2024 52 Ancestors: Creativity - Handmade Quilts and Clothes

In a previous blog post on my Great Grandaunt Mary, I wrote about her quilting hobby and how I coincidentally found a photo of her sewing a pattern that wound up in the hands of a cousin whom I had just met online (all due to this blog!).

Quilt made by Mary (Dixon) Stalnaker Hogg and gifted to Nancy Hogg.

Photo supplied by Nancy Hogg, 2022.

Mary wasn't the only quilter in the family though. Her mother, Lizzie (Rockwell) Dixon, and grandmother, Elizabeth (Pitcock) Rockwell, had also been avid quilters. In 2009, our family attended a small reunion outside of Tulsa, Oklahoma at my Great Aunt Frances (Dean) Wise's home to celebrate her 90th birthday and her sister Thelma's 81st.

It was the perfect opportunity to raid Frances' closet, figuratively speaking! She gave us the low down on several family heirlooms and photos hung about her bedroom, including the many handmade quilts she had stored in a box, as well as two garments she produced herself.

Both she and Thelma are no longer with us, so I'm very thankful to have captured this special moment with the family on camera.

The entire Dixon line was extremely creative as such items are a testament to!

Comments

Patient Zero AKA The First Post

All diseases start somewhere, and the genealogy bug is no exception. I’m Kira Dawn Foltz, and you can think of me as Patient Zero. I’m here to help spread this disorder to the masses (or at least through the branches of my own tree)! And what better way to start the infection, than a history in how I caught the illness. My origin story. The year was 1993. I was 8 years old and in the 4th grade at Calvary Baptist School in Gardena, California, where my father had also attended elementary school (later Calvary Christian Academy, and now home to CrossRoad SouthBay). Mrs. Henken was my teacher. She was also my piano tutor’s wife and a very sweet lady to boot. If only she could have spotted the symptoms back then, who knows in what condition I’d be today! Mrs. Henken assigned us an oral presentation about one of our ancestors. My dad helped me reach out to my Aunt Sandra, the family historian, for information on where we came from. I received a letter from her with a fabulous tale of ...

2025 52 Ancestors: At the Library - First Outing to FamilySearch in Salt Lake City

Every genealogist should eventually make the trek out to SLC to visit the FamilySearch Library (formerly known as the Family History Library). It is open access and free to the public, like a city library, except it is wholly focused on genealogy research materials and managed by the company FamilySearch (founded by The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints). Kira D. Foltz, photo of entrance to FamilySearch Library, Salt Lake City, UT, Mar 2025. One of the genealogy societies I belong to, Ventura County Genealogical Society ( VCGS ), makes an annual pilgrimage to the library on what they have termed the Salt Lake City Safari. I learned about their trip a couple years ago and felt I'd need to tag along when the schedule made sense for me. 2025 was the year! James McAleney, photo of VCGS Safari group at FamilySearch Library, Salt Lake City, UT, Mar 2025. Used with permission. A group of about 35 of us joined together in Utah for a week in March filled with family history resea...

2024 52 Ancestors: Cultural Tradition - The Foltz Wedding Anniversary

My paternal grandparents were married on the 9th of April in 1939. It was a Sunday in San Bernardino, California. Harry and Alta (Eggenberger) Foltz, 9 Apr 1939, San Bernardino, California. But it wasn't just any Sunday in April, it happened to be Easter Sunday. They were accompanied by two of their friends from the Pasadena area, where they were living at the time, Jesse E. Chamberlain and A. E. Myers Jr. Jesse was a laundry mangler residing nearby Alta, so I assume they met by chance within their community. Myers and his family ran the restaurant that Harry bartended at on the corner of Orange Grove and Fair Oaks avenues in Pasadena. It appeared to be a very small affair, indeed, as I know Harry's out-of-state mom was not able to be in attendance and I assume the same went for Alta's out-of-state mom, as well, their fathers both having passed away when they were younger. Harry and Alta (Eggenberger) Foltz with marriage witnesses Jesse Chamberlain and A. E. Myers, Jr., 9 A...

Contagious Genealogy: A Pandemic

Search This Blog