Back To Work

"I think," said Sandra Petersen as she opened her grandmother's autograph book, "I think I have the autograph of one of your family."  In fact, both George Paulson and his sister, Amy, had written in Hulda Hatterius's autograph book on February 4, 1903 in Olivia Texas.

Last year's research trip to Olivia, Texas was hugely productive; actually, almost "overwhelmingly" productive.  With the help of numerous people:  librarians, descendants of the families in the photographs, genealogists, local historians, newspaper reporters, court house employees, and cemetery association members,   my cousins and I tracked down all sorts of interesting bits and pieces of information.  We found new answers and new mysteries, confirmation of some information and new information that simply "muddied the waters."

Since then, using numerous resources (property tax lists, newspaper archives, university records, etc, etc, etc), we've continued to track down the stories and lives illustrated in these negatives.

Meanwhile,  "life outside the blog" was complicated in the last year by a death and the need to make 15 "memorial" quilt tops.  The result has been a temporary suspension of "blog posting".  Now the quilt tops are done, and its time to get back to regular posting in this blog.

In the next few months, you should expect to see the last of the Olivia Texas photos, along with some "rest of the story" postings. We'll also follow a member of the family, John Robert Swenson, up to Denton Texas with the help of research provided by Nancy Lussier. After that, we'll move (with the Paulson / Swenson families) up to Davenport, Iowa and take a look at middle class city life on Belle Avenue.