Sentimental Sunday - Family Christmas Card

Deller Family Christmas Card, Tulsa, OK, 1961

Sweet Easter Memories

Hats, purses and white gloves. Those were the days!

Happy Easter!

Share Your Memories

Hi All,

We [the Deller family] are in the process of putting together a family history book, and would like to ask family members and friends to send in stories and memories of anyone in the family. This basically means anyone related to Carolyn or Charles Deller, and specifically including Mabel and Rudy Valdez, Mona and Delores, as well as relatives of the Jones [Carolyn] family.

The hope is to put together something for the family which they can keep and share in the future, preserving memories that might otherwise be lost. The best things would be specific memories or stories.

[David speaking: “I remember asking Rudy when we were fishing whether the fish knew they were going to cut their heads off. ‘Yeah,’ he said with a grin, ‘they know.’ Or when I visited Granny Mabel in Tulsa as a kid, and she would always be sitting at the coffee table, smoking Salems, watching TV, and playing solitaire. That’s how I remember her. Those are weak examples, perhaps, but are just off the top of my head. Think of something you think would interest other family members, and is worth remembering.

Another example: When I was 4, my sister threw the bologna from a sandwich accidentally/on purpose into my hair. That’s silly, but might help someone remember Diane. Or seeing her dance.

Just whatever you remember fondly, and would like to share with others. There is no necessary limit, but the “editors” may have to alter some to get them in. But we can handle quite a bit, because whatever we cannot get into the “book” itself, we plan to put on a DVD/CD inside the back cover which could contain a lot of stuff. And I [David], characteristically, want to include as much as possible. We hope to put together something that others would be interested in having [we haven’t figured out the logistics yet].

Thank you in advance, and looking forward to your stories. We’re trying to get this done by August, so we are hoping to get all the material by June.

Thanks again for your contribution.

David

Pictures from top to bottom, left to right
1- Carolyn Jones & Charles F Deller at Tulsa Airport, OK abt 1995; 2- Mable Roark Deller Valdez holding Diane Deller, & Rudy Valdez holding Martha Deller, abt 1955; 3- Mable Roark with her father George Thomas Roark & brother Roy Roark, abt 1910; 4- Charles Franklin Deller & Carolyn Jones, 1950; 5- Mable Roark Deller Valdez

In Praise of Hometown Libraries

Since I last wrote, I've had little time for any research at all, but yesterday I was able to take a long awaited road trip to a town the Deller's lived in for years, Coffeyville, Kansas.

More than once during my library visit, I said to the librarian, "I love this library!" She replied, "That's only because you've found something." And she was right, in a way. Even when I don't find information, I love being in libraries, but yesterday I found something because they are repository for the local newspaper, The Coffeyville Journal. And the local historical society had also taken the time to create at least a dozen books of obituaries from that newspaper, making it even easier to find obituaries.

Yes, I WAS a happy camper, to find obituaries and news articles that linked family members and introduced me to new family I didn't even know were there. I will be returning, there was just too much to absorb in one visit; and I'm looking forward to that just as much as I did to yesterday's visit

I know it'd difficult for many people to make trips like this (it's taken me more than six months to be in the right place at the right time), but if and when you get a chance to visit, don't pass it up. Those libraries hold gems for the mining.

Wordless Wednesday

L-R: unknown children (possibly Dellers, Hussongs, or Koehlhoffers), Mable Roark Deller holding Charles 'Charlie' Deller, & Charles Joseph Deller. Ca. 1927, probably in southeast Kansas.

The First Post

Years ago, my grandmother shared her love of family. She showed us the family Bible, filled with names of parents and grandparents. She wrote lists of grandparents, their children, her parents and her brothers and sisters. She seemed proud that she knew all their names, and her enthusiasm was contagious. I asked her to show me where these relatives were buried, and she took me for rides. We didn't have to go far; a few miles in different directions took us to four or five different family cemeteries. She'd lead the way to gravestones, pointing them out one by one, telling me how we were all related. While I did encourage her to tell me about them, I'm sure I didn't learn as much as I could have.

Since then I've been collecting family information, but I still feel like a beginner to the world of genealogy. In spite of the overwhelming scope of it all, I want to keep searching and collecting information about these family members. With each bit of information I find, I keep wondering, 'What was their story?' I know, it's not an original thought, but it keeps recurring, and I thought it was as good a title as any.

So I'm starting this blog with the purpose of sharing information that I've found about the Deller, Jones, Roark, Ingram, Miller, Hussong, Jackson, Taylor, Hogan, Gilbert, Peck, Vaught, Lappin, Starkey, Perry, Montgomery, Reno, and more (there always seems to be more).