Creativity--My Two Sons

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 22 (May 27-June 2) is Creativity.   my two sons

          This is a brag on my two son's blog, both artistically talented.  

     My eldest son, Aric, now deceased, was busy drawing from a very early age.  In high school, by his senior year, he was taking art classes in photography and drawing.

TKO
Award Winner
Cinder Block with black and white dots

In Bloom
Cigarette filters

    

       He graduated from Ohio State with honors and a bachelor of fine arts degree.  While at OSU, Aric's primary artistic focus was installation art; however, he also presented works in photography and because he was talented in theater as a high schooler, he did performance art.  

Nuclear Family

     From OSU, Aric was admitted into the Fine Arts Department at the University of Maryland to begin his Masters Degree.  He was able to complete one semester before illness   

     Aric's art was often edgy, always creative and left the viewer thinking.   

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     My son Garrett is a very talented sketch artist.  His ability began to show in elementary school and middle school with his little doodles on school notebooks and pieces he drew in art classes.  Soon Christmas and birthday gifts were sketch books.  A gamer, his art tended toward fantasy figures and dragons in particular.  

      In middle school he participated in art shows and in high school he was awarded a one semester scholarship to the Cleveland Museum of Art.

   

Garrett presenting his stole of honor
to his brother
2012 graduating Magna Cum Laude

     A time came when he put his sketching materials away and began writing.  A short play that he wrote while in community college was performed on stage.  Garrett graduated from the two year program and entered Cleveland State as an English major, continuing to write and graduating magna cum laude.  

     He immediately entered the Master's Degree program in English, concentrating on Black American writers and graduated in 2016 with a Degree of Master of Art in English.

     Imaginative, concise and edgy portrayals define Garrett's writing and his art. 

     So proud of the creativity of both of my sons and I think it is a combination of Hiser and Hughes genetics.

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Nickname

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 21 (May 20-26) is Nickname.   

     I have had a variety of nicknames during my seventy-seven years all of them from childhood.  Only one continues to 2024.

Summer 1949
Brigantine Beach, New Jersey

     The name Linda converted to Linda Lee and Lindee.  My brother, Ken, called me Deeow when he was very young.  

     A favorite nickname of my Dad's was calling my Pickle Puss.  I see many early photos of me making a face like I had just eaten a sour pickle.  Perhaps that was where the nickname came from.  

     My paternal grandmother, Grams, wrote my first name as Lynn.  In college my nickname came from my last name......Hughesie.

Package sent to me by my brother

     And finally, Lin, which is the nickname that has continued to today.

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Taking Care of Business: My Dad

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 20 (May 13-19) is Taking Care of Business. My Dad, George VanGilder Hughes is my focus in this week's blog. 

George VanGilder Hughes

     Dad had some pressure from the beginning to excel.  A son and first born to a father who had immigrated from England with his parents, there was an expectation that Dad would succeed.  He began to take care of business from an early age.    

       The Hughes family lived in the Brough of Avalon outside the city of Pittsburgh and Dad attended church and school there from an early age.  I do not  have much elementary school information; however, from his high school yearbooks, imagine he was a scholar even at an early age.  He also excelled at sports, in particular, football.

     Back in the late 1930's the classes at Avalon High School were small.  Dad, and my Mom's, graduating class was eighty-nine.  Dad was the quarterback on the high school football team and won the Jack Brice Memorial medal for excellence in football, he was the president of the class and the salutatory speaker for commencement among his many activities.

     He enrolled at Washington and Jefferson College on a full scholarship with a major in pre med.  Dad continued with his love of football playing at W&J as the center.  He was a member of a fraternity, president of his freshman class, several honorary societies and graduated in three years taking courses in summers.

     On November 23, 1943, my Mom and Dad married.  They had known each other and attended the same school since first grade, dated at the end of their senior year and throughout college. 

     Dad was already enrolled in the University of Pittsburgh School of Medicine.  He was a member of ROTC, the Army paid for his education and he graduated with his medical degree in June 1945.

     Dad served at Deshon General Hospital, Butler, Pennsylvania for the Army when I was born in 1947.  His Internship was at a hospital in McKeesport, Pennsylvania and Residency at the Veteran's Hospital in Aspinwall, Pennsylvania.  

     

      Following his residency we moved to a new house near Perrysville, Allegheny County, Pennsylvania and Dad was beginning to set up his medical practice in Internal Medicine.  

     To make some additional income in 1949 he enlisted with the Pennsylvania National Guard.  Just as his practice was beginning to take off he was sent to active duty at Camp Carson, Colorado and then to the front lines in Korea serving as a Captain at an aid station with the 2nd Infantry Division, 2nd Medical Battalion. 

816 Perry Highway
Dad's office was in the middle apartment building

     Dad returned from Korea in the summer of 1953 and was able to begin his private practice in Internal Medicine.  I can remember stopping by to visit the office at 816 Perry Highway across from our church, Hiland Presbyterian, on my way home from elementary school.

 

558 Perry Highway, West View

     Around 1961 Dad bought this house and relocated his practice to West View.  

     Dad was on the staff at three local hospitals during his medical days:  Allegheny General Hospital in Pittsburgh, Suburban General Hospital in Bellevue and Chief of Staff at North Hills Passavant Hospital.

     He never forgot his roots growing up during the Great Depression.  When I was married, patients stepped forward to  donate the wedding cake, flowers, etc. to give back to Dad for his kindness.  When he retired, over 200 patients organized a heartfelt retirement party.

     Dad was the doctor we would like to have today.  He made house calls, even getting out of bed to drive to attend to a patient.  During his thank you remarks at the retirement party he said, "If a patient has taken the time to come to the office for a visit because he is not feeling well, it is the responsibility of the doctor to actively listen.  The best clue to a diagnosis is what the patient has to say."

  

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser



Preserve--Hot, Hot, Hot

     Amy Johnson Crow has a 52 Ancestors Week blog challenge which I have decided to join.  I am hoping it may help me to pinpoint someone or something that I have researched and not blogged about on Flipside.  AND push me to blog about family each week in 2024.  Sometimes I get lazy. 😁  Let's see how well I keep up.

     Week # 19 (May 6-May12) is Preserve. 

     In the spring of 2021 I decided to jump into the world of vegetable gardening.  As readers know, I do have an issue with herds of deer roaming into my backyard and I do have a fairly decent tree canopy.  

     Thumbing through my favorite gardening magazine, I happened upon a free standing garden that I could put on my deck.  Away from deer and in a spot that is sunny most of the day.  Enter one, and then a second, wooden vegtrug.  Another selling point for me was that I could stand and garden.  A real plus for this arthritic seventy years plus gal.

Carolina Reapers

Scotch Bonnet

     My son, Garrett, twisted my arm to plant hot peppers in the garden and we were off and running.  The peppers ran from mild hot to scorchers--Jalapenos to Carolina Reapers--Serrano's to Scotch Bonnet.

     Once the peppers were harvested, we began the process of making and canning salsa.  I was a novice at canning.  I wish I had taken some photos of this.  Store bought tomatoes and onions were prepped.  Hot peppers were seeded using gloves to prevent burning to the fingers.  Canning supplies were purchased, prepped and boiled.

     A very simple salsa recipe was used.  I gradually added the hot peppers to the salsa and Garrett was the taste tester.  We wanted some salsa that was not so hot that sweat would form on the brow.  😅

     First time out, the salsa was tasty, the lids all sealed on the jars and many were given as gifts to friends.  My favorite was the serrano salsa.

     The harvest of hot peppers in 2022 was poor.  Last year we harvested a bumper crop.  We froze them until I could get around to making the salsa.  And here we are in 2024 with a freezer full of hot peppers.  I have added them to many homemade Mexican meals; however, never got around to doing any salsa or canning.  

     We did have a little fun with it all.  Personalized labels.

 

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2024, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser