War--With Nature

     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 # 17 (April 22-April 28) is War. 

     We moved into our current house in the summer of 1988.  It is a pie shaped lot with the majority of the yard behind the house.  The backyard was covered with a very deep tree canopy causing little to grow and dirt showing more than grass.  

     I didn't pay much attention to gardening then.  I had two growing sons and part time employment which kept me busy.  However as the boys grew up and I became tired of looking at the horrible backyard, I became a gardener.  

 

     Some trees were removed, a two story deck added and I began to get my hands dirty planting various varieties of Hosta's and numerous perennials.  Garden areas were dug out around the deck and the back of the house.  I added two different paths.  

  

     By 2000 the gardening had become an obsession.  Annual photos and notes were saved and early spring garden and perennial planning began.  Every spring a new garden area was added.  

     My city had been trying to put a road through an area nearby.  The ecological fight was that it would cross a portion of a nature reserve and a wetland area.  In 2014 the road was built and sound barrier walls erected on either side of it.  Deer were trapped in our residential area.  Lacking their usual food resources they began to eat what they found.  As Dr. Ian Malcolm said in Jurassic Park, "Life expands to new territories.  Painfully, perhaps even dangerously.  But life finds a way."

     And find a way they did.  My entire backyard became a feeding area for deer.  Sometimes a small herd of them would be outside eating the Hosta's and every other tasty perennial and annual to the ground.  What was once a lush and beautiful yard was complete devastation.  I was sick!

     I fiddled around with it for a year or two.  Trying different types of deer repellants that frankly, did not work.  In 2017 I began my war against the deer.  I do research for my genealogy.  Why not do research finding plants that are deer resistant?  And research I did.

  

     All Hosta's were potted and moved up on the deck.  Grasses and fescue became my friends and they come in so many different varieties and colors.  Metal fencing enclosed all outside gardens where perennials grew that the deer would eat or trample.  A beautiful patio area complete with water features and a fire pit was added.    

     Today I don't mind visitors.  In fact, I welcome them.

 

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



Technology--Linda's Awakening

     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 # 12 (March 18-March 24) is Technology. 

     Linda grabs hold of computer technology and doesn't let go.  I decided to do this blog about myself. 😀

     I am hard pressed to pin an exact date on when the computer entered our home.  It was in the early days, internet hookup was through the telephone line (dial-up), everything was very slow, no Google yet, we used Prodigy.  

     My husband seems to think we had the first home computer sometime in the early 1990's.   It was a big bulky Gateway.  Ted was adamant that we get the computer.  My response, "Go ahead and buy it.  I will probably never even use it."  

     He was so excited when he got home with all the boxes.  We set it up in the extra bedroom, plugged it in and pushed the on button.  Nothing.  Second try.  Plugged it in, pushed the on switch and NOTHING! Following a line of expletives, Ted boxed it all up and headed back to the store.  Our first attempt was one colossal FAIL.       

     An hour later, Ted returned with more boxes.  Apparently, the first computer was missing its hard drive.  Third time was the charm, plugged it in, pushed the on switch and slowly a picture appeared on the screen.  Now what?  Ted sat down and got all the information necessary into the computer.  We still did not have any internet service.  We practiced keyboarding, writing gobbledygook and printing it.  

     There was new language with this invention coming into the house.  Typing was called keyboarding.  We had to purchase floppy disks to store information.  Software, applications, mother board, monitors, processing system, search engines, Microsoft, viruses, worms, phishing, Windows, Mac and on and on.

     When the monster was working and we added internet connectivity, I began to, slowly, play around with it.  I was actively engaged in genealogy research and decided to use the search engine called Yahoo, to see what I could find. 

      Through surfing, I found US GenWeb and I was off and running.  I was able to locate and email with other folks interested in genealogy who were able to help me in the states and counties where I was tracing ancestors.  I could add information and folks contacted me.  More genealogical avenues online and to download became available.  

    Progressing into the late 1990's, I was the one who was spending the most time on the home computer.  More sophisticated models were purchased, the home computer was moved into an area in the basement with all my genealogy hard copy nearby.  The home computer became MINE.  

     Remember MySpace?  Finding and joining Ancestry, Find-A-Grave, Facebook, Family Tree Maker, my own genealogy home pages, my own blog, Flipside, begun on January 3, 2009, hundreds of on line search engines and probably the most important find for me was was GenaBlogger.

     Like most of us, with the advent of laptops, I was able to take my files with me, not just genealogy, all of my files.  And my laptop does travel.  In fact I am the techie in the family.  Always packed is the laptop, iPad, cell phone, all of the connection cords, external hard drive and a power strip.  

 

     Although my first response to a home computer was negative, the technology, once I became acquainted, became a daily adventure.  Not just genealogy.  Building my recipe file, shopping and buying on line, dinner reservations, vacation searches and reservations, gardening information, health, Zoom and Face Time--pretty much everything I do is online.  I guess I have become a mouse potato over the past couple of decades. 😁

 

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



School Days--My memories from the 1950's

     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 # 15 (April 8-April 14) is School Days. 

     I have touched on this subject in other blogs; however, I've never addressed it in total.  Again it features moi.  I am finding that some of the 52 Ancestors Weeks topics I have blogged about ad infinitum on other family members.  I guess the time about me has come. 😁

1952 All ready for Kindergarten

     

     I can remember that I was very excited to be going to Kindergarten when I turned five.  My Dad was not the photographer.  He serving with the Army in Korea as the head doctor at an aid station somewhere on the front lines.  I imagine my Mom and Dad's oldest friend and now our neighbor, Dr. Joseph N. Arthur, took the photograph.  

     As I carefully inspect the photo up close, the dress was definitely made by my maternal Grandmother aka Teek.  As I conveyed in her blog, she made almost all of my clothes while I was in elementary school.

West View Street Car # 10

     

     My Mom never drove a car until Dad was sent to Korea.  I wonder who taught her to drive?  The late summer of 1952 was the beginning of an annual trip into Pittsburgh to buy the new school necessities.  I know Mom did not drive the two of us in town.  I imagine she drove the car into the Borough of West View and we took the streetcar into Pittsburgh.  

     My brother, Ken, was born that year; however, he was never part of the trip.  Where was he?  Who was taking care of him for the day?  Maybe Grams and Pop Pop came to the house to watch him.  Maybe Pop Pop actually drove Mom and I to West View.  So many questions.  What's an almost seventy-seven year old to remember back seventy-two years.  😊  

This picture is from an earlier time;
however, this is where Teek was sitting

     We got off the street car somewhere near Joseph Horne's Department Store.  Teek was always there before us and would wave as we walked in the front entrance.  She choose a chair at the front of the balcony overlooking the first floor.   

Remember these?????

     After hugs we headed to the children's shoe department for those practical school shoes.  It was an era of shoe salesmanship when the salesman would pull out a metal foot measuring tool and actually fit the shoes to your foot.  Imagine that!

     And, when it came to practical shoes in the 1950's, it was Buster Brown.  

     We had a TV in our home by 1953, when Dad came back from Korea and Buster Brown and Tide commercials were shown in the morning with the children's programs.  Of course every child, who was fortunate to have a television in the home, desired a Buster Brown shoe.

     That first year, the routine was purchasing school shoes, gratefully paid for by Teek, and then to the Horne's Tea Room for lunch.

1953 First Grade

     The August ritual continued to be in place in 1953.  New Buster Brown shoes and a metal lunch box added.

     I'm not certain how many more years this very special August event took place; however, I do know it was at a minimum until August of 1956 when I was entering fourth grade.  

     Added to the shoe purchase was a pencil box.  In the 50's the boxes were heavy duty cardboard, like a cigar box.  They were sold in a special table on Horne's first floor.  It was fun to choose one with a favorite picture on top.  

     The last pencil box I selected was a larger one that had a pull out drawer in it.  More room for all those school supplies, pencils, crayons, scissors, ruler, etc.  

     I know by 1958 and my last year in elementary school, the school shoes and supplies were purchased at the local shopping mall.  Looks like I moved from Mary Jane's to penny loafers.  Ruthie and I turned in our lunch box and pencil box for matching brief cases.  

     

 

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



Favorite Photo. Finally a Brownie or Fake It 'til You Make It

      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 #3 (January 15-21) is Favorite Photo. 

     This month is the beginning of Girl Scout cookie orders.  It has had me thinking back to my own scouting days in the 1950's.  One of my favorite photos is of me in my brownie uniform.

     At Perrysville Elementary School in the 50's, one day of the week was designated as scout day.  All students who were involved in scouting could wear their scout uniform to school.  

Yep, my Ginny doll in her Brownie uniform

     I was so envious of those girls in their Brownie uniforms.  How I wanted to get to the age to join.  My maternal grandmother hand sewed most of my school clothes (dresses back then).  She made me a brown corduroy jumper that I wore on scout day to school.  Remember fake it 'til you make it. 😇

I save too much stuff
My Brownie pin and ring

     From the "Baby Book" my mother kept for me, she notes that at age eight I became a Brownie and what a proud moment it was.  It would have been at the beginning of third grade.  At last I could join and wear a "real" Brownie uniform to scout day.

     Girl Scout cookies now on sale also brought to mind that as a Brownie and a Girl Scout we had to sell cans of peanuts.  How I hated going door to door hawking them.  

My Girl Scout sash from the 1950's
Not too many badges.  Not overly ambitious.

     Following Brownies, I flew up to Girl Scouts.  Another uniform to wear to elementary school.  I think I stayed in Girl Scouts through sixth grade. Perhaps that was a year or two.

Buddy Burner

     Oddly, I don't have many memories of being a scout.  I know the meetings were held in Perrysville.  I do not remember any scout camping experiences like both of my brothers had in Cub Scouts and Boy Scouts.  I do remember making a buddy burner and cooking a hamburger on it at an afternoon outing with the Girl Scout troop.  

     This has been a fun walk down my own memory lane.

 

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



Grams and Pop Pop and The Dress

     I have mentioned countless times how close I was to my grandparents, both my maternal and paternal.  This blog is about my paternal grandparents, Grams and Pop Pop, Sarah VanGilder Hughes and George Henry Hughes. 

Out to dinner Spring Break 1969

     Every spring break from Heidelberg College (now Heidelberg University) my Dad kindly flew me down to St Petersburg, Florida to spend the week with Grams and Pop Pop.  It was the highlight of spring.  They had a huge swimming pool behind their condo, which I took full advantage of during my visit.  Grams cooked many of my favorite meals and there were several dinners out.

     There was usually a loose routine to my week long stay.  Swim in the gulf, go fishing with Pop Pop, visit my favorite amusement, Tiki Gardens, go to the race track, visit Busch Gardens, play bridge, and hang at the pool.  Pop Pop and I would take walks along the beach and I swear, he spoke to everyone he passed.  

Mother and Son
Grams and my Dad

     My final spring break was the Spring of 1969, the end of my college senior year.  My Dad flew down to Florida and was with us for a day or two.  I image he had a medical convention nearby as he is in some of my photos.  

     One afternoon, Grams, Pop Pop and I went to St Armands Key for lunch.  I believe the restaurant was an English Pub and probably long gone.  While we were having lunch fashion models were wandering from table to table wearing trendy outfits from a local boutique.  There was one dress that caught my eye.  Short and with a colorful pastel psychedelic print.  

     Unbeknownst to me Pop Pop must have asked for a card from the model.  After lunch, Pop Pop wanted to walk around the town and didn't we stop at a boutique and go in.  I certainly had no money to spend in a clothing boutique.  Once inside, Pop Pop found a store associate and began to ask about the very dress I had admired at the fashion show in the restaurant.  

     And there is was, hanging on a rack......in my size.  I still have that dress fifty-five years later.  I will never part with it.  The memory of that afternoon and the fun my grandfather had in making the very special purchase for me is one I hold dear.  BTW the dress label is Symphony, is what's happening, happening, happening.

 

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



Tiki Gardens, Indian Rocks Beach South Shore, Pinellas County, Florida

     

     Ah, Tiki Gardens then located on Indian Rocks Beach South Shore, Pinellas County, Florida.  So many memories.  When my paternal grandparents, Grams and Pop Pop, retired to St Petersburg, Florida we visited in the summer of 1963 and 1964.  Our first visit was when the roadside attraction opened in 1964.  It is questionable whether we visited the forerunner of Tiki Gardens, the Tiki Gardens Signal House in 1963 before it was destroyed by fire.   

Tiki Gardens Postcard
Area where the gift shops were located

     The 1964 trip must have made an impression.  In 1964 I would have been going into my senior year at high school.  I had a job and had money in my wallet when we made the drive to Florida.   I can remember the tikis, the fauna and flora and the GIFT SHOP.  It was special.  I have always been intrigued with anything from Asia.  The shop was loaded with trinkets and I filled a basket with them.  Fans, dolls, fabric and do-dads.  Probably the gift shop is my best memory of Tiki Gardens 

      I had a life long close relationship with my paternal grandparents, Grams and Pop Pop.  In addition to family vacations and events spent with them in Florida, I also spent my Easter vacation during college years, 1966-1969 at their condo in St. Petersburg.  Without a doubt, at least one afternoon was spent wandering around Tiki Gardens during each week-long vacation and my lasting memories were probably from this time period.

Tiki Gardens Post Card
showing the addition of Trader Frank's Restaurant

Mom in front of Trader Frank's

Ted and myself in front of
Oro the two faced wind God

Ken checking out a bird
Little Kahuna God of the Birds

Jeff and Mom

     In the summer of 1970, the family traveled back to Gram and Pop Pop's for the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary.  You guessed it.  An afternoon was spent at Tiki Gardens.  It was now fully developed.  I seem to remember there was a restaurant (Trader Frank's), boat rides through the lagoons and an even better and larger gift shop.  Now I was married and had a full time job.  The money was burning a hole in my pocket. 😁

     In the summer of 1977, my Mom and I arranged a vacation in St Pete.  Pop Pop had passed; however, Grams was still alive and we spent a glorious week with her.  We rented a car and naturally we drove to Indian Rocks Beach to visit Tiki Gardens.  I have no pictures of that visit and frankly the memories have vanished.  I'm certain there must have been a few trinkets that caught my eye.

     A decade later, the summer of  1987, brought me back to Florida.  This time the destination was Disney and a trip over to Treasure Island in Pinellas County to visit Grams and see the sights.  Now I was traveling with my husband and two young sons.  It would be the first time they would meet their Great Grandmother Hughes.  Also on board were my Mom and two brothers.  I was not the shutterbug I am now.  I never took any pictures of my boys with Grams or the family at the restaurant.  Certainly we drove to see Tiki Gardens.  No photos.  Was it still in operation?  My memory fails me.  Fortunately, my husband does remember that we did visit Tiki Gardens.  It would be before the amusement attraction closed in 1988.

     It has taken me a couple of years to get around to blogging about this special vacation attraction.  The trigger was a family gathering following my paternal Aunt Faith's funeral.  A number of items were shown from her estate and there was an old plastic bag from Tiki Gardens.  I'm sure Aunt Faith and Uncle Ed visited Tiki Gardens every time they were in St Petersburg.  I grabbed that bag.  

     In researching information on Tiki Gardens I found a few very informative websites.  Sadly, it was the building of Disney World that was the demise of Tiki Gardens.  I wonder if any of the other attractions we visited in 1963 and 1964 still are in operation?  

Cypress Gardens in 1963

Winter Haven, Florida

1936-2009

Now Legoland Florida Resort

Post Card

No climbing on trees--Ha Ha

Mom, myself and Jeff

Post Card

Ken, myself and Jeff
at the Wishing Tree

Silver Springs State Park in 1963

Silver Springs, Florida

Still in operation

Post Card

Dad's picture through the bottom of the glass bottom boat
Maybe a fish

Marine Studio in 1963

St Augustine, Florida

Still in operation as Marineland

The Aquatarium in 1964

St Pete Beach

1964-1977

Dad's photos

Weeki Watchee Springs State Park in 1964

Weeki Wachee, Florida

The mermaids still perform

Weecki Wachee photo

Six Gun Territory in 1964

Ocala, Florida

1963-1984

Ken and Mom

Busch Gardens in 1964

Tampa, Florida

Still in operation

Red bird caught red-handed pulling off a button
on Ken's shirt.  Ha Ha

     This blog has provided a delightful walk down memory lane for me.  Fortunately with the advent of Disney in Florida, not all vintage attractions closed their doors.  And now the big question.  What do I do with the Tiki Gardens souvenir bag?

A great website recalling Tiki Garden's past

Vintage St Pete:  Aloha From Beautiful, Exotic Tiki Gardens

 

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.

© 2023, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser