Memories for Mother's Day

This isn't specifically a memory about Mother's Day, but it is a memory of my mom, and her mother, my maternal grandmother.  This photograph of Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997) with her daughter Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1929-2019) was taken in Fredericksburg, Texas, in September 1993.  Mom and Dad had moved into their new post-retirement home there (at 1003 Avenue A) just the month before, and over the course of a few days, both of my grandmothers, my maternal aunt, and all of my siblings came to visit them.  I flew down from my then-home in Lynnwood, Washington, for the same few days that overlapped with their visits.  

© Amanda Pape - 2026 - e-mail me!

Nineteen Years Ago Today - Texas Library Association Conference

Nineteen years ago, Mark went with me to the 2007 Texas Library Association Conference, held April 11-14 that year in San Antonio, Texas.  The only picture I have of the two of us together on this trip is this one, from the University of North Texas School of Library and Information Science (now the College of Information) Alumni dinner at the Tower of the Americas observation deck on April 12:

Above: Amanda Pape and Mark Gresham at the Tower of the Americas, San Antonio, Texas, April 12, 2007.  Photo by Poom Sunhachawi-Taylor, used with permission.

As I wrote in my (online)  LiveJournal, 

I had to work Tuesday night [April 10] and did not get home until 10:30 PM, so Breathless and I did not leave until 10 AM. ... The trip down (mostly on US 281) was lovely – lots of bluebonnets and other flowers. We met Mom and Dad for lunch in Marble Falls at the famous Blue Bonnet Café.

Breathless and I shared the Wednesday special, which was meat loaf. Not as good as my Mom’s, but pretty good. Shoulda gotten the pot roast that Dad had. Mom & Dad shared a piece of coconut pie (with whipped cream topping, as the meringues are HUGE at this restaurant), and Breathless and I shared a piece of peanut butter pie drizzled with chocolate sauce. Yum.

Above:  Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape, Amanda Pape, Frederick Henry Pape, outside the Blue Bonnet Cafe in Marble Falls, Texas, April 11, 2007.  Photo by Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0.

We got into San Antonio about four, so we stopped by the convention center first (parking - $8 – ouch!) to pick up our badges and other registration material. Registration would close at 4 and the badge was needed to ride the shuttle bus to the Welcome Party at 6:30 PM at the San Antonio Museum of Art, built in the old Lone Star Brewery. This was VERY nice. It had a fiesta theme and of course Tex-Mex food – chips and queso sauce, taco shells to make your own with beans, beef, guacamole, and salsa, and real tamales in corn husks. Piñatas and other colorful decorations hung from the live oaks and pecan trees on the grounds, and you could eat there or in the courtyard. A string ensemble played in the latter, and a samba band was inside along with Mexican dulces (desserts). The best part was having the run of the museum – we were only able to spend time in parts of the American and Latin American collections, which were awesome. Definitely a place to revisit.

Between stopping by the convention center and the Welcome Party, we of course checked into our hotel, La Mansion Del Rio, and a room with a River Walk view.

I attended a lot of sessions the next day, April 12.  I'm not quite sure what Mark did all day, but I wrote in my LiveJournal,

From 11:30 to 2, we did some more trolling through the exhibits and had lunch at Casa Rio on the River Walk (more Mexican food ... we ate here because Breathless was STARVING and he gets cranky when he is hungry, and it was the first restaurant we came to while walking from the convention center).

And...

Breathless met me in the Exhibit Hall for the "Rush Hour" from 4-5 pm, when the exhibitors also foot the bill for some snacks. ... this year all I could find was Fritos and peanuts, but some very yummy fudge brownies and blonde brownies [aka blondies] too. We bought a few books ... [and went to the] Alumni Dinner ... at 6:30 PM.

On Friday the 13th, I think Mark mostly hung around the hotel, while I went to lots of conference sessions.  But ...

Breathless and I had lunch at a restaurant just off the River Walk, in Rivercenter Mall, called Steers & Beers. We shared a hamburger and fries that was actually quite good and reasonably priced. We wandered around the mall a bit, buying some new CDs.

We had dinner with Breathless’ son [Drew] and son’s girlfriend [now wife Carolyn] at Joe’s Crab Shack on the River Walk. Yeah, a chain, but said son loves king crab legs, and the mojitos come in little plastic garbage cans. It was starting to sprinkle as we left the restaurant and walked back to the hotel, and son & girlfriend got away just before a big thunderstorm cut loose.

The conference ended Saturday April 14 at noon.  

[We] went to eat at the restaurant in the hotel, Las Canarias. We ate outside under a bright yellow umbrella and shared a bowl of their signature squash blossom roasted corn huitlacoche soup with crème fraiche (very good!), and some so-so quesadillas. Then it was off to Canyon Lake.

We stayed at the Rockin’ MJ Ranch Bed & Breakfast [now called Moe and Jo's Haus], a place we had originally planned to stay during our Spring Break vacation in March before Breathless got sick. It’s on the north side of Canyon Lake, not far from the Marina of the same name where Breathless’ son has moored the 22’ Catalina sailboat Breathless and I used to sail 25+ years ago in Corpus Christi. The plan was to go sailing on Sunday.

However, said son [Drew] had taken the boat out a couple weeks before and busted the outboard motor. He told us Friday night that was in pieces in his apartment, but he should be able to get it fixed in time. Alas, he called us Saturday night and that did not happen. Probably just as well, as it was too windy to sail on Saturday afternoon, and there was no wind AT ALL on Sunday, so we’ll have to try another time.

We ate dinner at Papa-Docks at the marina; the food and the view were marvelous ... The B&B ... location was really pretty ... we walked up to the pens to look at the baby Boer goats the owners raise, and were treated to a golf-cart ride over some of the 200+ acres to the top of 1000-foot Mount Baldy, which had an impressive view of the lake. 

There was also a nice patch of bluebonnets ... :

Above: Amanda Pape by a patch of bluebonnets outside Moe and Jo's Haus at Canyon Lake, Texas, April 15, 2007.  Photo by Mark Gresham / CC BY-NC-ND 4.0

© Amanda Pape - 2026 - e-mail me!

Happy Easter - in 1968!

My family at Easter in 1968, which was April 15 that year, probably in the backyard of the home of my maternal grandmother, Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997), at 1118 Bay Oaks in Houston, Texas.  Standing in back are my maternal aunt Sister Jean Marie Guokas (1930-2024), my mother Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019), and my father Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017).  In the middle are my sister Karen and me, and in front are my three youngest siblings, Mark, Brian, and Mary.  We girls are all wearing dresses Mom made for us.

© Amanda Pape - 2026 - e-mail me!

November 18, 2006: A Family Day

It's also not noted on either of our calendars from 2006, but apparently Mark and I attended THREE family events on Saturday, November 18, 2006.  Based on an e-mail to my ex-sister-in-law, we went to:

- Texas Stadium in Irving at 10 AM for a high school playoff game - we needed "to be there for halftime for sure and possibly after the game, as Mark's oldest granddaughter [Holly], a high school senior, plays trombone for the Allen High School marching band."

- a soccer tournament in Dallas that my youngest nephew Noah was playing in.  My brother Mark and his other two children, Nick and Mady, also attended, driving up from Austin. Based on the start times of the games, we were probably there near the end of game #2 (which started at 11:30am) or the beginning of game #3 (which started at 2:30pm).

 

 - "Someplace in Flower Mound at 3:45 PM for an all-star game for 11-year-old football players (Mark's twin grandsons, [Adam and Drew])."

Below:  Granddaughter Holly at the band competition - she played trombone.

Niece Mady (above) and brother Mark (below) at Noah's soccer tournament in Dallas.

Nephews Nick (above) and Noah (below) at the latter's soccer tournament in Dallas.

Above and below:  The twin grandsons, Adam and Nick (not sure which is which!) at their all-star football game.  Little brother and youngest grandson Luke is also in the photo below, as is Mark's daughter Kim.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Memories for Father's Day

This isn't specifically a memory about Father's Day, but it is a memory of my dad.  The photo below is from a visit from my parents when my children and I lived in Washington state, in October 1990.  My father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), and my daughter Diane, then about 19 months old, are at the Washington Park Arboretum in Seattle.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Memories for Mother's Day

This isn't specifically a memory about Mother's Day, but it is a memory of my mom, her sister, and their mother, my maternal grandmother.  I took the photograph below on a visit home to Houston, Texas (I was living and working in Corpus Christi at the time) on April 18, 1982.  From left to right are my grandmother Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald (1907-1997) and her daughters, my aunt Jo Ann (Sister Jean Marie) Guokas (1930-2024), and my mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2017).  

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Dad Would've Been 96 Today

My sister recently sent me various official documents pertaining to our parents.  She was the executor of their estates, but no longer needed these documents since the estates closed long ago. 

The documents included four related to the birth of our father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017).  I already had copies of three of these, but the first one pictured below was one I had never seen before.  It's a hospital birth certificate, which actually is not an "official" birth certificate, but it played a part in a change made nearly 64 years later.

By the way, I was also born at St. Francis Hospital in Evanston, Illinois, as were many of my first cousins who were also born in the north Chicago area.  I believe it was the only Catholic hospital on the north side of Chicago at the time.

Above:  Hospital birth certificate for Frederick Henry Pape, 4 February 1929

Below:  Original State of Illinois Certificate of Registration of Birth for Frederick John Pape, issued May 1930

Above is the original official state birth certificate, issued in May, 1930, over a year after my father's birth.  Note the middle name on it is John, not Henry.  John was the first name of my father's paternal grandfather, my great-grandfather, John Pape (1851-1945).  Frederick Henry was the full name of Dad's maternal grandfather, my great-grandfather Frederick Henry Massmann (1875-1948).

So what happened?  My father retired from his job in late 1992, and needed his birth certificate, either to apply for his pension, or Social Security, or both.  I'm not sure if he had both documents all along, or had to contact his mother, my paternal grandmother, Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000), to get one or both of these documents.

My grandmother wanted to name him for her father, and that's what she told whoever in the hospital filled out his hospital birth certificate.  Back then, remember, fathers were almost never in the delivery room.  However, I think my grandfather, Paul Robert Pape (1896-1970), was probably the one who filled out the paperwork submitted to the state for the official birth certificate, and named his second son for his two grandfathers.

It doesn't really matter what my father was "supposed" to be named.  He'd been Frederick Henry Pape in school records, military records, work records, his marriage record, and so on.  So Dad filled out the necessary paperwork (below) to get his birth certificate corrected.  Apparently, unlike here in Texas, he did not need an affidavit from someone else testifying to this correction - or if he did, we don't have a copy of it.  The document did have to be notarized, however.

Above:  State of Illinois Affidavit and Certificate of Correction for Frederick John/Henry Pape, submitted 23 January 1993

Below:  Reissued State of Illinois Certificate of Birth for Frederick Henry Pape, issued 3 February 1993

And above is the reissued birth certificate for my father, almost 64 years to the day after his birth.  I did get some new information from this document, that I did not have before - the address where my grandparents and their two oldest children, Paul Robert "Bob" Pape Jr. (1926-2008) and Elizabeth "Betty" Marie Pape Streff (1927-2017), were living at the time of Dad's birth.  I'd assumed it was their long-time home at 2093 W. Lunt in Chicago (where they were by the time the 1930 Census was taken) but instead it was nearby 2545 W. Coyle.

© Amanda Pape - 2025 - e-mail me!

Remembering Dad - It's Been Seven Years

Seven years ago, my father, Frederick Henry Pape, died rather suddenly at age 88.  It's the anniversary of the first of three family deaths that happened in NO-vember.  This photo was taken March 12, 2006, when I visited my parents at their post-retirement home in Fredericksburg, Texas.  Every time I visited, Dad would clean my windshield before I left.

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

70 Years Ago...

...my parents, Geraldine Margaret Guokas (1928-2019) and Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017) got married, September 11, 1954, at Annunciation Catholic Church in Houston, Texas.  This photo is from their reception at the Milford House.  The photo is by Kaye Marvins.

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

Memories for Father's Day

This isn't specifically a memory about Father's Day, but it is a memory of my dad.  The photo below is from a visit my parents made to our home in Redmond, Washington, in October 1990.  My father, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), is reading to his first two grandchildren, my son Eric (who's a little over age four in this photo) and my daughter Diane (who is about 19 months old here).  

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

Memories for Mother's Day

This isn't specifically a memory about Mother's Day, but it is a memory of my mom.  The photo below of my mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019), was taken sometime in early 1968, at Camp Robinwood near Willis, Texas.  My Junior Girl Scout troop had gone there for a weekend camping trip, and Mom came along to help.  I don't think camping was one of Mom's favorite things, but she did it anyway, to support me and my troop.

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

April 8, 2024: Eclipse Experience

The total solar eclipse on April 8, 2024, was a special one for me, as I got to spend it with my husband Mark and with my children, Eric (on the left) and Diane (on the right in the photo below, taken by Mark).

My husband and I are fortunate to live in the path of totality for the eclipse.  Despite pessimistic weather forecasts, we lucked out and had a beautiful blue sky day, with only a few high thin clouds, and warm-but-not-hot weather.

After a brunch of scrambled eggs, bacon, hash browns, and orange juice, the kids spread out old sheets in our backyard as totality approached. They wore eclipse glasses that my parents (their grandparents) had worn for the August 2017 partial eclipse in our state. This photo was taken at fifteen minutes to totality.

Here are a couple photos Diane took on her iPhone of the partial eclipse:

They also spent some time looking at the crescent-shaped shadows the eclipse made among tree leaf shadows.  Eric took the next two pictures at roughly the same spot, before and after totality - you can see how the direction of the crescent changes:

My husband has had three eye surgeries and has lost some vision in his right eye, so he chose not to wear eclipse glasses nor look at the sun during totality, instead enjoying the eerie darkness and peaceful quiet of two-plus minutes of totality from our back porch.  This was also my favorite part of the whole experience.

After the eclipse, the kids looked at some photos of their Finnish grandmother and her ancestors, that Diane had copied at their first-cousin-once-removed's home a few weeks earlier.

The night before, my kids got a kick out of some old furniture from their childhood that I still have in our house.  The kitchen table they grew up with is now my work table in the study. My parents bought it for me for my first apartment for grad school in 1979. They remarked on how small it was. Worked okay for two parents and two little kids 10 and under though.

The desk is the one my first Macintosh sat on in the living room when they were little.  (I'm probably going to sell this at an upcoming garage sale - they are both so tall that the desk is difficult to use, especially with a laptop.)  The chair is actually originally from Incarnate Word Academy in Houston, one of four my parents gave me to go around the kitchen table in 1979.

Diane was only able to spend a short time in Texas.  She flew into Houston on Saturday and rented a car to drive up here.  She was able to visit my 93-year-old aunt, her great aunt, Sister Jean Marie Guokas, on both Saturday and on Tuesday before she flew home.

Eric was able to fly to Dallas-Fort Worth on April 3 (to be here for my birthday the next day), and will be flying out of there this Saturday (April 13) on his way to a work convention in Las Vegas.  He took this great photograph of downtown Dallas near sunset on his arrival.

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

Happy Easter - 60 Years Ago!

Easter in 1964 was on March 29.  We visited my aunt, Sister Jean Marie Guokas, at Bishop Byrne High School in Port Arthur, Texas, where she was principal at the time.  You can just barely see my pregnant-with-sister-Mary mother, Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019), in the yellow dress at the rear, with Sister Jean Marie.  I'm wearing a pink dress and blue sweater that my grandmother Elizabeth Florence Massmann Pape (1902-2000) knitted for me.  Just ahead of me is my brother Mark.  In the front are my sister Karen (holding the duck) and my brother Brian (holding the rabbit).

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My sweetie and I on May 13, 2006, the day I received my Master of Science in Library Science degree from the University of North Texas.

© Amanda Pape - 2024 - e-mail me!

Remembering Dad - It's Been Six Years

Six years ago, my father, Frederick Henry Pape, died rather suddenly at age 88.  I still can't believe it's been that long, and I still miss him.  This photo was taken May 28, 2016, at a high school graduation party in Austin, Texas, for his youngest grandson. 

Frederick Henry Pape, 1929-2017, on May 28, 2016

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!

Happy Father's Day to My Dad in Heaven!

Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017) and daughter Karen Pape with Barney the basset hound and grandson/nephew Eric Bolme, 717 Rawlins, Lancaster, Texas, December 1987.

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!

Happy Mother's Day to My Mom in Heaven!

Eric Bolme escorts his maternal grandmother Geraldine Margaret Guokas Pape (1928-2019) to her seat at his uncle (her son) Mark Pape's wedding, Fredericksburg, Texas, March 1995.

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!

Happy 90th Birthday, Aunt Beete!

Today my dad's youngest sister, Marilyn Electa Pape Hedger, turns 90!  She has six children, twenty-six grandchildren, and at least thirty great-grandchildren (I've lost count).  The picture below was taken at her 80th birthday party in 2013 in Orlando, Florida, thrown by her offspring, which my parents attended.

Dad always called her "Bebe" (pronounced beeb), so that's what we called her growing up, although most of my cousins called her Aunt Beete or Beetie (pronounced beet-ee or bee-tee), and that's what my siblings and I call her now.

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!

Happy Valentine's Day!

My sweetie and me on May 12, 2006, the day I was inducted into Beta Phi Mu, the international honor society for library and information sciences, at the University of North Texas.

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!

Today Would Have Been Dad's 94th Birthday

My dad, Frederick Henry Pape (1929-2017), on page 25 in The Grad Prep, June 1945, Volume XII, the yearbook of Loyola Academy, which was then an all-boys Catholic high school at 6525 Sheridan Road in Chicago, Illinois, in Dumbach Hall on the campus of Loyola University.  Dad was in the Accelerated Course, which means he finished his high school requirements in three years, graduating from high school shortly after he turned 16.  Today he would have turned 94.

© Amanda Pape - 2023 - e-mail me!