Family and More Family

Quote of the Day - Love it!

A good marriage would be between a blind wife and a deaf husband

Michel de Montaigne (1533-1592), French Essayist

We subscribe to an ancestry website on which people from all over the world can find relatives - Ross got a note from a guy this week who says:  Mary Kirk is my great grand aunt. I have a large photo collection of family members. One photo in particular of the Kirk family includes a woman clearly misnamed. Considering the time and ages of the family members, I am leaning to the possiblity that it could be Mary Kirk Sylvester who left Ontario for Minnesota with her husband and family in about 1882. If I'm correct the picture could have been taken in 1895 after the death of her mother Ann Bean (Kirk, Robinson). My question is would you be able to identify Mary if I sent you a copy?

Turns out this Mary Kirk is my Grandpa Sylvester's mother!  This is the Kirk family - wow - the amazing benefits of technology.

To the other side of the family - my Grandma Schultz's parents.  I remember myself playing at the feet of Great-Grandma Wolf when I was a little girl and she sat on a rocking chair in our kitchen.  So I'm back on the genealogy kick again.  Next weekend we are going to a Schultz family reunion in Central Minnesota and taking Alex with us.  Several of us including my brother Kent will be providing the meal Saturday night - FOR 70 PEOPLE!!!  Lotta burgers and brats.  Ross is hesitantly looking forward to it - he is the person with NO first cousins!

 Digging in pictures again - My Dad, me, my brother Keith who died in 1983, my cousin Denny who keeps great contact with us and then there is brother Kent - he appears to be saying - "Go go go - my chance to run"!!!  I was probably 8 or 9 years old.

 Cousins last night.  Amy's dad and Scott had all of us for dinner - very difficult to get the kids to have a "real smile".  I repeat myself so many times about how lucky we are to have the families we have.

 Alex day this week.  Grammy and Alex on a bike ride to one of his favorite places - a nature center where we can scoop for leeches (eeeewwwww), tadpoles, back swimmers and all kinds of pond creatures.  He made a big hit with the staff who only had us to entertain.  He was reading the park path signs which said "only authorized vehicles" - so I said utility trucks, bikes etc ok.  Later on we see a squished large turtle and he says "It was probably a "fertility" truck that ran over it:)

 Rooke in California - 5 in a couple months and what a charmer she is.  Can't wait for our next trip out there.

 Old pics again - From 2007, Alex was almost 2, Grampa Pete had just turned 97.

I've been reading about the foie gras ban in California to begin July 1 due to cruel treatment in the fattening of the ducks to achieve fatty livers.  Some agree and others call it "foie mageddon".  Our trip to France this fall will be in truffle and foie gras country - I read about the illegal importing of truffles from China which have resulted in nasty things now getting in the soil! 
All for now!