I wrote my first entry for this blog on January 1, 2009….ready to conquer blogging, and to learn all about this fairly new way of communicating, of telling a story. It has been fun, challenging, frustrating….and oh yes, educational.
In the beginning, for my “statement” concerning what my blog is all about, I said I would write about cooking, painting, and genealogy. I wrote about my grandparents and where they came from; where and how they lived. I found while I was sharing stories about the Ogg Family Farm in Richmond, Missouri, I was awakening memories for my readers! I received so many comments, hundreds of email, all expressing how fun it was to read the blog and remember things they had forgotten. I have to admit, each message made me feel pretty good.
Family history is very important to me. I suppose my fascination with Genealogy comes naturally. My Aunt, LouEmma Ogg Jones, worked for years to find how our Ogg ancestors came to America from Scotland. My Grandfather, William Ambrose “Dutch” Johnston, spoke of family and family history, and told me stories as we would “hang out” at the horse barn where we shared a love of all things equestrian. With a big cigar clamped tightly in the corner of his mouth, he would speak with his Missouri style southern accent, telling me about his brothers and his parents. Of course, that was 60 years ago….how I wish I had written them down!
Several years ago, about the time I was signing up for Social Security, I decided it was time to ask the next generation of Johnstons/Oggs, which of them would like to carry on the research and preserve the history that Aunt Lou and I had so painstakingly compiled. I sent an email to my sister’s daughter, my brother’s 2 daughters, and my own 2 daughters, asking if one of them would be interested in our genealogy and would eventually become the family historian. Now I won’t say who said what, but those that did respond (2 of the 5) were not interested at that time. I had to admit my timing in asking for assistance was rotten. All 5 were young women with careers, children and homes to take care of….each day was a challenge to get kids to soccer practice and gymnastics; shop for food as well as get it home, cooked, and on the table; laundry so everyone had something clean to wear the next day; homework checked; house cleaned; kids cleaned; and yes, husbands to keep happy. All of this to be done , hopefully before midnight, so they could drop into bed and let their minds and bodies rest so they could rise at 6 a.m. and start it all over again. They were normal women with normal lives. They did not need to worry about what Napoleon Boneparte Ogg died of in the 1800s! So, I kept compiling information, asking questions, filling in the blanks. My computer runneth over and sloweth down….
Last night, out of the blue, I received a text message from my daughter, Betsy, expressing a profound interest in and fascination with….you guessed it…. Genealogy! She and Ben have been watching the NBC series “
Who Do You Think You Are?” and they are ready to dive in with both feet! Not wanting to miss an opportunity, I put my external hard drive with everything I have about the family, and CDs to download, in my car and delivered them to Betsy. We spent about an hour getting it set up on her computer, she joined Ancestory.com, and suddenly she was in business! That was about 3:00 p.m. I spoke with her around 9:00 this evening and she was still at it.
I have to tell you, I had heard for years that George Caleb Bingham, famous painter and statesman from Missouri, was an ancestor….very distant, mind you, but an ancestor. I had done some research on Bingham about 10 years ago, looking for a connection, but never found a clue. Today Betsy began there, with Bingham, and within several hours, it appears she has found the connection! I have a feeling she is hooked! I'll have to share the photograph of me standing by his self portrait that hangs in the Nelson Gallery here in Kansas City. I usually grin from ear to ear, but Maria Johnson, the photographer, thought I should try to look more like George. What do you think? Think we are related?
Great weekend for Art! Friday night I was at ARTichokes Gallery in the Mission Farms area. I particularly enjoyed the paintings of Diane Boone, Ada Koch, Kristin Goering and Becky Pashia. Diane’s paintings are featured as you enter the gallery. Big, bright and bold, they are just plain fun! Ada, an instructor at ARTichokes, has 2 wonderful florals that are loose, free and graceful. Becky had many new pieces, all delightfully “Pashia”.
Saturday night found me driving south down highway 169, headed to Paola. Barbara Cleary, who died earlier this year, was a longtime fixture in the Paola art community. For the next month, that community celebrates Cleary's life and legacy with a three-part retrospective, all in spaces surrounding the town's historic square.
