Stories of family, creativity, and diverse distractions.

Author: Michelle Page 15 of 34

Happy birthday, Grandpa Link!

William John Link, Walt’s grandfather, was born on February 10, 1884, in West Point to Isadore and Teresa Kempker Link. He was born in the Kempker family home above the store as told in this post. The Links lived on a farm outside of West Point.

The birthday that almost snuck past us

So we were talking and realized that our blog had it’s second birthday! That’s right, we’ve been writing this blog for two years now! It has been an amazing ride and we are so glad you have all come along with us.

Restoring a Gerstner Tool Chest: Part Two

In part one of this set, I discussed how I acquired my Gerstner tool chest and the how I started the restoration process. I carefully taped over the hardware I couldn’t remove and cleaned the chest with Murphy’s Oil Soap and with a rag. I scrubbed it fairly hard to get all the dirt off. A bit of linseed oil to brought the shine back up on the chest.

Celebrating an anniversary of really shirttail relations

Sometimes it is easy to dive way, way too deep into the family history research. We’ve talked about shirt tail relations in a couple of other posts – here and here. Well, I think we may have found one of the most shirttail relations on the tree.

Restoring a Gerstner Tool Chest: Part One

A few years ago, Walt and I were at a model engineering show checking out the many cool engines and tools. There were a couple of dealers who had older Gerstner tool chests for sale. I managed to sweet talk one of them down in price a bit and walked away with a rough looking but solid tool chest – for my studio.

So who did Rhoda Hole marry?

In last week’s family history post, I talked about a relationship mix up for one of Walt’s great-great aunts. We had originally thought Rhoda had married a man named John Christy. Turns out that was another Rhoda Hole. So now we had to figure out who our Rhoda Hole had married.

Easy roast for dinner or sandwiches

As I mentioned in my post about cooking a turkey breast on the grill, we have found it is less expensive to cook up meat and then slice it for sandwiches rather than buy it at the deli. Here’s my easy roast recipe.

A good idea shot down with facts

I had originally planned to write about the anniversary of one of Walt’s great-great aunts, Rhoda Hole. Our information had her marrying John Christy on January 13, 1861. But it turned out not to be the case.

The family information we had told us that she was John Swisher Hole’s younger sister, born in 1846. The notes also mentioned that she had been married twice, the second time to someone with the last name of Monroe, but that was all the information we had.

Using Online Genealogy Services as Research Sources

You most likely noticed that there have been a bunch of documents showing up on the blog lately – census reports, marriage certificates and the like. We have a temporary subscription to Ancestry© and I have been using it to gather information.  Using an online genealogy service like Ancestry© has the potential to provide huge amounts of information. They have family trees, census records, marriage records and other resources located in one place.

Salsa Rojo – basic red sauce

We enjoy food from a variety of cultures, Indian, Asian, Italian, German, and Mexican. It’s always nice to make foods from scratch and I like this basic red sauce with tamales and enchiladas. I talked about cooking up meats for use in Mexican dishes in this post. I may do a post on making tamales at some point, but I will have to make them when Walt is home to help with pictures. Tamales are a three-handed operation at the best of times.

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