May 2009 Archives
Within sight from the Peters homestead at Mariaville, just across the road to the east and a wee bit south, was the Anderson place. My Ellingson cousins probably remember them better than I do, having spent summers there with our Koftan grandparents, though I do remember the names Harl and Mable.
I wonder if this photo of Harl is his high school picture.
This little photo is of "Harl and Mabel and Zella," though I cannot swear Zella is an Anderson because of the wonderful family photo following. Anyone counting can see another male and another female aren't identified, nor can I know which are the three named. Black stockings and high-tops.
I have no excuse to include these except for local color, but I love the old photos anyway on their thick cardboard, many, including family photos, made as postcards. Three bridge shots:
Anyone having Google Earth can look down on present-day Carns, reduced to a farmstead near the Niobrara River. According to Great Aunt Margaret/Babe Koftan Langhammer, the Joseph and Frances Hlinovsky Koftan ranch/farm was north of Bassett, not close to Newport as the Peters homestead was.
The last seems timely, given that my favorite animal is now the target of despicable hunters again. "Wolf hunt in Rock Co. near Mariaville 1908." (I am not convinced wolves still existed in Nebraska by that date.)
The entry of 2007.11.26 shows this rural chapel that visitors on Interstate 80 below it to the west may have wondered about because of its deliberate farm-building design, albeit all glass on a timber skeleton. This year on Good Friday a huge crucifix was planted on the northwest-southeast axis north of the shrine, facing the Interstate and, in the distance, Gretna. I'll include the directions again, simply turning off at Nebraska Crossing and the big truck stop there, going south of the truck stop two miles, then right on gravel a mile to the small parking-lot entrance. As I've commented before, the place is whatever the weather is, no heat, no air-conditioning. The Roman Catholics have Saturday masses there, but it is open to all faiths (I'm of the Buddhist persuasion myself now).
Going west on the gravel road, one sees the shrine this way in mid-April.
Left shows how it overlooks Interstate 80, Gretna in the distance. Right shows its axis with the shrine. The woman at right and below, also taking photos, is admittedly short but does give scale to the size, enough to make me dizzy looking up at it.
Earlier in an entry on Nellie and John, I had photos of Myrtle with baby Mervin and wondered where one was with Nellie, besides the one with her mother when he was a small baby. Here it is, undated.
The oldest photo I have, besides the one of The Reverend George F. Twigg, is a genuine tintype. Ryan's scanner was good enough to capture the image through plasticene.
I'm having editing problems so will simply show the page with Great Great Great Grandfather Twigg on it, a curious kind of photo that looks more like a copy.
And another mystery is this, labelled simply "Baby Ruth."
I earlier posted a Luckert family tree and have since discovered two Koftan drawings and one for the Peters. They are necessarily done in sections, the branches and stumps sprawling across big pieces of butcher paper or, in the first case here, a large piece of Grandma Fern Koftan's wallpaper, a dusty rose pink with an intricate rose pattern, and I'm not sure but what she penned it with the h. for husband and w. for wife and many unmarried who are now grandparents. Reconstruction simply means printing out the pieces and taping them together.
Some of the stump names may be found in the Tyndall cemetery photos, such as Vincent and Nora. The stumps are brothers and sisters of Great Grandfather Joseph Koftan.
Likewise, the stumps at the right are the sisters of Great Grandmother Frances Hlinovsky Koftan.
From the writing, these two would seem to be Velma's.
The Peters tree follows.
Just for this summer, adjoining the Model Railroad Garden on the south, is the wonderful international set of world-famous structures. Obviously, I saw them in their first week, their hillside still brown. The whole looks like this, in halves.
Some are historical, including two of the ancient seven wonders of the world, the Great Pyramid of Khufu with the Sphinx and the Pharos/Lighthouse of Alexandria, Egypt.
Some are simply ancient, such as one I've longed to see before I die, the Incan Machu Picchu in Peru, the portion here with the Temple of the Sun, and then the tallest pyramid of Mayan Tikal in Guatemala.
Other ancient structures include the mysterious Moai of Easter Island, almost like small afterthoughts here, given how gigantic the originals are, and the Great Wall of China.
Everyone recognizes what is often considered the most beautiful building in the world, the gem-studded tomb built by Emperor Shah Jihan for his favorite wife and himself on the riverbank at Agra, India, the Taj Mahal, though few know of the sacred Buddhist Boudhanatyh Stupa, equally exotic, in Kathmandu, Nepal.
Few know of the hidden beauty of Petra, Jordan, carved into rosy sandstone cliffs, the Treasury done in some detail here.
Most people have seen the Byzantine Hagia Sophia, one of the world's greatest churches/mosques, in Istanbul in movies, a fine version here.
My favorite is the popular Japanese tourist site, White Castle/Himeji Castle, with its famous ground plan of a maze and dead ends to trap enemies, featured in, notably, Kurosawa's Kagemusha and Ran, also in Richard Chamberlain's Shogun and Tom Cruise's The Last Samurai. All the structures are marvels of natural materials, clearly evident in any close-ups, but the use of bamboo for the roof tiles on this castle keeps me revisiting it.
And everyone recognizes the Parisian signature piece, which will be a wonder in itself if it survives Omaha's winds and thunderstorms.
Although a corner was badly chewed by mice (?), one of the more interesting family mementos is [Great] Uncle Glenn's 1911 Commencement Program from Medical School at Creighton University here in Omaha. It speaks for itself, but I should add that the covers are paper suede meant to be touched. I did not copy all the pages. The program is 5" by 6 1/2".
Founded through endowment by the widow of wealthy businessman, John Creighton, in 1878, Creighton University is a Jesuit school and major Omaha institution, sitting on the north side of downtown. Its medical school began in 1892, law in 1904, dentistry and pharmacy in 1905. It is consistently ranked very high academically by surveys such as the U.S. News & World Report, its law graduates are the "good ol' boys" of Omaha attorneys, and its athletes often win Missouri Valley titles, especially in basketball, baseball, and softball, making it a strong competitor of the UNL Cornhuskers in a nonleague Interstate 80 rivalry. Huge crowds when the two play each other.
Mildred Peters (b. 12 December 1910) was the youngest of the Charles Peters family (brother to Great Grandfather Edward LeRoy Peters), hence a cousin to Glen, Fern, Nellie, Myrtle, and Forrest. She was the last of that family to correspond with me, sending me some old family photos previously entered here. Hers is one of the very few old high school announcements of some elegance, as shown here. The colors are browns, the pseudo-brocade inside of the envelope gold with a brown squiggly pattern, the announcement opening like a book, her card folding down. The envelope is 5 3/8" wide, 3 1/4" high.
JaVee had these done, borrowing them from Evelyn Davids, I think. I couldn't find mine, but Sue was down for a meeting, and I quickly scanned hers (thanks yet again to Ryan's generosity). Grandpa and Grandma Luckert look very young. They were married St. Patrick's Day, 1895, at Morrillville. He was 22; she was 20.
From about the middle of March through the middle of April, I was battling the worst virus invader I've yet encountered. It won, and I had to call Geeks, a tech spending a morning to disinfect me. I just want to warn you, even if I fear mentioning the details will cause a recurrence. It alleged to be a Microsoft update, mainly with two colored pop-ups (the only ones my pop-up blocker didn't/couldn't stop), one claiming a set number of intruders, which number remained the same throughout the infection, the other demanding $99.95 for a security update. A third white pop-up interfered with every search, asking if I really trusted the site I was looking for. I could not find the program name in my Add/Remove file list. Each week it added another logo icon on my screen. The pop-ups increased in frequency until I could no longer search or, rarely, when I managed, I got weird results. The Geeks tech said it's one of the worst they have to combat. In fact he lamented I had let it go for so long, trying to fix the problem myself. He also had to go in before I was infected in order to get it all (some cancer!). Neither my McAfee nor my AdAware protected me. I have been very leery since; but, with the new system he installed, I feel much less vulnerable. So I am going to resume my entries. If you should be struck with such a virus, don't waste time. Call your computer tech immediately!
