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Visualizing You | and Your Great-Grandparents

Introduction: We memorize state capitols, math formulas, and pop songs, why not our own family, our own grandparents? Too often, family heritage is treated like genealogy. But, it should be a matter of the heart and artistry. What would it mean to create beautiful visualizations of our own family that we are proud to have and hang in our home? To invite new connections, as emotional as “factual”? In these ways, we can find inventive ways to invite our relatives and the most meaningful parts of our family heritage into our daily lives, even for those relatives that we never met. When we have information to gather and share, we are only limited by our imagination about the best ways to do that sharing.

There is a term from ancient Greece “Gignomai” which refers to that which becomes a part of us. Examples of this are plentiful, but one example comes from the tradition of memorizing poems, such that the rhythm and meaning of a poem becomes a part of how you come to see and interpret the world. This is an important concept in relation to our own family names. If we decide it is important, interesting, and meaningful to us, there is great value in memorizing the names of our most direct descendants -our grandparents. In previous work from this series, I’ve prompted you to consider:

How many of your grandparents’ names can you recall from memory?

This is a continuation of that work, but with respect to an additional generation -your great-grandparents. At this generational scale, we are talking about 8! surnames.

There are three challenges here:

How many of your 8 great-grandparents’ names can you recall from memory?
How many of your 8 great-grandparents’ can you find out?
And then, how many of your 8 great-grandparents’ names can you memorize?

It might seem small, but spending time with -your- names can do a lot to improve your emotional connections to family. When you know a name by heart, you will feel more of an emotional connection, than if you don’t. Even if you know virtually nothing else about a great-grandparent, there is meaning in knowing their name. It is like a family puzzle, you can see and feel how you fit across a larger network of your family!

Because I encourage writing out family names often, as a form of honoring and thinking about them, chart out your own parents and grandparents again, this time with a goal of starting to list out as many great-grandparents as you can. If you do not know many, you are in good company. Most people don’t know many of their great-grandparents. I have found that this is often true too for those who have done a lot of ancestry research. They might have their great-grandparents names listed in an Ancestry.com tree, but that does not mean they can recall all 8 of their great-grandparents. We outsource our knowledge in these instances, instead of doing a bit more work to make them familiar, to make them “ours” in a gignomai sense. To do so, requires intentional focus and attention. You have to decide, often from very little information about their lives, what you find interesting enough to remember, to know. It might just be a name. But, when you are lucky, it can be a whole history and story.

With this in mind, recreate a form like this and fill it out. How many great-grandparents can you list? Where can you turn to find out those names you do not know?

Let’s take our imaginary person. Pretend that Monique has completed this and, after some work and digging, she can name all 8 of her family surnames up through her great-grandparents:

Williams
Jackson
Davis
Thompson
Harris
Taylor
Wilson
Davidson

So that Monique can categorize her family names like so:

Surnames that come from your father’s side	Surnames that come from your mother’s side
Williams, Jackson \| Davis, Thompson	Harris, Taylor \| Wilson, Davidson

What about you?

Surnames that come from your father’s side	Surnames that come from your mother’s side
& \| &	& \| &

In most cases, culturally, very few of us can name all 8 of our great-grandparents. And that is because it is a decision to know your family like this. Culturally, we do not have many tools, or traditions that prompt us to concern ourselves with family that far back. In a real sense, we should wonder, “Why not?” Some cultures, across the world, are much better about knowing family. What are we missing out on when we do not really bother to recall our family?

List out some of your own thoughts about this question. What do you think and feel that we are probably missing out on when we do not bother to have traditions or tools that prompt us to remember our own family across generations?
What does it mean to take the time to learn your family names? To make them something that you and your children can readily recall?

One great way to do this is to make it a visual experience, with you, or your own children’s names at the center. Consider using this as a visual aid. Fill it out (as best you can) and hang it somewhere prominent, like on the refrigerator. When you can see these names regularly, it will be easier to be able to memorize all of your many names! What does it mean and what value can it bring to do the work to recall and get to know your own great-grandparents?

We all start from different foundations

If you don’t know much about your family, past your parents, look at it as an opportunity! And realize that this is typical. Most of the time, it the very act of taking an interest is the important part, almost independent of any specific thing you might discover. Or, if you do already know quite a bit about your family (past your parents) and you have already done quite a bit of work to learn more, you probably already appreciate that the more you know, the more questions remain! No matter what point from which you are starting, there’s always more to discover.

Whether you are starting from a lack of knowledge, or a place of deep understanding, always be willing to shake the trunk of your family tree and see what falls out. The branches will frequently drop leaves in new and unexpected ways! Let’s shake that tree more often, particularly in fun ways.

Here are those visuals for you to download for yourself to print out and use, including a printer-friendly version.

[Free | Word document] Visualize You | And Your Great-Grandparents Download

For more, go to my: Create Your Own Family Heritage Book Resource series.

Visualizing You | And Your Great-Grandparents!

Work on this with family members! Print it out and put it on your refrigerator. Make your great-grandparents names a part of your own working memory and knowledge!

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5 Things to Consider When You Start a DIY Family Heritage Book

DIY #1 | Create Your Family Heritage Book

The Purpose: The focus of this series of is to help you feel more comfortable creating your own Family Heritage Book.

5 Things to Consider When You Are Starting

Get rid of perfect.
What is most important?
What defines your emotional investment?
What sits at the center of the page?
Do an inventory check.

The Purpose: The focus of this series of workbooks is to help you feel more comfortable creating your own Family Heritage Book. These are hard-won perspectives and exercises that will help you solve the most common barriers that most people encounter.

The truth is that most of our family history is:

in bits and pieces of memory,
loosely organized in dusty piles,
or stuck on a digital ancestry site.

And the excellent family stories that do get told also deserve to be recorded. With a book, or a series of books, you can give:

your siblings, parents, and children a more expansive sense of identity and tradition.
the chance to connect with family in ways that is not possible otherwise.

And you can make your most important and unique family heritage:

more permanent,
more accessible,
more shareable,
a bigger part of your family’s life,
a part of what makes your family, family, your home, home.

Family heritage books do not need to be comprehensive, or perfect, to be very valuable. To spur your emotions, my favorite examples are in the form of questions:

“What does a particular family photograph mean to you that nobody else will appreciate unless you tell them?”

But, maybe even more critical are questions like this, “What do you know about your grandfather that your children will forget, if you don’t write it down for them?”

Or, maybe a family artifact is most important. You have your grandparent’s recipes in a loosely bound notebook. It is easy to photocopy the recipes for your family, but you have a history and memories of a loved one making these dishes. What stories do you have about food traditions that you should capture and share for future generations?

“What do you know about your most important family recipes and traditions that you want others to know?”

Each book is unique. And so many kinds of books are possible, based on your family needs. Can you imagine how stunning it could be to have a book with your traditional family recipes, combined with short stories and memories around those dishes (and maybe even photographs of you making those dishes with family)? Or, what is another version of such a book that speaks to you?

As you consider what kind of book to make, five perspectives might help in these early stages:

1. Start by throwing perfect out the window: Throw perfectionism and the sense that something has to be comprehensive to be meaningful out of the window. Those are two things that are hard to ignore, but you should. So many critical things about families get lost, over time, because it gets put off for an imaginary time in your life when you’ll have enough time to do it “right”. Here’s a hint, that time will never arrive. You have been meaning to do this for some time. It is good that you’ve been meaning to do this. There’s no good reason to wait. So, let’s get started!

~~Perfectionism.~~
~~Comprehensive.~~
~~When the time is right.~~

And here is the thing. It is easy to say “throw these things out”. But, even when you do this mentally, they will continually try to hijack your work throughout the whole process. And even after you have created a wonderful family heritage book that your family will treasure for a long time, you will still wonder, “What if …,” or “If only I had …”.

The only good family heritage book is the completed family heritage book. And the only way to accomplish that is to make peace with this advice:

“Do the best you can with what you have right now.”

There will always be temptations in this line of work, where you will want to find that lost photograph, or wait until you can find one new, important bit of information, or … . Wanting to have, or know more should be a healthy tool based on curiosity and goals, but not a barrier to progress. All anyone can do is “Do the best we can with what we have right now.” If finding something is going to take too long, abandon it (for now), so you can make the progress that is critical to accomplishing what is most important.

2. What is most important? Spend time thinking about what is, potentially, most important to you. For example, is it about:

Honoring a particular person?
Is it a series of family artifacts like letters and photographs,
is it a set of family stories,
a particular generation, or time-period in your family’s history,
your family living in a particular place,
your family’s story of immigrating and arriving to a new place,
a story of a farm, or profession,
is it related to family traditions,
a love story of an inspiring couple in your family,
a dramatic story with tragedy and triumph,
is it …?

3. What defines your emotional investment? You might have several ideas in mind. Entertain those ideas. And start to reflect on why this particular topic is important. What, do you think, your emotional investment is based on? What makes this one thing, or a handful of options more important than other options?

4. Creating a “center” or a focal point … from which everything else can be organize is crucial. And it takes time and work to identify that point of focus. One way to put it is, what sits at the center of the page that is the anchor that holds everything else steady as you work? Typically, your “center” for a family heritage book is not a fact, or a thing, but an emotional connection, a sense of need and purpose, from which a story, or set of stories must be told.

5. Inventory check? As you consider these things -a core topic, your focus (or anchor) and emotional connections, there is one more thing to do at the beginning. Focus on your “inventory” or what you have in your “backpack” that will help you on this journey. Do you have the family heritage equivalent of food, water, and shelter? Or is there a core thing that you will need to find, or get to accomplish this journey?

Do you need to find that series of letters you know you have somewhere in the attic? Or, how about those photographs of your great-grandparents from their time farming in the early 1900’s? Or, that family recipe book? Or, those old newspaper articles about a relative? Or do you need to talk to, or interview a specific family member about a particular time in their life?

There are, of course, no wrong answers here. Your parameters are only defined by what you want. Where does that want come from? Where is it leading you? The most important family heritage books are the ones that help you express something that is important to you and your family.

Perhaps too, your focus fits with something like, “The Top 5 Things that Most in the U.S. Want to Know about Their Grandparents”?

1. 72% of people want to know

more stories about when their grandparents were young.

Isn’t that sweet to know, that 72% of those polled by Ancestry.com said that they want to know more stories about their grandparents when they were young!

What is preventing you from setting up that interview and asking those questions? Take out your smartphone and record your elder generation reminiscing and talking.

Get their voice on tape, their laugh.

And use what you capture to complement the best, old family photographs that you still have.

Do you have a grandparent that you should interview? What would a list of questions be like if you asked them today? Who else in your family would be good to ask? What is preventing you from setting up that interview and asking those questions? Take out your smartphone and record your elder generation reminiscing and talking. Get their voice on tape, their laugh. And use what you capture to complement the best, old family photographs that you still have.

What else did people report that they most wanted to know?

2. 62% want to know more about	their grandparents’ childhood memories.
3. 62% want to understand	where our family came from.
4. 62% want to know more about	their heritage.
5. 51% want to know	their grandparents’ life advice.

Do any of those categories fit with your own goals? They are general categories, but still good starting points from which to work. There are a whole range of other things to consider as you proceed from here, but those are for later. If you can spend time thinking about these first 5-steps, that is a great place from which to work and make progress. This is a process and do not expect certainty at the beginning. In making your own DIY family heritage book, hopefully, time is on your side. And from here, we will proceed! Are you excited! I hope so. So much is possible. So much is important! Let’s get going!

If you appreciated this, see more at the Do-it-yourself Family Heritage resource page.

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Brief Thoughts About the Small Joys When Writing Family History Books

Should family history books contain more poetic sensibilities?

Captions, with dates and names does get repetitive and easy for readers to skim, scan, or overlook completely. Naming things can emphasize interesting details and can evoke a poetic sensibility.

There is an art to staying out of the way, and letting the artifacts and information speak “for itself,” … in as much as that is possible …

Here, we’ve labelled less, included fewer captions and taken interview material and condensed it down to report only on the most essential characteristics.

And there’s something fascinating about not interpreting documents for readers.

Instead the focus can be on providing versions of the original content -in this case a will- and letting the reader work, a bit, to see what it is, to decipher it, to see what strikes them. Often there’s more meaning in working to discover what something is and what it means …

It is interesting too, how you can take one photograph and crop, or color it to use it in multiple “frames” of information, such as with Laura, here.

Each time, it becomes a different photograph. That’s what is so fascinating about this work, how putting the same information, or photographs, into different contexts, even right next to each other can help show and tell and emphasize different things.

There’s an impossible art when trying to show family tree connections, especially past three generations …

Here is one version of a family tree (six generations) repeatedly shown in the margins, beside each new bit of information. Every family history book, especially going back more generations, can start to seem like a Russian novel. We get the same names, Jr.’s and Sr.’s. We get so many names. We get the same people, but named and described in different relationships. There’s so much that can turn even basic family connections into a puzzle that nobody wants to put together!

Maps, those things that tell us where we are and where we were and so much more …

I mean, who isn’t in love with maps -zoomed in, zoomed out. We are so lucky to have Google Maps and an endless (online and archived) array of maps and visuals for -place- that we can layer, embed information on and through, describe, put arrows next to, mark, place in time. Anyone who doesn’t appreciate maps should have their head examined! : )

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Cultural Traditions: Honoring Your Family’s Generations

Novel Ways to Invite Family Generations Back Into Your Home

Many cultures have strong traditions that intentionally and lovingly invite family members and ancestors back into the home. Two examples are:

Ofrenda: is the Mexican and Mexican-American tradition of an “offering” built to help family remember, to learn about, and celebrate their ancestors’ lives.

Obon: is a Japanese summer festival, it is a celebration for welcoming back ancestors’ spirits and returning to one’s family roots.

Using these important cultural traditions as points of inspiration, one of the goals at Life Story Books is to find novel ways to condense our family history information down into visually compelling reminders about who we are, by celebrating who we were.

I am fascinated by the process of taking family archive photos and information and creating rich, simple visuals that can be displayed in the home -a magnet that you see on the fridge everyday, a framed photograph that hangs in the front hallway, even holiday cards that incorporate earlier generations in photos, or in their own words.

Here, for example, are four generations of great-grandparents, who are compiled into one visual that can be reasonably printed as a high quality card, or refrigerator magnet. I can work with you to create and order many different kinds of presentations of family to mail, or display in your home.

Four generations of great-grandparents, compiled into one, simple visual.

How Do We Capture the Most Meaningful Things We Know?

Producing boutique books has never been easier. Self-publishing is a booming industry and there are quite a range of interesting models meant to help you capture your life/family stories and histories. The publishing part is easier, more dynamic, and cheaper than ever, but the main barrier remains … How do you help people produce meaningful content without the burden of a complex and work-intensive process? Writing is difficult, particularly when it involves finding and organizing rich content in a meaningful way. This is even more true when that process involves research, such as interviews, or finding and making sense of new information relevant to a family’s history from many potential sources (documents, photographs, ancestry-pages, disorganized family archives, multiple family members, etc.).

The publishing is easier and cheaper, but the work process required to produce something meaningful remains a fascinating issue. To resolve the work process issue, there are two common models:

Expensive $

Do you have $15,000 to spend? Maybe. But, Modern Heirloom Books is clearly catering to a specific client-base with a bit of money to burn: https://www.modernheirloombooks.com.

They have some pretty wonderful types of family histories that they help produce. Still “bespoke book” and “heirloom,” in this case, are probably out of reach for most, given their minimum cost, with upgrades.

2. Outsourcing the Work to You

If you are interested in this, you’ve probably heard of and considered this model. The most popular company cited for it is –StoryWorth: https://welcome.storyworth.com.

StoryWorth’s work process: Outsourcing the work to you.

I have been tempted and curious to sign up for this service. In so many ways, it makes sense. They give you a format, a structure, consistent prompts, a process and a publication avenue at the end. This process also breaks up the sometimes burdensome task of figuring out how to start and what to write. And there is a cumulative aspect to it, where quick, short work-cycles actually produce a significant amount of content, over a year, organized according to their series of prompts/questions.

Still, the burden is on you and your family member who is participating. Do they have the time to respond to each prompt? What happens if they do not feel confident, or comfortable with the process? And, in the end, you are paying them, in a sense, to do the work yourself. The value, they suggest, is in the series of questions that, “you’ve never thought to ask.” I don’t doubt they have a wonderful list of questions, but such questions are intuitive and available, in many forms, online with just a bit of research: “What is your birth story?” “What was your neighborhood like growing up?” “What kind of recipes and food did you eat growing up?” etc.

In the end, there is no perfect process. And the best approach is whatever process helps to minimize the intimidation factor and the most common barriers that people face when they contemplate trying to capture their most important family stories and histories -such as figuring out:

Where to begin?
What to write?
Who am I writing to?
How to establish and maintain a realistic scope and focus for a project?
How to establish what is meaningful?
How to avoid the sense that these stories have to be “perfect”.
How to organize existing content, such as family-archive information?
How to find new, capture, and organize information from existing documents, Ancestry sites, or living members of your family.
How to turn bits of information into a meaningful story format?
What technology to use to produce and publish this information?
The often overlooked work involved in digitizing and re-formatting content in consistent and publishable form.
Etc.

At Life Story Books, I will work one-on-one with you to help you resolve these issues. I only take on a few clients and projects at a time. And, if you hire me, my job is to provide you with a competitively priced process and product, paired with a plan and a structured process that minimizes the most common barriers involved. There are a few secrets to the process at Life Story Books:

Quality over quantity. Together, we establish and then maintain a very focused scope for each project. Short 10 to 25 page books are typically enough. This keeps the work process contained and the production process from becoming burdensome.
Your costs go to the right part(s) of the process. Since the production and printing costs are so reasonable, the primary cost of your investment in a Life Story Book goes into the most important part, producing meaningful and accessible story-based content.
A personalized process. Since I only take on a few projects at one time, I am available throughout the ABC’s: A. the planning and researching (when necessary), B. the writing/editing, and the C. publication processes.

The “Dawson Coffee Shop” -1945

Here are a set of photographs connected to the history of a family, the Nelson’s, from Dawson, Minnesota. With details and archival materials provided by Susan Boehm and Jean Thompson, we wrote and placed this story in the Dawson Sentinel (April 15th). It was recently featured on the “Dawson History” Facebook page.

The “Dawson Coffee Shop” … Published in the Dawson Sentinel newspaper, April 15th, 2020 and featured on the “Dawson History” Facebook page June 9th, 2020.

Laura Lewis on the Open Road / 1937

“the only people for me are the mad ones, the ones who are mad to live, mad to talk, mad to be saved, desirous of everything at the same time, the ones that never yawn or say a commonplace thing, but burn, burn, burn like fabulous yellow roman candles exploding like spiders across the stars.”
~Jack Kerouac “On the Road”

This is about Laura Lewis from Fargo, North Dakota and her brief, wonderfully mad escape, in 1937, from her hometown. These were five women in their early twenties trying to break free of their lives to something new, unknown, and more expansive. Her writing is infectious, fun, and full of euphoria for something beyond the ordinary.

This photo was included with her road trip journal entries from July 18 - 21 1937. — This photo of Laura Lewis was included with her road trip journal entries, July 18 – 21 1937.

As she described it:

In memory of a trip taken July 18th to 21st. Starting on Monday by car [in Fargo, North Dakota] and ending on Thursday by rail and which got as far as Bismarck, North Dakota. Although it was meant to be a coast to coast journey.

Picture of Charlotte Lewis' journal (circa 1937) — Picture of Laura Lewis’ journal (circa 1937)

HALFWAY ACROSS THE STATE …

I could not stay so fixed, so rooted. I had to venture, had to roam towards the setting sun I traveled when at last I left my home. In each town we chanced to visit, I was gay, what ere belied … For it was to give space for wandering that the world was made

So [dashes and scribblings] — — — —- < —— -> —– Wide.

And so we went west! Went west to see the grandeur, to seek adventure -perhaps- and to leave our footprints on the sands of time. Went west the five of us, in a “bug,” sans money, sans equipment, sans anything. It was a half cocked idea all told, and I shall tell you what happened to us.

Left Fargo at 2-o’cock after quite an argument with Mother who forbade my going. Stopped first at Osgood to pick up a few things and next at Chafee to pick up a more.

Fargo during the 1930's. See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndsu-university-archives/5836352282/lightbox/. — Fargo during the 1930’s. See: http://www.flickr.com/photos/ndsu-university-archives/5836352282/lightbox/.

And then we were out on the prairie speeding past drowsy one horse towns -swaying, chuck full of bushy catkins, tall golden fields of grain, clumps of bushes, lazy winding rivers, sluggish streams and azure lakes. Past pastures and farms and herds of horses, sheep and cattle. And the oder of a new mown hay; the fragrance of fields of alfalfa and sweet clover -ummmm,

Cruising along I-94 North Dakota heading west. Aside, see: “Ghost Towns and Abandoned Places of North Dakota: http://www.ghostsofnorthdakota.com/about/

It was great! But was made twice as thrilling because we thought we were being pursued. Thus we drove all afternoon and at dusk struck hills -rolling hills- from which one could gaze deep down into the valley below. On the crest of one of these we had our first view of Valley City -snuggled there in the hollow. Valley City with its myriad of gleaming lights flickering through the gathering twilight. We had supper here and afterwards explored the city.

Valley City -Highway 10 and Highline Railroad Bridge, circa 1930's. — Valley City -Highway 10 and Highline Railroad Bridge, circa 1930’s.

We dozed that night beneath the stars just outside of town on the edge of a wheat field. A solitary blanket we had for a coverlet. Silence lay over the land broken only by the throb of a motor passing on the highway and the low hum of mosquitoes. And such a rest -ah- like fugitives from the dawn, the cloud banks of night were scattering in the east and a pale morning star forecast another sun as we awoke with the dawning. Numb with cold, damp, and hungry as hell we jogged up and down the lane to warm up. Then we piled in the roadster and headed north, due north to Minot through the crisp chill of an early morning. Dew glistening white on the grass. Winding roads stretching back through the fog. Wheat fields laden with moisture.Then the first rosy hues, seemingly painted by an artist’s hand were heralding the approach of the monarch-sun. Mile after mile skimming by. Not a car on the highway.

Suddenly the clouds parted, the sun burst through -gold, pure gold throwing splendor and warmth into a frigid world. Birds voices rose in a melody of song, trilling a greeting. A dog brayed somewhere. A rooster sent a garrulous challenge to the world. A punctured tire forced us to turn back and soon we were in Valley again, searching for a place to wash and eat. Everything was closed, hardly a soul stirring. Here we loitered half the day while waiting to fix the car. Then we started out again. Hardly had we reached the city limits before Marie got sore and jumping out of the car declared her intention of wiring her father for money enough to pay return fare to Fargo. Down the street she tore; her sidekick running after her, while I persuaded the rest to continue the trip then went after them and brought them back into the fold.

We reached Jamestown late that afternoon, but did not stay for fear the cops were posted. Out on the prairie again through clouds of dust and heat that was oppressive. Night was a relief, a night though, filled with the many whisperings of those both known and those unseen things. Cricket chirps near and far; frogs chanting in a nearby marsh. A full moon was slow, rounding into sight to bath the prairie in a silver light. The stars, candles of the night, appeared one at a time. Then, the Bismarck lights showed, just discernible through the distance. There was a prison high on a hill with an armed sentry pacing the walls. Then we arrived on main street which was all a bustle.

At the train depot we were informed that boys were not allowed in the lady’s waiting room which proved that our disguises were convincing since we fooled the ladies. But, again we set out, to the outskirts of town at the edge of the Missouri river to sleep beneath a hay stack. Mosquitoes pestered us throughout the night. Up with dawn, we drove back into town to wash, eat, and look the city over. Suddenly Marie and I became oppressed with the idea that the coppers had us spotted. And we were right.

We sold the car and all took different routes to the railroad track where we decided to catch a westbound freight and get out of Bismarck pronto! Then we dressed once more as boys and sat in the shade waiting for our private train car. Along the track came a man in hiking clothes. I was instantly suspicious of his clothes. They were too immaculate to have traveled far; and he claimed to have come from the coast. Everything is tough he claimed and we had better turn back before it was too late.

Everybody’s feet were cold but mine. I was too anxious to reach Seattle to worry about hard luck. But, then he informed us that the police actually were on our trail. After he had gone, we decided to split again. Marie and I with a few dollars in our pockets were to take the trail and the rest were to follow directly and meet us at Medina that evening. Out on the trail once more we were met by the same wolf in cheap clothing who advised us to kick up some dust clouds because the police wagon just went by. Half a mile farther on, a big car passed us and stopped. Two men got out. They proved to be plain clothed men and they forced us into the car and took us to the police station. Here the head of the department gave us the third degree. I didn’t say any more than was necessary, but Marie babbled incessantly.

We were taken charge of by Anton Beer, justice of the peace, who sent us out to eat, but we could not do more than nibble a few bites. In the meantime, Mr. Beer, who proved to be a real friend, sent a telegram to our parents:

“Mrs. Cora Simonson -wire seven dollars at once by Western Union. Am at police station. Reply yes, or no.” -Laura Lewis

The answer we received in two hours was fourteen dollars and “Come home.” After that, we felt better. We spent most of the afternoon walking about the city and had a good time even though we were trailed by a police officer everywhere we went.

In the evening, Anton gave us enough money to go to a moving picture theatre. We didn’t see much of the picture because my eyelids refused to stay open and Marie was falling into a doze continually. Every once in a while her head would drop with a thump to the back of the seat and she would rouse and say, “God, this is the worst picture I ever saw in my life.” This amused me immensely and I started to laugh and laugh and laugh without being able to stop.

Notable Movies, 1937: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1937_in_film.

Finally, we left the show and went up to Mr. Beer’s office where we spent the night on a row of chairs. Early next morning we went out ate our breakfast; and when Anton arrived, he walked over to the depot and brought our tickets. Tickets that would take us home. Then the train pulled in and we were off … “Going back, going back” moaned the wheels. “Back to Fargo, the black hole of despair. Your adventure over.”

With every mile our hearts sank lower. When at last we arrived, there was Charlotte and Marie’s father waiting for us. Nothing was changed. Fargo was and still is the same. And so, here we are with only the memory of three glorious days spent traveling westward in a bug, sans money, sans equipment, sans anything.

But, I say -“Beware here to-day and gone tomorrow; and the next time I leave, I am gone forever.”

THE END