Friday's Faces From the Past: Chicken Pox, George Washington, and Math Awards - Eric in the Spring of 1996

Eric with the chicken pox and with our bare-eyed cockatoo Genius, last week of March, 1996.

There's a story behind the weird title of this post.

My son Eric is about to start graduate school (brag time:  where he received a teaching assistantship and a tuition waiver, by the way, AND he was accepted into four other programs).  He has to fill out a health form and provide proof of immunity for, among other things, chicken pox.

My son was born before the chicken pox vaccine came out.  I was pretty sure he'd had chicken pox in fourth grade, but the form required an exact DATE.  Month, day, year.  So, I scrambled around looking for something with that information

I knew I had a photo of Eric with the chicken pox.  Sure enough, I found it.  Unfortunately, I had committed a mortal sin for family historians - I did not write any information on the back of the photo.

Some years ago, I put all my family photos into photo-safe albums in chronological order.  Other events pictured before and after this photo told me it was indeed in the fourth grade, most likely in the spring.  I also knew, from my Christmas newsletter from 1995, that we had acquired our pet bird Genius in July 1995 - which again confirmed that this photo was in fourth grade.

I even save old calendars, but alas, I did not note his illness on the 1996 calendar I'd saved.  However, a little more digging through another file (mostly full of stuff I should have thrown away long ago) turned up this letter.  Note the date and the first sentence of the last paragraph:

Easter was April 7 that year.  I probably sent Easter cards to my brothers and sister-in-law, and Eric typed this letter (proofread by me) for me to include.  I now had a date for the onset of his chicken pox:  March 24, 1996!

I thought I'd include photos from a couple other events that Eric mentions in his letter.  At left, Eric is dressed as George Washington for the "Festival of the Famous," the culmination of a biography unit his class did that year.  We found a lot of the stuff he is wearing at thrift stores.  I turned a pair of dress pants with holes in the knees into knee breeches.

And below is a (not very good) picture of Eric with his first place trophy from the Math Olympiads - rather fitting, since he majored in history and mathematics as an undergraduate, and is about to go off to study applied financial mathematics at the University of Connecticut.

And - his birthday is tomorrow!  Happy birthday, Eric!


(And the moral of this story?

On the backs, in soft pencil or with a china marker--don't press down hard with either--WRITE the names of the people in your photographs, the location where it was taken, and the date it was taken!  You'll thank me later!)

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Those Places Thursday: St Andrews Hotel / Regency Apartments, Portland, Oregon: Another Ewald T. Pape Design

The Regency Apartments [May 25, 2012] / Aidan Wakely-Mulroney / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

What is today's (since at least August 1977) Regency Apartments at Broadway and Columbia Streets in downtown Portland, Oregon, was originally the St. Andrews Hotel, built in 1926.  The articles below, from the October 10, 1926 (at left),  and November 14, 1926 (at right), Portland Oregonian, detail the progress on the construction of the five-story residential hotel.  Note that the last sentence of each article states that the plans were designed by E. T. (Ewald Theodore) Pape, my noted architect relative.

The earliest photograph I could find of the hotel was from August 3, 1947, when it was nearing the end of its life as the St. Andrews.  In July and August of 1949, it quietly became the Hungerford Hotel.

Hungerford Hotel (formerly St. Andrews), Portland, Oregon, 1962 postcard

The hotel was operated by the Hungerford family (which also had a hotel by the same name in Seattle) through the 1950s.  In 1963, it was sold twice.  It retained the Hungerford name for a while, but by December 1966, it had become the Highlander Inn Motor Hotel, and was placed in receivership.  By August 1977, it had become the Regency Apartments.

I found information about the hotel's history thanks to my subscription to GenealogyBank, which includes a number of historic newspapers, such as the Portland Oregonian.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Tombstone Tuesday: O. Richard Pape, 1898-1972

photo courtesy WPO Patti, Find A Grave contributor 46588659.  Used with permission.

This is the tombstone for my great uncle Dick (Otto Richard) Pape, in Section C, Lot 16, Space 1 of Calvary Cemetery in Hot Springs, Arkansas.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: Family Photo, Early 1964

Pape-Guokas Family, early 1964
Adults from left: Fred Pape, Barbara Glaze Guokas, Sister Rita (Alice) Malone, Sara Wolfe Guokas Archibald, Sister Jean Marie (Jo Ann) Guokas, Geraldine Guokas Pape, Charles Guokas III.  Kids from left: Mark, Amanda, Karen & Brian Pape

I brought home a number of photos to scan after visiting my parents a few weeks ago, and this is one I especially like.  It shows my grandmother, Sara Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997), with her three children, their spouses, and four of her five grandchildren.  My youngest sister, Mary, is not yet born, yet Mom does not look too pregnant with her, and based on the size of brother Brian, I think this photo was taken in the first half of 1964, probably late spring or early summer.

This photo has two people who haven't been pictured in my blog before.  Barbara Ann Glaze (1934-1980) was my Uncle Charles Guokas' (1927-1999) first wife.  She was born in Tyler, Texas, on May 7, 1934, the daughter of Frank Glaze and Fairy Belle Baker.  She married Charles in 1962.  They had no children, and Barbara passed away from cancer on March 25, 1980.  She is buried at Rose Hill Cemetery in Tyler.

Sister Rita Malone (who has her arms around me in the photo) was born Alice Mary Malone about 1898 in Ireland, the daughter of John Malone of Belline, Piltown, County Kilkenny.  A teacher, she arrived in New York City on the Celtic from Liverpool, England, on May 27, 1921, bound for the Incarnate Word Convent in Houston, Texas.  She became a naturalized citizen sometime before 1930.  She served at St. Joseph's Catholic School in Bryan, Texas, with my aunt, Sister Jean Marie Guokas, in the early 1950s.  She was present at many of our family gatherings in the 1960s.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday's Faces from the Past: Clara, Lee, Martha, Rhea, and Dick Pape

This is a photo, sent by my second cousin Debby, of five of my paternal grandfather's six siblings.  Because of the clothing some of them are wearing, I know it was taken the same day as another photo that includes my grandfather, who died first among his siblings, in April 1970, so I know the photograph was taken before then.

Seated in the top row are Clara M. Pape (1889-1975),  Leo John "Lee" Pape (1893-1979), and Martha Elisabeth Pape Bleidt (1890-1981). Seated in front are Rhea Maria Pape (1892-1977) and Otto Richard "Dick" Pape (1898-1972).  Uncle Dick is the only one of these I haven't written much about, so here is what little I know of him.

Otto Richard Pape was born, probably in Evanston, Illinois, on October 29, 1898, the sixth child and third son of John and Gertrude Kramer Pape.  He was baptized Otto Joseph on November 13, 1898, at St. Nicholas Catholic Church in Evanston. He received his First Communion and was confirmed in this same parish, on April 22, 1911, and September 24, 1911, respectively.  Otto took Aloysius as his confirmation name.

My dad described Uncle Dick as the "black sheep" of the family, but perhaps "free spirit" would be a better term.  I thought it strange that a photo from December 1918/January 1919 of his parents and three brothers in uniform did not include him.

Imagine my surprise when I found a World War I draft registration card (dated September 12, 1918) for him - that indicated he was a farmer living in New Leipzig, North Dakota!  The date of birth matches, and he also lists his nearest relative as his father, John Pape - although he also indicated John lived in New Leipzig. 

On the 1920 Census, Otto Richard is still in Grant County, North Dakota, still a farmer, in Delabarre township.  But by 1925, he appears in the Evanston city directory again, at the family home at 1043 Sherman Avenue, with his widower father and also-unmarried siblings Clara, Lee, and Walter.

On the 1930 Census, Richard (as he now calls himself) lives in an apartment at 6319 North Sacramento Avenue in Chicago with his single siblings Rhea and Walter.  He works as a shipping clerk.  On the 1940 Census, he is living with his widower father John and younger brother Walter in an apartment at 3648 N. Hoyne in Chicago.  He works as a stock clerk and only has a 7th grade education (Walter finished two years of high school, the other siblings all graduated from high school, and Lee went to college).  Perhaps this has something to do with the "black sheep" label.

The next record I have of Uncle Dick is for his death, which occurred February 17, 1972, in Hot Springs, Arkansas.  He was living in a nursing home there at his death.  He is buried in Calvary Cemetery there.  My dad has no idea what Uncle Dick was doing in Hot Springs at this time.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Wordless Wednesday: Charles Peter Guokas Jr., ABT 1915

My maternal grandfather, Charles Peter Guokas Jr. (1903-1997), pictured with the family cow outside their home at 1717 Shearn in Houston, Texas.  He looks to be about 12 here, so I think this is about 1915.  I believe this view is looking south, towards the house behind them at 1720 Crockett.  That house was a one-story dwelling, according to Sanborn maps from 1907 and 1924.  The roofs of houses to the west along Sabine street (1717 Shearn was at the southeast corner of Shearn and Sabine) can be seen on the right.


© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Tech Tuesday's Tip: Making Timelines with TimelineJS - John Pape, 1851-1945

I made my first timeline with TimelineJS using my blog posts on Saturday, and I just can't get over how easy it is!  So easy, that I made another one today, this time on my paternal great-grandfather:


This was pretty easy to do. You start with a Google Drive spreadsheet. TimelineJS has a template you can download. Here is how part of mine looked:

There are columns for dates (start and end), a headline and text, whatever media you are linking to, captions and credits, and thumbnails for the media, slide type (such as the title slide), and tags (you can have up to six).  The media can be can be a link to a YouTube, Vimeo, SoundCloud, Dailymotion, Instagram, Twitter (pic or status), Google+ status, Wikipedia, Flickr, Google Maps and Docs, Vine, or an image (such as one in a blog post).  You can also put a quotation in as media, too, with the HTML blockquote tags.

I'm using the media caption slide to create a link to my blog posts.  Only the start date and headline are required fields. I may experiment with tags (which can be used to create categories within the timeline) later.

Once you have your spreadsheet set up, the next step is to publish the spreadsheet to the web.  You want to make sure to check the box next to “Automatically republish when changes are made.” This way, you can add events (from later blog posts, for example) to the spreadsheet later, and the timeline will automatically be uploaded.

Step 2 produces a URL that you then paste into the designated box on Step 3 of the TimelineJS website.  There are some options you can choose from (different font combinations, for example, or for code for a Wordpress.org blog - note that TimelineJS won't work on blogs hosted on Wordpress.com). You then grab the embed code and paste it in your blog or website - and you have a beautiful timeline!

I like this so much, I have set up a separate Timelines page on this blog, to store all my timelines!




© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Matrilineal Monday: Mom, early 1929

This is my mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape, probably in early 1929.  According to the 1928 (and 1929) Houston [Texas] City Directory, her parents, Charles Peter Guokas Jr. (1903-1967) and Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997), were living at 2215 Shearn.  In the 1928 directory, Charles' occupation is listed as "collr" (collector) for the Pittsburg Water Heater Company.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: Charles Guokas Jr. and III in Washington, DC

I'm not completely sure when the photograph below, of my maternal grandfather, Charles Peter Guokas Jr. (1903-1967), and his son, my uncle, Charles Guokas III (1927-1999), was taken, but I am pretty sure it was April, 1967.  The color photograph, rather faded today, was square (before I cropped it slightly), and cameras using 126 mm. film that produced these square images was rather common then - I had a camera using such film myself at that time.  I know the photograph was not taken any later than this time.  My grandfather was a lifelong Texan and Democrat, and had actively campaigned to get John F. Kennedy elected president (and Lyndon B. Johnson of Texas elected vice-president), back in 1960.  I don't know whether my grandfather and uncle were visiting Washington, DC, for a particular political reason at this time, or just for fun.

Charles Guokas Jr. and Charles Guokas III in front of the White House in Washington, DC, April 1967

The picture below is dated April 28, 1967.  The man on the far right is Nicholas Katzenbach, then Under Secretary of State in the Lyndon B. Johnson administration.  Three weeks after this picture was taken, Charles Guokas Jr. passed away, rather suddenly, at age 63, in Houston, Texas, on May 18, 1967, from cardiovascular disease.  Charles Guokas III died in Tyler, Texas, on May 27, 1999, at age 72.  Mr. Katzenbach, who had quite an illustrious career, died just last year, on May 8, 2012, at age 90.

Charles Guokas Jr., Charles Guokas III, and Nicholas Katzenbach, Washington, DC, April 28, 1967

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Using TimelineJS to Make a Timeline About My Grandfather

Check this out....use the arrows in the image area to move, or click on items in the timeline below it. I created this using TimelineJS. I learned about it during the Amigos [Library Services] 2013 Member Conference, held last week, in a session called "Getting Digi With It" by Caroline Castillo and Jeanette Sewell of the Houston Metropolitan Research Center of the Houston Public Library.  They use it to create timelines with primary source materials and oral history recordings from the Houston Area Digital Archives.

Once I saw this, I knew I had to try it out here on my family history blog!  I think I'm going to have to create a separate page on this blog just to store all the timelines I plan to make!

Making a timeline was quite easy - Jeanette has a Prezi that outlines the steps.   Basically, each line of a Google Drive spreadsheet (a template is provided on the TimelineJS site) is an event, with date, description, links to media (images, videos, Google maps, etc.).  This is published to the web, and then the spreadsheet's link can be copied and pasted into the TimelineJS Embed Generator. This creates a timeline that can be embedded into blog posts or on a website

The timeline above includes a placeholder for a future post, and I'm sure I'll add other posts about my grandfather to it down the line.  It's easy to make changes; you just edit the Google spreadsheet.  I've added links to the relevant blog posts as captions for each image.


















© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Friday's Faces from the Past: Agnes Verna Guokas, circa 1910

This is my great aunt Agnes "Aggie" Verna Guokas Payne (1905-1974) on a donkey, probably around 1910, and probably near the Guokas family home at 1717 Shearn in Houston, Texas.

Aggie was born October 11, 1905, perhaps at 1314 Railroad in Houston, which was the Guokas family address through 1907.  She is the fourth child born to my great-grandmother, Elizabeth (Elžbieta) Banevich (Benevičiūtė, 1875–1929).

In the 1920-21 Morrison & Fourmy Houston City Directory, on page 686, 15-year-old Aggie is listed as a student at Massey Business College. By 1925, Aggie is married.  In the 1925 Houston city directory, she and her husband, Milton Clyde "Jack" Payne (1904-1991) are rooming at 2215 Shearn, also owned by Aggie's father, my great-grandfather Charles Peter Guokas Sr. (1863-1939).

By 1929, Aggie and Jack are living in their own home at 2215 Quenby in Houston, where they will live for at least the next 13 years.  In the 1929 city directory, Aggie is a stenographer for J. C. Leonard, a bond and mortgage company, and she continues in this job through at least 1935.

In 1937, Aggie and Jack's only child, daughter Laura Lee, is born.  Also at this time, they own a piece of property out near Alief, Texas, where they keep a horse. 

Aggie and Jack are in the 1951 Houston city directory living at 105 N. Haywood Dr., but sometime between then and 1958, they were divorced.  My mother thinks this happened before my parents married in 1954, as she remembers Aggie hosting a shower for her.  The 1958 Houston city directory shows Jack still living on Haywood, while Aggie has a separate listing at 3103 Roe Dr.  She is office manager for Continental Trailways Bus System.  An article in the Daily Court Review from February, 19, 1953, shows Aggie obtained this piece of property (Lot 38, Block 3, Roe subdivision) via a deed of trust on January 30, 1953, so perhaps the divorce occurred around then.

My mother says Laura Lee was interested in competitive swimming, so sometime in the late 1950s (apparently after 1958), Aggie and Laura Lee moved to California.  Aggie lived the rest of her life in San Pedro, and died there on July 28, 1974.  According to my mother, she is buried in Houston.  She had a double plot at a cemetery and her brother Roy Lee Guokas (1917-1959) is also buried there.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

(Not-So) Wordless Wednesday: Mom's First Communion Class, probably 1936-37

I believe the photo above was taken in 1936-37, when Mom (Geraldine Margaret Guokas) was in third grade and her older brother Charles Peter Guokas III (1927-1999) was in fourth grade.  She and Charles had attended public school the year before, and Charles must have missed First Communion preparations.  Thus, I now think this is their First Communion class.  

Below left is a closeup from the photo, showing Gerrie and Charles.  Below right is Gerrie's report card from third grade.



© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Sentimental Sunday: Happy Mother's Day, Mom!

 My mom, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape, and me, 1957, probably in Chicago, Illinois.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Wordless Wednesday: Gerrie, Charlie, and Jo Ann, early 1930s

My mother and her two siblings, sometime in the early 1930s.  My aunt recently gave this photo to my mother.  I'm going to see about having it professionally restored.

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Church Record Sunday Obituary - Lorenz Pape, March 1932, Wisconsin

The March 25, 1932, Wisconsin Rapids Daily Tribune had the brief obituary at left on page 3 for my great grand uncle Lorenz Pape (1862-1932).  He died at the home of his daughter Mary Walter (not Walters) in Nekoosa, Wisconsin, on March 24, 1932, which was Holy Thursday that year (meaning the obituary was published on Good Friday).  According to the records of Sacred Heart Catholic Church in Nekoosa (in book 7), Lorenz (whose name was spelled as Leonard in the church records) was apparently buried on Easter Sunday, March 27, 1932, in Sacred Heart Cemetery (now part of Riverside Cemetery in Nekoosa). 

I was able to obtain a list of tombstone transcriptions for this cemetery through April 1976,  from the McMillan Memorial Library in Wisconsin Rapids.  Lorenz Pape and his daughters Mary Pape Walter and Petronella "Nellie" Pape Arendt are all buried there.  Lorenz is in Section E, row 2, right next to the Walter plot that has Mary's husband Herman, who died October 24, 1931.  Lorenz's tombstone says: "PAPE-Father Lorenz-1862-1932"

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.

Wordless Wedding Wednesday: Sara Melzina Wolfe & Charles Peter Guokas Jr., 1926

 

My maternal grandparents, Sara Melzina Wolfe (Guokas Archibald, 1907-1997) and Charles Peter Guokas Jr. (1903-1967) on their wedding day, July 10, 1926.  The photo is embossed "Keystone Studio" in the lower left hand corner.  According to an article on page 2 of the February 26, 1926, Rice Institute (now University) Thresher student newspaper (Vol. 11, No. 19, Ed. 1), "The Keystone studio is located on the second floor of the Keystone building, corner Texas avenue and San Jacinto street" in Houston, Texas.  More than likely, they had their wedding portrait made at this studio shortly after the wedding at St. Joseph Catholic Church, and perhaps boarded the Galveston - Houston Electric Railway at nearby Union Station (now Minute Maid Park) to head to Galveston for their honeymoon at the Hotel Galvez.  The photo is signed, "With Love, Melzina and Charlie."

© Amanda Pape - 2013 - click here to e-mail me.