I Have A New Blog

This blog has been giving me troubles and was never very easy to use with my mac.  I have started a new blog at
http://mariannesmemories.weebly.com/whats-happening.html

Please visit that link and subscribe if you wish to follow what's happening with our family.

First Snow

We got almost a foot of snow for the first snow of the year.  It was very heavy and wet.

The trees in the back were dangerously loaded down with heavy snow.  The leaves had not fallen yet, so the heavy snow clung to the branches.  I had to take a long pole to knock the snow loose.  The branches didn't break and are slowly straightening up.

The frog was left on his rock and is wearing a tall hat of snow.  Once the pond freezes, hopefully I can walk out and get him.

Seattle Family Home

Kyle helped me get the picture off the phone.  The big trees on the curb were replaced by two ornamental maples and the apple and pear tree were removed.  It looked nice.

Seattle Trip

We stopped by our house in West Seattle.  Glad to see they were keeping it nice.  The deck that Curtis and his dad built looked very nice.  Neither of the younger boys had lived there, so it wasn't as exciting for them to see it. Also took a picture of the family home, but it's on the phone.  I have no idea how to get it off.  Maybe Kyle will help with that later.

 

We ate at a restaurant above Pike Place Market and enjoyed the view. 
There was a long line for the ferris wheel, but we didn't have time to do that.

One last stop on the way out of town.  Nice overcast weather all weekend, but no rain.  I enjoyed going "home".  Seeing all the places we used to go and the many changes that had taken place in West Seattle.

October Birthdays

 Adam turned 15.  His gifts included the Wii game "Are you smarter than a fifth grader?"  Two shirts and a new tie.

Brooklyn and Alleah came to help us celebrate.

Kyle turned 18 and got new basketball shoes and a Thrice cd.  He was fasting in preparation for receiving his patriarchal blessing the next afternoon, so we didn't have any cake or ice cream.

At the end of the week we flew to Seattle for 2 days with the boys to see the musical Wicked and visit with Ralph's family.  We went to dinner and the waiters sang happy birthday to him.  They were out of fried ice cream, but brought him flan instead.  Not as good in my opinion, but free.

Family History Miracle

    I found Edwin Samuel Kemmerer’s parents today.  In our Stake Conference we were encouraged again to find our own family names to take to the temple.  We have most of our immediate lines done except for those that go back before coming to America.  With our upcoming trip to Seattle I decided during the meeting today that we should go to the temple in Seattle to do baptisms.  I had found a family last year to do temple work for, but those names were almost complete now. 
    I opened my family history files on https://new.familysearch.org wondering who to look for.  I always go to Dad’s family, usually the Ross line.  I went down a line that I have been working on for years.  The Silvius line.  It was Martha M Silvius’ brothers and sisters that I found last year.  Her youngest sister, Minnie J Silvius was married to Edwin S Kemmerer.  I decided to try to find his parents. 
    Looking at the records it appeared that Minnie had died a month after delivering three baby girls Minnie, Marcia and Myrtle, all of which died within the next year.  Minnie had an older son that was 10 years old at his mother’s death.
    I began searching on https://familysearch.org/ looking through census records for the Kemmerer name.  There are millions of new names on this site because of all the indexing going on.  I found the 1900 Census first that listed Edwin and Minnie with their son Ralph born 1898, 2 years old at that time. 
    I needed to go earlier to find Edwin’s parents. I found him on the 1880 Census with several siblings, 13 years old and his parents were listed as Samuel and Sophia. That was very exciting, but I wanted to confirm that it was really him.  I saw that his sister Emma Werkheiser was living with them with a baby Edgar 10m. Emma was listed as Widowed.  I searched for another hour trying to find something more, putting in different names.  I finally tried looking for Emma Werkheiser and up popped the 1910 census that listed a Emana E Werkisin living with a Ralph Renner whose parents were Ed Renner and Ida M.  It said that Ed had been married twice and Ida just once.
    Not at all what I thought I was looking for, but as I looked at the actual image of the census I could see that it said Kemmerer as the last name and the head of the household was not Ed, but E S.  I have been doing indexing and arbitrating for years and it was clear to me.  I can’t fault the arbitrator too much, it was hard to discern.  I knew what I was looking for and I think Edwin wanted me to find it.  It seemed miraculous to me. 

    I searched the new.familysearch records to see if anyone had entered the family either under Kemmerer or Renner and found nothing.  I put in the family last night and printed the temple sheet to take it with us to Seattle. 
    This is the family as I believe it to be.

Samuel Kemmerer
Sophia
    1 Emma Kemmerer Werkheiser (husband unknown)
        Edgar Werkheiser
    2 Alice Kemmerer
    3 Malinda (twin)
    4 William (twin)
    5 Edwin Samuel
        Wife 1-Minnie J Silvius 1864-1903
            Ralph
            Minnie
            Myrtle
            Marcia
        Wife 2 -Ida M
            Harold S
            Robert A
            William
   6 Charles