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Jednota!

March is Women's History Month! It's time for the spotlight to shine on the ladies in our family trees. I'll be writing all month on women I've researched. I encourage all family history lovers to take the month to seek out the stories of our foremothers! They are often under-documented, but they have a lot to teach us.   My great-grandmother, Anna Tatar Simonik.   On 14 March 1988, after my grandmother, Margaret Simonik Kozlina (1913-1988) died, my mother got a letter from the First Catholic Slovak Ladies Association. It contained the death claim benefit owed to my Grandma's heirs. 1 What Mom probably didn't know at the time was that this letter represented just one event in a chain that reached back 70 some years and was begun by her grandmother, Anna Tatar Simonik (1883-1 950). Anna joined the First Catholic Slovak Union—commonly known as Jednota, meaning "union"—in 1915, about a decade after she immigrated to the U.S. from then Austri...

GENEALOGY CHALLENGE 2021 - Seeing Double

James, dwarfed by a Union Pacific engine.


 
James' grandpa, James Casey, Sr. enjoys his time on a train.

GENEALOGY CHALLENGE 2021

Seeing Double -  January 25th entry of a 31-day challenge to post a document, photo or artifact on social media every day in January.  

by Nancy Gilbride Casey


What is it about little boys and trains? Our son James was enamored of trains from the day he first noticed them as a tiny little guy. 

Whenever we saw one, he would want me to slow down the car so we could watch it, or roll the car windows down so that he could hear the train whistle. He collected Thomas the Tank Engine cars and track. I read him Thomas the Tank Engine books, and we watched the TV show too. With every library trip we took, we looked for any book with a train theme. I'm sure there was a train-themed birthday party at some point too.

James also loved a trip to the train museum with his Papa (James D. Casey, Sr.), or visiting other train exhibits in local small towns. Imagine his thrill when we took a ride on the actual Thomas the Train one year in Grapevine, Texas!

The love of trains must run in the family line: proven by this wonderful black and white photograph of James' Papa, standing on a train stairs when he was a little man. It wonderful to see shared interests passed through generations.


NEXT UP: Wartime Letter III

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