Techno Chick?

 I've been busy the last couple of days. I haven't had a chance to write even though the research is ongoing. I stopped at the Ellis branch of the Monroe County Library. They have a wonderful research area and a huge collection available to genealogists.

For the past few weeks I've been on a hunt to learn more about my great-great aunt Meridia Palmer. I had only just found out through her sister's obituary that she was married. I still had no idea when or why she died.

I had followed her along the census route. In 1920 she was still living at home with her parents and sisters. The obituary said she was  married to someone by the last name of Southern. I eventually found him in 1930, widowed and living as a boarder in someone's home. I still didn't have all the information I needed.

So...off to the library and an amazing piece of technology known as the microfilm. Uh huh. You heard me right. Microfilm. It's the age of technology, people! Who uses this stuff anymore?

Apparently I do. The Monroe Evening News is our local paper. All...and I really do mean ALL of their archives up to...I'm not sure when...have been scanned and saved onto microfilm. (Their most current archives are online now. Did I scare you there for a minute? I nearly scared myself.)

The picture on the right is the machine I used to look through these archives. And look...and look...and look...and all of a sudden I saw it! Meridia Belle Southern (nee Palmer) had an obituary on October 14, 1927 with more details on the 15th.

I still don't know why she died. It only stated that she had passed away after an "illness of many months." One detail I was most excited about was finding out where she was buried. It's not everything I was hoping to find, but it's a start.


Another piece of slightly outdated technology is my new best friend, the flatbed scanner. It's an hp4700c. It's really old. In the great timeline of technology I suppose it really isn't that old. But it won't work on my lap top or my desk top. It only works with my dad's old computer. Or maybe it just doesn't like me?

Anyway...since my dad got it up and running, I've been scanning in photos like a crazy woman.

I had to be honest, I really didn't think the technology for affordable photography dated back that far. I finally looked up cameras of the 1900's and was surprised to find that Kodak's famous Brownie camera debuted in February of 1900. It was a cardboard case camera with a meniscus lens. It took 2 and a quarter inch square pictures.

This explains sooooo much! I was always wondering where all these smaller photos came from. And what's more, the first Brownie only cost $1.00. I know, a dollar was different back in those days...inflation...economy... It still doesn't change the fact that easily mobile photography had suddenly become affordable to the masses. Talk about some amazing technology!

And now I have the ability to scan all of these pictures. There are literally hundreds. And not just scan them, but clean them up. Make them clearer then they were before and fix up some of the wear and tear called time.

Just take a look at this before and after...

Whoa! There are distinguishable facial features. I can actually say for certain who two of these people are, even if I didn't have a note written on the back. (By the way, they are Left to Right: Rowland Kronbach, Rosannah Palmer, and Merrill Hunt Sr. Rosannah and Merrill were my great grandparents. Rowland was a great great uncle.) I've enjoyed using Picasa for the editing phase so far. It's not perfect and it doesn't have all the tools and effects other tools some of the other programs have. But it was free and it has tools enough for what I'm doing right now.

Working with all of these different things, it makes me wonder what they would think about all of the technology we have today.

Rose Waldvogel

 I should title this: Rose and the Magic of Picasa. I've been scanning old photos and then cleaning them up using the editing tools on Picasa. It was free and it's worked out pretty well. I've even been able to touch up photos that have been written on. And the ones with tape all over them? Most of the time I can get it to fade into the background.

But what can I tell you about Rose? Well, Rose was my great-great grandmother. She was born in Toledo, Ohio on January 4, 1874 to Anna and Johann Waldvogel. She was the youngest of a very large group of children. We're thinking 13 (of course not all of them survived childhood). Here's the really cool part. She was the only one of her family born in the U.S. The rest of them were born in Switzerland.

She grew up in Toledo and married Edward Meinhardt on her 20th birthday. (Jan. 4, 1894). I have lots of sources telling where they lived. There was a family farm off of Temperance Rd in Bedford, MI. This picture shows her at the old homestead...

It was in terrible condition before I took the editor to it.  Writing on the women's aprons and across the top, tape, cracks and tears...Now it doesn't look so bad, even if it is a little out of focus.

No one's quite sure who the woman on the far left is. Maybe a relative, maybe just a neighbor. Next to her is Grandma Weltie (I know Rose Weltie was my great-grandpa's cousin, so this is probably her mom. Of course I have no idea what her name is and I haven't looked into it yet) Then in the middle is Magdalena Meinhardt. This is Edward's mother. And hooray! We have a name! (Even if it was written in pen over the top of her apron.) See the tall lady on the far right? Yup, that's my great-great grandma Rose. She was tall, even by today's standards. The little girl with them is Rose's daughter, my great-great aunt Laura.

Rose and Edward had 5 children; Edward, Ernest (my great grandpa), Laura, Aaron, and Alvin. Edward died May 8, 1905. She was now a widow with 5 young children. Edward Jr wasn't quite 10 and Alvin was only six months old. She never remarried (which was common in those days) but they managed. In later census records is shows that she took in boarders.

As she got older, Rose continued living with Alvin, his wife Virginia, and their daughter Arlene. They owned a little store on the corner of Samaria Rd and Lewis Ave. Rose lived in a small house behind the store. My grandma was 13 when Rose passed away in 1946. My grandma remembers her and still talks fondly of the "garage" house and how she always had a jar of cookies, usually oatmeal or sugar.

I can't imagine how things must have changed for her when Edward died. She must have been a strong woman to face raising 5 children on her own in a time when there weren't a lot of jobs available (or acceptable) to women. Rose was 72 when she died. She's buried next to her husband in Hitchcock Cemetery in Temperance, MI