkered dress—I believe it was red and white, paired with red tights. My hair is now in a bob with short, crooked bangs, slightly mussed as usual. My dollies are next to me on the couch—is the tilted, wide-legged one the same doll I received two years before? She looks like a war refugee, poor thing, with that same shell-shocked expression. The other, smaller doll I remember better. I think I called her Betty, and her hair shows the tragic effect of my vigorous brushing, sticking straight up and starting to recede. Before much longer, she developed a bald spot with tiny holes in her plastic head where hair used to sprout.

I remember the sectional couch and the combination pole lamp and occasional table in the corner. The couch was covered with a loose, washable fabric cover—smart with two small, frequently sticky children in the house.

I loved finding these photos and remembering those early years of my childhood. Christmas was always special and exciting, and you can see that in our faces. 

Crossed Family Lines: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “Lines”

Three Family Lines Criss-Cross in Eighteenth Century Andover

Susannah Burt: 1758-?

Abiah Burt: 1759-1798

Lois Burt: 1763-1814

Lucy Burt: 1785-1842

 

One set of my fifth-great-grandparents had daughters who married into two other of my ancestral lines. The resulting mix of family relationships is confusing at the best. Apparently the town of Andover, Massachusetts was so small that there were a limited number of families available for marriage. These four women’s children have varying relationships to me depending on the familial connections of the Burt women’s husbands.

My fifth-great-grandparents Joseph Burtt (1726-1810) and Abiah Mooar Burtt (1741-1828) married March 23, 1758 in Andover. Joseph was 32 years old, while Abiah was half his age—just 16 years old. They had a total of eight children, including six daughters. Four of those daughters—all my fourth-great-grandaunts-- chose husbands from two other of my ancestral lines.

Abiah Mooar Burt

Joseph Burt

Susanna Burt was Joseph and Abiah’s eldest child. According to a transcript of Andover’s birth records, Susanna was born June 25, 1758. This means her mother was nearly six months pregnant at the time of her marriage. Susanna married at age 22. Her husband was William Dane, born October 17, 1753 to parents William Dane and Mary Osgood. William the senior was the son of my sixth-great-grandfather John Dane and his wife Sarah Chandler, making him my fifth-great-granduncle, and his son, Susanna’s husband, my first-cousin-six-times-removed. William and Susanna had an amazing ten children, who were my first cousins five-times-removed.

Joseph Burt's will mentioning daughters Susanna, Abiah and Elizabeth

Abiah Burt was Joseph and Abiah’s second daughter, born December 13, 1759. She married my fourth-great-grandfather Francis Dane on May 1, 1781. Francis Dane was born on February 18, 1750 to John Dane and wife Elizabeth Chandler Dane. This complicates my relationship to Abiah Burt Dane—she is both my fourth-great-grandaunt and my fourth great-grandmother.  

Lucy Burt was born June 5, 1785, 27 years after the birth of her oldest sister, Susanna. At the time of her father’s death, she was named in his will, but as an unmarried minor. On May 10, 1805, at age 19, she married another member of the Dane family, Peter Osgood Dane. Peter is my second cousin five times removed, the son of Joseph Dane, who was the son of Joseph Dane, who was the son of my 6^th Great-Grandfather John Dane.

Lucy and Peter O. Dane had one daughter named Lucy after her mother, and three sons, Peter Osgood Dane, Albert Kimball Dane and Joseph Mooar Dane. These children are my first cousins five times removed.  

Lucy Burt and Peter Osgood Dane graves

So how are these three Dane husbands related to one another? Francis and William Dane were the sons of brothers, so were first cousins. Peter Osgood Dane was one additional generation along on the family tree, so his father Joseph was another of Francis and William’s first cousins, while Peter Osgood Dane was their second cousin.

Clear as mud, isn’t it? Talk about crossed familial lines!

Lois Burt, along with sisters Elizabeth and Sarah, found non-Dane husbands. Elizabeth married a man with the surname Clark and Sarah married John Foster. Fortunately, neither of those families appears in my tree. However, Lois is a different story.

Lois was born June 16, 1763. She married Thomas Blanchard on March 12, 1782. She was 18 and he was 19 years old. Thomas Blanchard is my third cousin seven-times-removed—a very distant relationship, but a relationship all the same. Thomas was born November 11, 1762 to Aaron Blanchard and Eleanor Holt. Aaron was the son of yet another Thomas Blanchard, my first-cousin nine-times-removed. His father, also named Thomas, was the half-brother of my eighth great-grandfather Johnathan Blanchard, 1664-1742.

Lois Burt Blanchard grave

Ancestry’s cousin-calculating algorithm ignores this complex relationship, and lists Lois and Thomas Blanchard’s children as my first-cousins five-times-removed.

Running across familiar names as I traced the Burt family tree led me down quite a rabbit hole. I ended up delving into the collateral Dane and Blanchard lines to confirm my initial suspicion that those four husbands of the Burt sisters were already connected to my endlessly growing, sprawling family tree. I wonder how many other twisted, crossed familial lines I will find as I continue my research. Small towns foster intermarriage, and many of my early American ancestors were born and died in small colonial towns. I look forward to making even more complicated connections.

Grandpa’s Woodshop: 52 Ancestors 2021 Prompt “Homemade”

Folding Bookshelf Grandpa Built

Ivan Macbeth: 1904-1972

 

I have fond memories of puttering around in what my grandparents called “the shop”, my Grandfather’s woodworking shop. When I was really young, the shop was a chicken coop—a long, low building with windows on the side that faced the house. Sometime in the mid-1960s, Grandma gave up her chickens and Grandpa converted the building into a storage and work area for himself—a man-cave outside the house.

Ivan Macbeth in his early teens

Ivan Macbeth was my maternal grandfather, and lived on his parents’ farm outside Eagle Lake, Minnesota. I liked to go to the shop with him because he’d let me hammer nails into scraps of wood. He never criticized me or laughed at my efforts—he was always kind and encouraging. I don’t know if I ever managed to put together anything useful, but I had fun.

I’m not sure how many things Grandpa built over the years. I only really noticed two. First, he made a custom frame for a huge paint-by-number painting my mother did of the Last Supper. She worked on it while she was pregnant with me, so it had a lot of sentimental value for her. Grandpa’s frame was about three inches wide with a lot of detail.

Detail on bookshelf

The second of Grandpa’s wood pieces was a four-shelf bookshelf. My mom inherited it after Grandpa had died and Grandma Nora moved in with my uncle and aunt. The interesting thing about the shelf design was that it could be folded up when it needed to be moved—the legs and shelves would fold down to make the piece only a few inches thick.

My mom had the shelves in her bedroom in her assisted living apartment. When she had to move into a nursing home, there was no room for the shelves anymore, and they ended up in a storage unit, where I took theses photos. I didn’t really have a place for the shelves in my house; nor did my brother. They were probably donated. However, at least I have the photos of the shelves and the memories of my Grandpa happily absorbed with the tools in his woodshop.