Reading of MAAGI and Sharpening My Own Focus

I've been a follower of my good friend and distant cousin-in-law's gen blog for several years now;  but yesterday, Yvette Porter Moore posted to her newly formatted blog, The Ancestors Have Spoken because of a challenge she had received while attending the first Mid-Western African American Genealogy Institute in St. Louis, Missouri.

As I read of how she connected with a piece of her adopted father's past, my mood shifted to melancholy and I began thinking about my platform....and my Daddy. My dad died of metastatic optic melanoma in 2004. During his four-year battle, we enjoyed many times when we could just talk about the things on our hearts. We covered everything from writing, photography & painting to the Bible.

After his death, I inherited his photograph studies of trees, sky, water, rocks and the like. Some are prints, but there were also volumes and volumes of 35 mm slides. So yesterday I pulled that tote from my family archive, which is now housed within an armoire  kept in my office.

A Ride Along the Delaware

I sat down in the living room with the tote setting on the floor before me, and removed the black lid to find a stack of black and white photos right on top. As I sifted through them, I came across a color photo of my grandparents, Mark & Abby Silverman, at the wishing well...a photo I had searched for quite unsuccessfully some time before our move. But now, here it is.

The black and whites were from a study Dad had done on trees and water combined. He was a professional photographer and painter, and had taught art for over twenty years. How I remember going with him and Mom on family outings (I'm an only child), and having to wait for him to get just the right lighting and exposure on some of these photos! Trees had always been a favorite subject of my own, and as a young writing student, I had written several poems about trees.

And so, as I thought about my genealogy platform in light of working on my certification portfolio for the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG), I began to think about my professional presence. I chatted online and emailed Thomas MacEntee of High-Definition Genealogy (and probably more well known for his platform on GeneaBloggers) this week regarding establishing service fees and contractual releases for client work, and he was most helpful!

As I looked at my business cards, I began to think about letterhead, of all things. And even those include the theme of trees. One of the favorite poems Mom used to recite to me when I was a child was Joyce Kilmer's poem, Trees:

I think that I shall never see a poem lovely as a tree....

And so trees it is...and black and white to fit with the platform of cross-cultural studies. The photo in this blog header was taken by my Dad, Richard A. Newton, somewhere in New York State, sometime between the 1960s to the 1980s. And so, I've come full circle once again.

Thanks, Dad, for your love of trees....

Happy 56th Wedding Anniversary Mom & Dad

Set up on a blind date...

               ...it was love at first sight.

My parents' story is one of obstacles overcome...a testimony that true love does exist and that it can last until death do us part.

Richard Allen Newton was born on April 10, 1933 in Binghamton, NY to Francis & Harriet (JONES) NEWTON, their first-born. His father was the son of an English farmer of Binghamton, NY, and his mother the daughter of a Welsh coal miner of Scranton, PA.  Dad always said that it was his mother who had encouraged his talents by providing art instruction and drum lessons. About a year or so after his graduation from Johnson City High School, Dad enlisted as a Certified Regimental Drummer in the Air Force Drum and Bugle Corps. http://usafdrumcorps.us/pages/historymain.html

Doris Shirley Silverman was born on June 15, 1930 in Easton, PA to Mark & Abbie Simmons (KING) SILVERMAN, their first-born. Her father was the son of Orthodox Jewish immigrants from the Russian Empire (now Lithuania), and her mother was the daughter of English parents from Rhode Island. Her paternal great grandfathers, David Silverman (the first Cantor and acting Rabbi) and Wolf Weisfield were among the founders of Bnai Abraham Synagogue in Easton, PA. http://www.bnaiabraham.org/history.html Following graduation from Easton High School, Mom pursued her goal of becoming a career woman as a proofreader of technical journals at Mack Printing. 

Two of Mom's school chums had married, relocated, and were stationed at Bolling Air Force Base in Washington, DC, where my Dad was stationed. Dad and Donald became friends, and at their urging, Dad agreed to come home with them to Easton on their next furlough to meet a girl they thought would be just right for him. 

It was love at first sight.

When Dad went to her house to pick her up for their double date to the Boy Scout Jamboree, Mom said she thought he was so cute that she forgot her name! And Dad got so flustered that when my grandfather came in with the dry cleaning in his hand, he offered to take the garments from him, thinking he was the delivery man from the cleaners! In spite of their initial reactions...or perhaps because of them...they were soon to discover that their destiny was sealed.

When my grandfather found out that her beau was only 19-years-old, she being 2 years and 10 months older, he told them that they could no longer see each other until that young man was 21. He was afraid that the white slavery laws of the time might interfere with his daughter's well-being, and he wasn't taking any chances. Mom said, 

Dick was such a little guy, and Daddy was a big, strapping laborer who had worked hard all his life; but your Dad told him, "Mr. Silverman, I'm going to keep seeing your daughter until she tells me otherwise." So Daddy said that if we agreed that we could see each other in our living room

until your Dad turned 21.

So Dad would hitch-hike from D.C. to Easton every furlough he got just to spend time with Mom, and every date thereafter took place in her living room...with the exception of one anniversary dinner...and was chaperoned by her father.

There was just one more obstacle to overcome before they could be married. Although Dad was raised in a Baptist home and accepted Christ in the Primitive Methodist Church, in the service he had become a practicing Catholic [that's another story]. Mom agreed to convert to Catholicism, but when the priests told her that she would have to declare that the Catholic Church was the one true church and denounce her parents, she could not find it in her heart to do that. Dad asked her if she wanted him to become Jewish, and she said no. Ever since she was a child and had heard the song, Jesus Loves Me, she had wanted to know more about Him but never wanted to break her Daddy's heart. They decided to visit Wesley Methodist Church in Phillipsburg, NJ. Even her father liked the Reverand Mabry.

When Mom's friends and co-workers heard that she would be leaving her well-paid job at Mack Printing to move to Washington, DC, they thought she was crazy. But love will do things to you like that. 

And they lived happily ever after.

I'm not saying that there weren't difficult times ahead. They faced many obstacles together, but they were always content so long as they were together. 

Dad died two months before their 50th Wedding Anniversary of metastatic optic melanoma, yet the family history project continues. He is missed, but never forgotten. We love you, Dad! 

Happy 56th Wedding Anniversary!!!