Treasure Chest Thursday: St. Patrick's Day and Nani's Birthday, March 18

On St. Patrick's Day this year,  I wore a vibrant solid green dress with the necklace pictured at left (the green highlights are reflections off my dress).  It was given to me by my maternal grandmother, "Nani," Sara Melzina Wolfe Guokas Archibald, shortly after the Wolfe Family Reunion on June 28, 1997, in Montgomery, Texas (more on that in another post).  My husband and I went out to eat in the evening and he commented that the necklace must be solid gold or at least gold-plated, because I leave it hanging with other necklaces in my closet and it never needs polishing.  It's very typical of Nani to give me something that is quite valuable.

I will wear it on March 18 too in honor of what would have been Nani's 104th birthday. 

I've written about my grandmother before in this blog (click on her name above); most recently about her cooking.

I missed Nani's 90th birthday party on March 23, 1997, in Houston (I was going through a messy divorce in Washington state at the time and could not afford to go), but I did make it to the family reunion that summer.  The photo below is of family members who were at that surprise birthday party, along with at least 40 of her friends. On November 16 of that same year, she passed away from giant cell lymphoma.  I still miss her.

About a month ago, I was contacted by a Wolfe descendant who saw my post about the Wolfe surname, and that prompted a lot of recent research on Wolfes that you'll be reading about here.

Front row:  Karen Pape holding Madison Pape, Amber Ely, Nick and Debbie Reynolds Pape, Chase Engel.
Second row: Jason Ely, Sara Wolfe Guokas Archibald, Gerrie Guokas Pape, Sister Jean Marie Guokas.
Third row: Carole Ely and Eddie Dillow, Pat Dean Ely, Bobbie Brown, Rowena Knox Hackfield, Edith Wolfe Knox.
Top row:  Louis Ely; Mary, Mark, Brian and Fred Pape; Leon Hackfield; Dee Knox.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Tombstone Tuesday: James Shannon Wolfe, 1870-1949

photo by Gale Green Brister, from FindAGrave.com

James Shannon Wolfe  is my great-grandfather Louis Henry Wolfe's older brother. There's some confusion about when he was born.

He's not on the 1870 census with his parents and older sister Emma (born 1869), which was taken in July.  He's listed as age 8 on the 1880 census, taken in June.  Both of these censuses were in Washington County, Pennsylvania, and show Shannon and his parents as born in Pennsylvania.

In 1900, he and his wife of five years, Annie (nee Volce) and two daughters are living with his step-father-in-law Victor Guerrero, in Houston, Texas.  Shannon's birth is listed as April 1873, and his parents are listed as having been born in Ohio, so it's pretty clear he wasn't there to answer the census-taker's questions.  He is shown to be a bricklayer.

In the 1910 census, taken in April, the family is living at 1405 Allston in Houston.  Shannon's age could be 41, 42, or 44; it's hard to read.  He's now a brickwork contractor.  Oddly enough, he and Annie are both shown as being on their second marriages and only married nine years.  However, Annie has given birth to three children, all living (son Joseph Shannon joined the family in 1902).

The 1920 census was taken in January, and the family is still at 1405 Allston.  Shannon is listed as age 55, meaning he could have been born as early as 1865!.  But then, his parents are listed as being born in Texas, which is also wrong.  He is still a brickmason.  Shannon's wife Annie and three grown/nearly-grown children are also at home.  Shannon's brother Louis, my great-grandfather, and his four children are also living in the home, after they were all abandoned by my great-grandmother.

The 1930 census was taken in April.  Shannon and Annie are empty-nesters at the same house.  Shannon is listed as James S., age 61, but he's still a bricklayer.   The Texas Death Index shows that James Shannon Wolfe died February 6, 1949, and that matches the date on his gravestone.  His son was the informant on the death certificate and gives James Shannon's birthdate as October 24, 1868, but the names and birthplaces of his parents are not listed - which makes me think the informant may not been sure of the birth year either. 

Until I can find more evidence, I think James Shannon Wolfe was born in 1870.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Hurricane Allen 1980 - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Disasters

Painted on boarded-up windows of downtown stores.

The prompt for Week 10 of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is Disasters:

Did you experience any natural disasters in your lifetime? Tell us about them.

Having spent most of the first 26 years of my life on or near coastal Texas, in Houston and Corpus Christi, hurricanes were often a threatening, impending disaster.  I vaguely remember Dad hammering plywood up over the windows when I was young in preparation for various storms.  But the one I remember most was Hurricane Allen in 1980.

This was a scary storm to watch approaching in satellite photos.  The storm was HUGE, a Category 5 at most times, and completely filled the Gulf of Mexico.  Corpus Christi residents began to prepare.

Mark's boat, The Wagon, up on blocks on Shoreline Blvd.

I was living in a one-bedroom apartment on the second floor at the time, with only a large sliding glass door in the living room and a smaller window in the bedroom, both opening onto a balcony.  I put tape on the smaller window, and pushed my huge, heavy mahogany buffet in front of the sliding glass door.  Mark took his sailboat, a 22-foot Catalina called The Wagon, and had it pulled out of the City Marina and put up on blocks in the parking lot of a city building on adjacent Shoreline Boulevard.  This was a gamble that the storm would hit south of the city, which was how it was tracking at the time, and which turned out to be the case (the storm came ashore just north of Brownsville, which was about 124 miles south). If the storm had hit head-on or north of us, his boat could have been blown to bits. But by pulling it out, he avoided the damage many others suffered.

The storm came ashore late Saturday and early Sunday, August 9-10.  There was a storm surge up to 12 feet high, flooding, and wind damage.  The sounds of the storm were very frightening.  Mark spent most of it in the basement of the police headquarters, up on the Bluff.  I drove up to the Victoria area to stay with some friends.

Monday, August 11, I went back to work - at the time, I was with the city's Park and Recreation Department. The power was out and it was hot and humid, so I wore shorts and a t-shirt to work. The first order of business was pushing a couple inches of water out of our offices (one block off the seawall) - I used a downed parking sign to push water.  The wind and waves pushed boats in the marina up against the seawall.

Later that day I rode out with our parks superintendent to take photos of damage on Corpus Christi Beach (aka North Beach), where more than 200 buildings (about 75%) were destroyed and two people drowned (the only deaths directly attributable to the storm).  Other parks damage included many fishing piers and the destruction of the City Marina office (see below).

After the storm, I spent some time as the City's liaison to a Red Cross Disaster Relief Center in Ben Garza Gym. Mark spent the next three years dealing with FEMA.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Tombstone Tuesday - Abram Wolfe, 1855 - 1907

OK, so this really isn't a tombstone, but it's not an obituary, either. Abram/Abraham Wolfe was the eighth and youngest child of William C. Wolfe (1820-1855) and Melinda Jane Smallwood Wolfe Peden (1823-1875), my third great-grandparents on my maternal grandmother's side. In fact, he was born almost two months after his father died, on May 30, 1855. He was raised by his stepfather, William Peden (born 1830), and spent most of the early years of his life in the community of California, in Washington County, Pennsylvania.

He married Emma J. Hoak (1869-1917) in Allegheny County, Pennsylvania, on April 25, 1895. The 1900 census shows them living in Pittsburg in the same county, with son Elmer O'Neil Wolfe (1896-1964). His occupation is shown as "steamboat mate."

I had heard that Abram had drowned, but did not know the circumstances.  A Google search on "abram wolfe drowned" pulled up the Reports of the [United States] Department of Commerce and Labor from 1909:


He died March 24, 1907, but I don't know if or where Abram is buried.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Lisa & Mac - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Technology

The prompt for Week 8 of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is Technology.

What are some of the technological advances that happened during your childhood? What types of technology to you enjoy using today, and which do you avoid?

I'm going to change this up a little bit and write about the most profound technological advance in my lifetime - so far.  Hands down, that would be the development of the personal computer.  I can remember keypunching cards in college (and in a summer job with the data processing department at American General Life Insurance Company, where my dad worked), and typing lots of papers and college organization newsletters on an (electric!) typewriter.

That all changed (for me at least) in 1984.  I was working for the City of Corpus Christi (and Mark) then, and he sent me to a presentation to learn more about the Apple Lisa computer.  I was hooked, but the price tag at the time (about $10K!) made getting one out of the question (for home or work).  Later, though, our office did acquire an IBM PC, and part of my job was to test software and look for ways we could use it in our work.  I was a beta tester for WordPerfect 4.0, one of the earliest word processors for personal computers.  I also used spreadsheet applications like VisiCalc and Microsoft Multiplan (the precursor to Excel), and came up with some models that we actually used, for example, to forecast water revenues under different rate scenarios, and allocate data processing expenditures.

Lisa by atmasphere - Jonathan Greene

Macintosh 128 by Ian Muttoo

That same year, I also got my first computer - the original 128K Apple Macintosh.  My brother and his wife were students at the University of Texas in Austin, which was part of a pilot program to get personal computers into colleges.  They were both eligible to buy a Mac at a discount, but only needed one, so they sold the other to me.  I LOVED the way I could now type documents and easily make corrections, without white-out or correction tape!

Here's an interesting article that relates to this topic:  Generations and Their Gadgets.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Toys - 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - (Not So) Wordless Wednesday

The prompt for Week 7 of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is Toys.

What was your favorite childhood toy? Is it still being made in some form today?

Don't know that I had a favorite.  Looks like I played with a lot of stuff (not all toys) in my first six years:

1958 - teething ring tub toy

1957 - TV antenna

1962 - doll

1960 - rocking horse

1957 - Teddy bear

1960 - Play-Doh

1962 - doctor kit

1958 - Coke bottles

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Valentines Day - 30 Years Ago: Sentimental Sunday

Mark sent me pink carnations, and gave me a heart-shaped box of Godiva chocolates. My parents sent the card on the right in the photo above. I did something fancy in my scrapbook with a photo of Mark's flowers.=>

©Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Kitirik and Cadet Don: Radio & TV, 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History, Sentimental Sunday

The prompt for Week 6 of 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History is Radio and Television:

What was your favorite radio or television show from your childhood? What was the program about and who was in it?

photo from Gary Hunt, ThisIsIt2 on flickr.com

I remember two local Houston children's television shows from my childhood:  Kitirik and Cadet Don.  Probably just about anybody who grew up in Houston in the 1960s remembers these two shows, both on ABC affiliate KTRK Channel 13:

Kitirik was on in the afternoons from 1954 through 1971. The station's logo featured a black cat (since they were the unlucky number 13) and a contest came up with her clever name by putting i's between the station's call letters. It had a live audience full of birthday parties and Scout troops.  Bunny Orsak played Kitirik.

Capitalizing on Houston's identification with NASA and the space program, Cadet Don was on in the mornings from 1959 through 1968.  He had a puppet buddy named Seymour ("see more") from the planet of Katark (there's those call letters again!).  This show was a little more educational, with frequent appearances by John Werler, then director of Houston's Hermann Park Zoo, with various animals.  Don Travis (real name Al Eisenmann Sr.) even did a couple of albums that I owned, Don & Seymour (pictured below) and a folk album called Don & Mac.

I don't remember a whole lot about either show, but a lot of people out there do.  There are fan groups for both shows on Facebook!  Click all of the links above and links within those links for more info, pictures, and nostaglia.

As for radio, I didn't listen to it a whole lot as a child, more so as a teen though, and always when alone in my car up until five years ago, when I got a car with a CD and cassette player.  I do remember the summer of 1972, listening to just about every Houston Astros game on the radio, even while in the hospital recovering from an appendectomy.  I was a big fan of third baseman Doug Rader, thanks to the Houston Chronicle's Straight A Student program that gave me two free tickets to three Astros games each season for my six years of middle and high school. 

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Happy 82nd Birthday, Dad!

My dad, Frederick Henry Pape, was born on February 4, 1929, in Evanston, Illinois.

This photo was taken 80 years ago, in 1931, when Dad was two years old.


© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.

Food: 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History - Family Recipe Friday

The 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy and History prompt for Week 5 is Favorite Food:

What was your favorite food from childhood? If it was homemade, who made it? What was in this dish, and why was it your favorite? What is your favorite dish now?

My mother did some amazing things with hamburger.  With five kids in the family, we ate a lot of it.  Here are two of my favorite recipes:

Hamburger Stroganoff

Dice three slices of bacon and brown.  Add 1/2 cup chopped onion and saute until tender.  Brown a pound of ground beef, add to onions and bacon.  Add 3/4 teaspoon salt, 1/4 teaspoon paprika, and a dash of pepper, stir in one can of cream of mushroom soup.  Cook slowly, uncovered, for 20 minutes, stirring frequently.  Stir in 1 cup sour cream and heat, do not boil.  Serve over buttered noodles.

Texas Hash

Slice one large onion and mince one large green pepper and saute until onions are golden.  Add one pound ground beef and fry until mixture falls apart.  Stir in 2 cups cooked tomatoes (#1 tall can), one cup washed uncooked rice, two teaspoons Worcestershire sauce and two teaspoons salt.  Pour into greased two-quart casserole, cover and bake about one hour in 350-degree oven, removing the cover the last 15 minutes.

My grandmother, Sara Wolfe Guokas Archibald, could do amazing things with vegetables, making even okra and eggplant taste good.  She rarely wrote down recipes, but here is one I watched her make:

Nani's Corn

Heat contents of two regular-size cans of creamed corn with 1/4 pound Velveeta cheese until the latter melts.  Add some chopped celery, 1/4 cup chopped red bell peppers, and some chopped onion if desired, and mix.  Top with more Velveeta, bread crumbs, and parsley flakes.  Dot with butter and cook in the oven.

My favorite dish today is anything my husband makes!  Seriously, my absolute favorite would have to be the following recipe, which he first made for me almost 32 year ago:

Mark Gresham's Quiche

Pre-bake a 9'' frozen pie shell 5-10 minutes at 350 degrees.  Saute 2 tablespoons chopped green onions and chopped mushrooms (to taste) in one teaspoon butter.  Add one package of thawed frozen spinach (cook off or squeeze out most of the water first).  In a separate bowl, mix 8 ounces of whipping cream, 3 eggs, 1/4 teaspoon nutmeg and a little salt and pepper to taste.  Add the sauteed mixture and mix well.  Pour into the pie shell, cover with grated Swiss cheese, dot with butter, and bake at 350 degrees 30 minutes or until done.

© Amanda Pape - 2011 - click here to e-mail me.