A Locket of Hair, An old Christmas Recipe and A Family Bible - Three Genea Wishes for Christmas

The locket of red hair, given to the six year old at her mother’s funeral in 1911, had no intrinsic value, but decades later, as she spoke about the gift, its cherished nature was still evident. 

The challenge for the 62nd edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is Three Wishes. “This is your chance to write a letter to Genea-Santa. Make a list of 3 gifts you would like to receive this holiday season from 3 of your ancestors. These have to be material things, not clues to your family history (we're talking gifts here, not miracles!).” So … 

 Dear Genea-Santa, 

 I would like the locket of my great grandmother’s hair that my great aunt Lucille was given the day she said good-bye to her mother. Shortly afterwards, Lucille and her siblings were separated, and as an adult, it was Lucille’s quest that brought her not to her brother’s doorstep some forty years later, but to the doorstep of her brother’s son, my father. 

To have the locket of hair would serve as a reminder of one woman’s tenacity for putting her family back together.

In my stocking, Santa, it would be easy for you to add a recipe card from another Great Grandmother’s kitchen. Emma Gleffe Schrader was, according to my grandmother (with a hearty endorsement from my father) a very accomplished cook and baker. I’ve heard that there exists a surviving recipe for her Christmas Yule Roll. This would be a wonderful way of passing on an old family tradition that future generations could enjoy, and a way of honoring my great grandmother’s memory. Santa, please!

 And finally, in the family of my third great grandparents William Armstrong and Leah Shupe Armstrong, there is a family bible which includes the birth of my own great great grandmother Elizabeth Harriet Armstrong Feasel. Is it too much to ask that Leah’s own parents kept such a family bible, and that somehow, miraculously, it would come into my possession? Okay, I know we don’t get to ask for miracles, but hey, this could be the only way I figure out who Leah’s parents were.

Well Santa, there you have it, my three wishes. I know that these are a lot to ask of one poor overworked fellow, but it sure was fun daydreaming about the possibilities. Merry Christmas Santa, and don’t eat too many Christmas Cookies! 

 Terry S.

© 15 Dec 2008, Desktop Genealogist Unplugged, Teresa L. Snyder