Mary May Delk Diary 1933-1937

January 12th, 2011 § Comments Off on Mary May Delk Diary 1933-1937 § permalink

I have started to post pages of my great-aunt’s diary, located here. So far I have the month of January for all four years posted. This time span covers the birth of my father and his brother, plus a few family deaths and her teaching job in Stringtown, Iowa, near Lamoni and Davis City, Iowa. This, and all of her other diaries are important on several levels. One, it gives a general picture of what life was like during the Great Depression. On another level, it gives a glimpse of what the Delk family was up to, from Martha and Elmer’s health to what jobs Mary’s brothers were doing during that time period. It also shows that they ate a lot of pies, canned quarts upon quarts of fruits and veggies and ran a flower business. I have not transcribed the diary yet, but if someone would like to index the names of not just family members, but friends and customers, that would be helpful for people who are searching for relatives that lived in the area.

I have everything scanned, so it will be just a matter of me getting the html done and posted. As always, look forward to any comments.

Brian

Mary Delk

December 10th, 2010 § Comments Off on Mary Delk § permalink

Last month my Aunt, affectionately known as “Aunt Mary Who,” passed away. I have included a link to her obituary on her page. I have scanned a few documents and photos and will post those shortly.

He’s making a list, and checking it twice.

December 6th, 2010 § Comments Off on He’s making a list, and checking it twice. § permalink

Which is what I should learn to do. I was given four cloth samples from Martha Maitlen. I only posted three. The fourth one is now posted and can be seen here. I must say, the story of how Martha and Elmer met should be told, especially after looking at the swatches of dresses that Martha saved along with notes for each one. Look at the dates. First date with Elmer, April 6th, engaged four days later, and married two months later. How well did they know each other before dating? Since they were first cousins, what did their parents, who were brother and sister, think? And, we know that Elmer’s brother Fernandis Orien, had been in communication with Martha before the marriage because of the letters that Martha had saved. Could he have gotten them together? Just speculation. Will post more soon.

Brian

More mini bio’s

November 15th, 2010 § Comments Off on More mini bio’s § permalink

I have added mini bio’s to all of Ethelred’s children. Hopefully all are correct. If not please contact me via the comments section or at delkbrian@earthlink.net. I am really interested in where everyone is buried at and if you have photos of tombstones that I can post please include them.

Brian

Family First, Website Second

November 9th, 2010 § Comments Off on Family First, Website Second § permalink

The thing about maintaining a website is that it takes time and time away from family. So instead of working with relatives of the past, I figured I would spend time with my own family. It would be sad not to participate in your own family’s life because you were too busy researching and writing about relatives of a bygone era. But not all is lost, the living have to sleep sometime and genealogist don’t. So, I have started to add mini-biographies to the direct descendants of Ethelred; I did however start with John’s family. Let me say this, I am taking the information from a program that I have not updated in ten years. Some of it may be incorrect. But please comment and let me know what is wrong or what I can add so everyone is one the same page.

Brian

Martha Maitlen

September 27th, 2010 § Comments Off on Martha Maitlen § permalink

I have come to the conclusion that interacting with history comes in three forms. There is the form of online or the old fashion book research, looking at documents that others have made available to the public, knowing that something exist, that is tangible, but not actually being able to touch and feel the history. There is the museum experience, where you see the document or the photograph, just out of reach, but a more personable and enjoyable experience. Then there is the best experience of all, actually handling the material and being able to present it to everyone.

On Martha Maitlen’s page, I have added a new category, Cloth Swatches. This page is exciting because I am able to present a glimpse into Martha’s life and life in general in 1892. She wrote down everything, the dates, times, occasion. Take a look, especially at her hand written notes. And enjoy.

Document update

August 3rd, 2010 § Comments Off on Document update § permalink

Just added about ten Documents for Elmer, almost all of them are State licenses for operating his store. Also, obituaries for his Aunt or mother-in-law, depends on how you look at it since he married his 1st cousin, which is stated on the back of one of the obituaries. Thomas Maitlen is also updated with his obituary, which includes his life story.

As always, let me know what you think.

Brian

Document updates

August 2nd, 2010 § Comments Off on Document updates § permalink

I have updated some documents, most notably some newspaper clippings about Warren and Bob. There are also some photo updates of Sarah (Delk) Maitlen and family. One major change is that I am starting to post photos and documents as jpegs rather than png files. The reason is because I like to use metadata to tag all of my scans, and for some reason beyond my knowledge, png files do not keep the metadata given to them. Will anyone notice? Maybe. But that is because the file size has been cut in half, so faster loading times of the files. On the other hand, the file data is going from 16 bit to 8 bit. That only makes a big difference on the editing side, not the viewing side, so it is a win-win for everyone.

In other update news, I need to hold off scanning for a while until my computer that I use to scan with can be replaced. This will allow me to catch up and post every thing that has been scanned so far and it will allow me to post more letters.

Until then, enjoy the summer.
Brian

Charles Wesley Delk

July 24th, 2010 § Comments Off on Charles Wesley Delk § permalink

Charlie Delk, my grandfather, and his children have been added to the pull down menus. I was waiting for permission from the still living children, and now we are good to go. I have added 12 photos to Bernice (Butler) Delk, plus some documents of her’s. I am now working on adding more photos, plus some documents, which should be done before the end of next week. Brian

Back

July 20th, 2010 § Comments Off on Back § permalink

When working on one’s family history, it is always a good idea to make your own family history. So off to South Dakota we went. It was quite an adventure, with buffalo, winding roads, bumpy jeep rides and NO CELL PHONE SERVICE. I am starting to put some photos up on my Flickr page. There are only a few now, will put more up later this week.

By the end of this week I will have Charlie Delk’s family updated plus some more photos. Speaking of photos, I put this page together so you can see the condition of some of the photos and the process I go through after I scan them. As always, let me know if I can help out with any thing.

Brian

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