Hazel’s Family Stories
Who (or what) were you named after? I was named for my paternal grandmother, Hazel Islery Clay Thornton, the “bathing beauty” on the cover of my book What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy. My mom was named for her maternal grandmother, and my dad was a Junior. Why are…
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Do you say, “Rabbit, rabbit,” for luck on the first day of the month? Have you heard others saying it (or seen them posting it on social media) and didn’t know why? Here’s how I remember it… Girl Scouts At Girl Scout camp, in 1970s Idaho, we had a tradition, on the first day of…
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Theme 1: Prologue This is a story about growing up with my mom and music. It’s easier for me to write about distant ancestors than it is to write about people I actually knew. Sometimes I get overwhelmed, partly because I know so much about them. I think: “I can’t include everything, but how can…
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Yikes! Witches? Really? Well, suspected and accused in court, yes! Convicted and hanged, thankfully not! . The Connecticut Witch Trials You’ve no doubt heard about the Salem Witch Trials in 1692-3 Massachusetts. But what about the Connecticut Witch Trials that predated them by 30 years? Yeah, me neither. The Salem trials were more numerous and…
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I finally did it! Did what? I figured out my relationship to Henry Clay, the 19th century American statesman. How? By finding our common ancestor. Once upon a time, my Grandma Clay told me we were related to Henry Clay, about whom I had learned in school. (That’s what we called my paternal great-grandmother Bettie…
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I grew up in a family of six, with my parents and three younger brothers. We had few relatives. Certainly none who lived nearby. My parents did not share family stories or photos. Not really. We enjoyed slide shows of our own family…
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(This story originally appeared in a Facebook Note on December 24, 2012.) Luminarias are a New Mexican Christmas Eve tradition with religious origins. (Scroll down to learn more.) They are also one of my favorite family holiday traditions. But… in the cemetery? Let me explain.
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UPDATE: Mystery solved! (scroll down) What do you think happened when I offered my mom’s good silverware to my niece, Vinca, as a wedding present? One never knows what will happen when you pass a family keepsake on to the next generation. Will they love it? Or, not so much? There’s only one way to…
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UPDATE #1: Mystery solved! (scroll down) UPDATE #2: I was so taken by my grandmother’s “bathing beauty” photograph that I used it on the cover of my 2021 book — What’s a Photo Without the Story? How to Create Your Family Legacy (click to learn more). The book is not about my family, per se,…
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I recently saw this example of white privilege: Ugh! That one really hit home. Genealogy research for the descendants of black slaves differs greatly from that of the descendants of their white owners. I knew, of course, that many African-Americans whose families have been here for a long time, and who want to trace…
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