in the end you become your own teacher -- musing

 My mother sewed for our household, doll clothes, household linens, and innumerable alterations from day one. and sewed or altered our clothes from day one.  I remember her making overalls for baby/toddlers with snaps all the way round on the inner seam, so no undressing was needed to change diapers. And I remember what a welcome gift they were. 

And I remember that she could rub a piece of fabric between her fingers and tell you what the fiber was. Her years of handling many gave her that skill. I can do similar with yarns. I have a friend who can taste a dish and know what spices were used. 

I remember reading more than one monograph about being you because only you can be you, and while you can be a successful you, you will be at best an adequate copy of someone else. 

And becoming your own teacher takes time. Copy work is easy by comparison, developing your own discernment is tough. 

A visual artist is not training their hands, they are training their eyes but even more their minds. A musician is training their brain and their ears. The instrument, or the plastic medium is the means by which the understanding of beauty and order is expressed. Starts to explain how painters successfully wander into furniture, fashion, jewelry or architecture...? cf. Frank Lloyd or daughter Picasso.

I was asked, during last summer, what courses I was taking this fall/winter. I am signed up for a few small things, but mostly, I am sitting in my own patch, and letting what I have heard, and read, and taken notes about, percolate and become habit. And thanks big time to the many who have provided fodder for this process ---- live, through books, and music, and visuals of all sorts. 

see you on the other side of thanksgiving - may your turkey or whatever graces your table be truly wonderful. 

best, Liz

 

checking in the corners ---

 My family tree is a bit like Charlie Brown's Christmas tree. Not full and luxuriant with 10-15 sibs in each family and the delightful complication of double cousins, but generations of families with one, two or three sibs, and traveling 4-6 generations back before the sib count grows. Ah well. 

Anyway, with head counts of this sort, one does have a closer look at people on the fringes, ala John Cecil Ferguson, known as Uncle Jack, and possibly known to some of you since he is the example used in my "Follow the Yellow Brick Road" lecture. He was my father's great uncle, and died in the 1960's. I saw him most as a young girl, when he and wife Alice lived in a house on the lakeshore outside of Madison, Wis. 

When I first did their b,m,d grid I was surprised that Jack's marriage to Alice was his second.  Returning to this question last year, creative use of data bases including newspapers, led me to Francis Walker for John Cecil's first wife. Connecting newspaper items offers the following timeline: 

• John C. to France, 1917 - 1919
• John return to US, May-ish 1919
• John marries Frances, 10 November 1920
• Baby Francis born, 29 January 2021
• Baby Francis dies, 20 February 1921

Newspaper articles added that wife Francis had moved to Bloomington about a year before she and  Jack married. John married wife number two, Alice, in 1929 by which time Francis should have been divorced or dead. That question is still open; no paper has yet been found.  

However, Francis Walker female preemie baby's death certificate at 23 days on 20 February 1921 was found, as was her gravestone on Find a Grave.   Francis Walker and John Cecil Ferguson, are listed on the baby's death certificate in Family Search. A count of the months could offer a hypothesis about their marriage timing, perhaps inform why Francis and Jack did not stay together, and/or why they married. "One answer opens the door to more questions." 

Now THIS question is now on my continuing questions list. 

++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++

on other endeavors - 

?? do you remember grandmother or great aunt talking about "spring cleaning" ?  My family didn't do spring cleaning, we moved, but now I am involved in spring cleaning my genealogy paperwork. I am reading and filing well, with fervent hopes that this is the last re-do required, as I work into and through both years of my work, and my mother's. So... while on the surface it looks like little is being accomplished, as done, I can pull up any document in my library, to check a detail or move into a new line of research. Lots still to go through, but what is done is lovely.