Thankful for the Encouragement

Since we’re on a process break—though I promise I’ll soon return to my story about the Beanery and its residents—I thought I’d interject a column today in thanks to some kind recognition.

If you do much reading around the genealogy-blogging world, you’ve surely noticed the recent flurry of awards recognizing writers for various aspects of their online writing. Some of those writers, last week, were kind enough to include A Family Tapestry in their honors. For this, I am most grateful—you’ll never know how timely this boost has been!

Getting Up There With the Stars…

First, I want to thank Jana Last of Jana’s Genealogy and Family History Blog. She wrote a midweek post announcing that she had been nominated for the Blog of the Year 2012 award by ScotSue of Family History Fun.

In the spirit of the award, she then turned around and passed the award along to three other bloggers: Jen of Ancestral Breezes, Gini of Ginisology, and—wait? Is that? No, it couldn’t be! Oh, blush!—this very blog, A Family Tapestry.

While I’m enjoying having some fun with that nomination—and believe me, Jana, I could use the smiles right now—I do appreciate the vote of confidence, and as you did, I would like, in turn, to pass the honor along.

As the originators of the award, Alyson and David Sheldrake of The Thought Palette, explain:

The “rules” for this award are simple: 

1 Select the blog(s) you think deserve the ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award

2 Write a blog post and tell us about the blog(s) you have chosen – there’s no minimum or maximum number of blogs required – and ‘present’ them with their award.

3 Please include a link back to this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award – http://thethoughtpalette.co.uk/our-awards/blog-of-the-year-2012-award/ and include these ‘rules’ in your post (please don’t alter the rules or the badges!)

4 Let the blog(s) you have chosen know that you have given them this award and share the ‘rules’ with them

5 You can now also join our Facebook group – click ‘like’ on this page ‘Blog of the Year 2012’ Award Facebook group and then you can share your blog with an even wider audience

6 As a winner of the award – please add a link back to the blog that presented you with the award – and then proudly display the award on your blog and sidebar … and start collecting stars…When you begin, you will receive the “1 star” award. Every time you are given the award by another blog, you can add another star! There are a total of 6 stars to collect.

A Great Reader Is…

No sooner had Jana kindly awarded me with this designation, when another simpatico blogger must have sensed the need to send some kudos my way. Mariann Regan of Into the Briar Patch named me, along with several bloggers I admire, for the Wonderful Team Member Readership Award.

I like what the originator of this award wrote:

“As bloggers, we are also readers. That is a part of blogging as listening is a part of speaking.”

Here are the requirements to participate in passing this award along:

(i) Don’t forget to thank the nominator and link back to their site as well;

(ii) Display the award logo on your blog;

(iii) Nominate no more than fourteen readers of your blog you appreciate and leave a comment on their blogs to let them know about the award;

(iv) Finish this sentence: “A great reader is…”

In my opinion, a great reader is someone who can read between the lines, picking up the nuances to say what has yet to be said by leaving comments that make each blog post what it was really meant to be.

Without the kindness of those who read A Family Tapestry, generously adding their comments as co-creators of this dialog, it would be a chilly and quiet corner of the cyberworld here, indeed. An audience breathes life into the actors. Writers may not stand in front of their readers like players on a stage, but the dynamics remain the same.

While I’m thankful for each of you who read and comment at A Family Tapestry—in case you’ve missed it, I did post my thanks to each of you who shared the conversation with me in 2012 here—I’d like to pass along special thanks to a few fellow bloggers who have been most encouraging.

First, of course, I want to thank my first inspiration and role model in the quest to save orphan photos, “Far Side of Fifty” who writes, among other blogs, Forgotten Old Photos. Of course, Far Side plainly declares that she doesn’t “do awards,” so I can’t officially nominate her. But I can at least give her an honorable mention! Her work is certainly worth that. And while she doesn’t accept awards, she does explain, “award me a comment!” If you have never visited her blog, please take that opportunity now. You won’t regret it—and may find yourself joining her 1,696 followers.

I’m grateful for these bloggers who have partnered with me over the past year, and wish to pass this award on to them as well:

• “Iggy” of Intense Guy
• Wendy of Jollett etc.
• Julie Cahill Tarr of GenBlog
• Shelley Bishop of A Sense of Family
• Sheri Fenley of The Educated Genealogist

Be a Dear

Someone else must have decided to make it a threesome. Along with Jana and Mariann, Michelle Taggart decided to bestow some genealogy link love, too. Michelle, I know you are busy preparing for the Salt Lake Institute of Genealogy this week, but when you get a chance to catch up on your blog reading, I want to say “Thank you” for giving me the Liebster Blog Award.

The Liebster award is one way of showing appreciation for the “dearest” of the blogs in my reading list. Like other awards, this one comes with its own set of requirements of those nominated:

1.  Link back to the blog who nominated you
2.  Nominate 5 blogs with less than 200 followers
3.  Let nominees know by leaving a comment at their site
4.  Add the award image to your site.

Here are my five nominees for the Liebster Blog Award. Each of these are bloggers whose work and ways are particularly appreciated:

• Gini of Ginisology
• “The Path Traveled” of Just Thoughts on a Blog
• Joan of Roots’n’Leaves
• Teresa Wilson Rogers of Forgotten Faces and Long Ago Places
• Lisa of Dearest Esther

Collecting the Stars

Perhaps you recall that, at the beginning of this post, I mentioned the Blog of the Year 2012 award, but failed to mention just who I intended to nominate. There’s a reason for such coy maneuvers. No, I’m not shy—even though there are so many inspiring blogs out there.

It’s just that, before I could get busy with my response, yet another blogger popped up and bestowed the same award. And yes, since we can collect those stars, I can now display two! Thank you to Sharn White of Family Convictions—A Convict Ancestor for nominating A Family Tapestry!

In turn, I’d like to pass along this Blog of the Year 2012 award to some of the writers who inspire, motivate, and challenge me. Please join me in recognizing the contributions of the following bloggers to the genealogy and family history blogging community:

• “Irish Eyes Jennifer” of On a Flesh and Bone Foundation
• Michelle Taggart of A Southern Sleuth
• Linda Gartz of Family Archaeologist
• Deborah Sweeney of Genealogy Lady
• Anne Gillespie Mitchell of Finding Forgotten Stories

If anyone is not familiar with any of these publications, please take the time to stop by and visit the links above. It will be well worth your time!

Thank you again, Jana, Mariann, Michelle, and Sharn, for your kind nominations!

History’s Scavengers

It’s been a while since I took a “Process Break” and just wrote about what goes into producing this blog. Today is going to be one of those days.

I had this thought yesterday while driving home from a particularly enjoyable lunch meeting with a friend, and I want to share it. However, before I do that, I have to explain some background information.

I seem to do most of my musing when my brain is on auto-pilot. Perhaps you experience this sort of thing when you find yourself doing some repetitive, mindless task. Some people notice this tendency while in the shower, or when they are doing dishes. I find it happening when I am on a long drive.

Yesterday was one of those bright, sunny January days that just make me want to play hooky, call in sick at work, or otherwise escape my duties and go for a drive in the California foothills. My eyes can drink in the fabulous scenery (all the while, of course, being attentive to my driving). I can soak up the unexpected midwinter sunshine, and breathe in that fresh, crisp wintry air.

And think.

I thought about the time last summer when my husband and I were sitting outside at a particular coffee shop. We were enjoying the outdoors, then, too. Even though it was the exact reverse season from today, we were doing the same thing: soaking up the sun, enjoying the fresh air, and talking about our thoughts.

During that peaceful morning retreat, along came someone whom we expected to interrupt our conversation. He was dressed quite shabbily, and we had kept an eye on him from a distance, as he rustled through each garbage receptacle along the walkway. Our town has no lack of panhandlers, and we had assumed he would eventually reach a proximity from which he could conveniently press us for a handout.

After years in civil service in the field of law enforcement, my husband has developed his own policy of addressing the situation of contact initiated by those down and out on their “luck.” Perhaps this may seem jaded to some, but he has learned that providing such individuals with the cash they are requesting—no matter how compelling the accompanying story may be—is merely capitulating in providing that person with the means through which they may more easily access their poison of preference.

On the other hand, if he senses that inner prompting to do so, he is very generous in providing the hungry with food at a nearby sandwich shop, or gasoline for their vehicle “needing to get back to Oakland.”

But on this particular morning, as we waited as sitting targets of opportunity for that stranger, he didn’t make the anticipated move.

Instead, he steadily continued his routine: opening trash bins, rummaging around in the contents stored below, pulling out the items he was seeking, and organizing them in his bags.

Trash receptacle by trash receptacle, he drew nearer. With not much more than a brief nod when we made eye contact, he passed right by us and continued the process at his next stop. Eventually, he crossed the parking lot and proceeded to complete his rounds with the containers near the stores on that other side.

Bemused by this switch from the stereotypical behavior to which we had been accustomed, my husband wondered aloud about the possibility that, embedded within the various strata of society, there might be a role designated as scavengers.

Not sure how to take this unexpected conclusion, I pressed him to elaborate.

Just like in other eco-systems in the world, he explained, he wondered if there were a role to play in human cultures which paralleled that of, say, shrimp near the coastline. After all, by what they do, scavengers play an important role in their own ecosystem.

He may have been on to something. After all, the 1911 Census of England and Wales included “scavenger” as a listed occupation—although referring to a service more akin to what we’d now label “garbage collector” or “street cleaner.”

Watching our morning coffee interloper retreat into the distance, my husband remarked on his diligent search for recyclable objects. That man was providing a useful service. No matter how down-and-out he might have appeared, he was performing his rounds thoroughly and quickly. He was separating what others labeled as “garbage” into categories of worth, and extracting those groups which could be exchanged for a more useable medium: cash. Not a bad strategy—not to mention, eco-friendly.

While we may not admit it as a society, my husband continued, we benefit from the services of those willing to sift through what we consider useless and transform it into the once-again valued.

That was last summer. While it was a small conversation—admittedly more the domain of those late-night moments when college students wax philosophical just before everyone falls asleep—I tucked that unusual observation away in the back of my mind.

Yesterday, driving home after lunch, that memory resurfaced. It was triggered by yet another thought.

I was thinking about all the people I’ve met lately as I’ve delved back into the face-to-face world of Genealogical Society activities and D.A.R. meetings. I was thinking, in particular, about one acquaintance whom I hadn’t seen in well over twenty years, who happened to attend the very D.A.R. meeting that was my first visit.

Meeting this woman was very timely, as I had often wondered what happened to a specific ancestor connected to her extended family. This ancestor, in his time, was a circuit rider for the Methodist Church during its early years in this country. As a circuit rider, he of course kept a journal, which had eventually been passed down through the generations in this family.

When I first heard of this family’s great fortune to still hold such an artifact of family history, I was quite jealous. Jealous enough, in fact, to still remember that detail after all these years.

I wanted to know if the journal was still in the family’s possession. Did anyone transcribe it? Did they still value it as much as I would have, if I had been the one to inherit it?

These are the things that are of great importance to me—important enough to remember during a chance meeting, decades later. Important enough, incidentally, to continue brooding over on a beautiful, sunny January day like yesterday, when I should have just been enjoying my drive home after a satisfying visit with a friend over lunch.

And then it hit me.

We—those historians-at-heart, the ones who jealously guard the documentation of our everyday lives through our family’s generations—we are the scavengers of history. We are the ones who plow through the garbage heaps of history, searching for the remains that are still salvageable. We are the ones who take molded-over pages from musty book bins and prop them open to transcribe each page so the thoughts from centuries ago can be recaptured for tomorrow’s consideration. We are the ones who give no thought to how important—or relatively obscure—our subjects may have been in life, but honor their place in history, wherever it may have been.

And seek to convert the forgotten into the currency of modern consciousness once again.


Above right: photograph of a fossil decapod displayed at the Paleontological museum in Stuttgart, Germany; photograph courtesy Wikimedia user Ra'ike; permission granted to display this work under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.2 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation. 

Take a Look at This Picture

Some people have a knack of looking at a photograph, observing every mundane artifact, and gleaning deep meaning from seemingly inconsequential detail.

I am not one of those people.

There is one portrait, though, of which I’ve been privileged to become the guardian, where I can point out some telltale clues.

That portrait is one of the few pictures I have of Earle Bean’s parents, Samuel and Maud Woodworth Bean of Alameda, California.

I’ve mentioned before that Earle and his older brother Sam were born to this couple in the 1920s—I’ve shown you one (admittedly faded) photograph of the boys with their parents, their aunt and paternal grandmother on the front step of their home.

What I haven’t told you yet is the back story of this unusual couple.

Taking a look at this portrait of the young couple will help reveal some of the details of the challenges confronting each of them.

What you may notice in the portrait is the endearing gesture of Maud holding hands with her husband. You may also notice—though the copy of the portrait is unsatisfactorily blurred—that Sam is looking off to the side, rather than directing his gaze to the camera.

There is a reason for these details.

You see, Maud is not merely being sentimental in arranging her portrait seating alongside her husband. Nor is she risking censure (for that time period) by overly expressing fondness in public.

Maud is most likely “talking” with Sam, much the same as Anne Sullivan used to communicate with her student, Helen Keller.

Sam Bean is both blind and deaf.

Maud, herself, is rather empathetic to this condition. You may note she, herself, dons a thick pair of glasses. Those spectacles may be the only device keeping her from being legally blind, herself.

While I have not researched this for myself, it is my understanding through family oral tradition that Sam met Maud while both were students at the California School for the Deaf and Blind in Berkeley.

Sam was not born with that condition. The story behind the detour in the path of his life is long enough to take a few additional posts here at A Family Tapestry. By the time of this photo, though, he was quite familiar with this new role in life. We’ll go into the reasons why during the next few days.

Recreating this photograph to share here was a challenge in itself. The portrait is well sealed within the frame, and I hesitate to tamper with its construction. Scanning it with a Flip Pal or other such device would be difficult owing to the curved glass covering the front of the frame. Catching a reflection of a flash if a digital camera were used presents similar limiting factors.

On a hunch, and game to experiment, my husband took the frame and set it in his office scanner, which can accommodate prints up to eleven by seventeen inches in size, and gave it a try there. The result, while not flawless, does render a clearer representation of their faces. Perhaps, in that legendary “Round Tuit” day in my future, I can go back and scan the package in reverse order, getting the glare to obliterate the opposite end of the portrait, then take the twin copies and play around with PhotoShop until I am satisfied with the results.

In the meantime, if you would let this little glimpse into the world of Sam and Maud Bean suffice you, I would be most obliged. For, you see, I have little else with which to introduce you into their very different, dark and silent world.

Amazingly Not 4-F

The bucolic setting of home life in Alameda, California, during the 1930s may have seemed a sheltered haven for Sam and Earle Bean. Living with both their parents, Samuel and Maud Woodworth Bean, and their paternal grandmother, Ella Shields Bean, they were free to play “Cowboys and Indians” to their heart’s content—as long as they got their homework done first.

It was only a few years until distant war eventually reached across an ocean and a continent to disrupt that peaceful ambience.

While the brothers Sam and Earle Bean showed every indication of having Marfan syndrome, amazingly, when it came to activities requiring pre-screening for medical issues, those symptoms did not disqualify at least younger brother Earle from serving during World War II. While he undoubtedly had the same astoundingly flat feet as his son had in facing another generation’s war, and while he surely manifested heart murmurs and other signs of internal weaknesses that Greg later developed, Earle was accepted into the United States Marine Corps at the age of 18. (In contrast, with the same basic physique and health limitations, Greg, facing the draft at that same age 18 during the Viet Nam war, received a Selective Service classification of 4-F.)

I don’t have many records of Earle’s service during the war. I do remember Greg having a collection of his father’s ribbons and other insignia from his time in the service, but after Greg’s passing, those treasures from their father were bequeathed to Greg’s sister.

What I do remember about it all was the story of the one place where Earle served: the Battle of Iwo Jima. Was it just my faded memory that seems to recall a Purple Heart? Perhaps not. Though I no longer have the box where those ribbons and medals were stored, while recently researching Earle’s name on military records at Ancestry.com, I found one snippet of information.

Taken from the State Summary of War Casualties from World War II for Navy, Marine Corps, and Coast Guard Personnel from the records of the Bureau of Naval Personnel, one tiny note caught my eye:

BEAN, Earl R., Pvt., USMCR. Grandmother, Mrs. Ella M. Bean, 1807 Santa Clara Ave., Alameda.

Even though the entry didn’t spell out when or where the injury was sustained, that it was listed at all—and, thankfully, findable at Ancestry.com—helped me regain confidence in my fuzzy recollection of the stories I had heard so long ago. These are stories for which I can no longer go back and seek confirmation from family members, so I’m glad to have this second—and admittedly, more reliable—resource from which to draw as I reconstruct the life story of this one man.


Above right: photograph of first raising of the flag over Iwo Jima, February 23, 1945; courtesy Wikipedia; in the public domain.

Pursuing Health in Your Genealogical Record

Most of us enjoy the challenge of discovering our genealogical roots because we have an overarching hunger to know who our ancestors were. We are, after all, a combination of the traits and tendencies embedded in the genes of all those family members who went before us.

Though we often repeat that concept, though, not many of us research our family history with the express purpose of discovering our medical propensities. We may be curious about some of our physical attributes—where did those hazel eyes come from, anyhow?—but we often bypass questions that could, in the long term, have more impact on our own life.

With a family like the Bean family I’ve been writing about—and the related Woodworth line, as I’ll explain in a few days—the case is drastically different. Long before anyone knew there was such a thing as Marfan syndrome (first documented in 1896 by French pediatrician Antoine Marfan), someone in the Woodworth family line introduced it into the Bean family. Within a generation, whether the general public had heard anything about the syndrome or not, the extended Bean-Woodworth family had become painfully aware of its devastation.

Since I started this series on the Bean family, we’ve engaged in some conversation about this syndrome. Unless you have followed basketball or volleyball for a long time—and thus remember the mystifying stories of players unexpectedly passing out, right on the court—you have probably had no occasion to learn much about the malady.

Invisible, Yet So Obvious

One of the things I found so difficult to deal with in coping with Marfan syndrome was the reaction of other people to the dire medical issues that could crop up, unexpectedly. What presents to other people as a perfectly healthy young person may actually be, internally, a ticking time bomb, just waiting to explode. That is the legacy of the damage caused by Marfan’s to the cardiovascular system.

On the other hand, the hallmark of the syndrome is the incredible height of the subject, in addition to the rather elongated, thin appearance. “Long” and “thin” are two common words used to describe everything from facial features to hands and feet of the Marfan’s victim. It is as if the syndrome’s name is spray-painted over the physique of each patient like scrawled tags in graffiti. How could the casual bystander miss something as obvious as that?

Such telltale signs generally made it easier to track the “progress” of the offending gene through the family lines, as long as I had photographs. In this particular family, at least, often the bearers of the syndrome would make light of their height—you’ve already seen the photo of Earle Bean and his wife, Marilyn; Earle’s son Greg, years later, had his own version of the photographic jest, as you can see above. Greg’s aunt Belle, who married into the Woodworth line, had a number of sons with the same affliction, yet with their sense of humor, they managed to produce a few photographic chuckles of their own, including a line-up with their petite mom where she stood, eye level to her children’s belt buckles.

Granted, there are other health situations that researchers try to pursue in reconstructing their family health history which are not so visible. One reader, Heather Rojo, commented on researching diabetes in her family line—another health issue that we often encounter in medical questions at the doctor’s office. “Any of your parents have this illness? What about grandparents?” We often hear these questions aimed at us when we visit our own doctor; as family history researchers, we are equipped to pursue those answers ahead of time.

Striking the Well-Known and the Not-So-Famous

As “Intense Guy,” another reader at A Family Tapestry, mentioned in some comments, there are quite a few famous people who have had Marfan syndrome. Of course, simply being tall is not a qualifier for this category. There is so much more that goes into the diagnosis. So discard any notions you might have about your favorite extra-tall TV monster. Or movie elf.

Taking a look at one website’s listing of celebrities with Marfan syndrome, it was interesting to compare notes to that of the Bean family’s experiences. There were some mentions of “ruptured aortic aneurysm caused by Marfan syndrome.” That is the technical term for the very episode experienced by brothers Sam and Earle Bean, and a generation later (though thankfully after medical advances provided remedies for such dire circumstances) by Earle’s son, Greg. By that very token, as we research these medical diagnoses through the generations, we must also, by definition, become aware of the progress in medical history relative to the specific disease we are researching—and run concurrent timelines through our families’ histories. The diagnoses—and treatment regiments—of a century ago are thankfully not the protocol of our current decade, but it helps in genealogical documentation to be aware of these changes and even nuances in medical history.

As we read the accounts of others who have suffered from the same disorder—whether the life stories of the famous, or the oral traditions passed down by our own families—we can’t help but compare notes. For instance, after all I’ve experienced with the Bean and Woodworth families concerning this syndrome, I still tend to call it “Marfan’s” rather than Marfan syndrome, because that was what it was first called by the heart surgeon who spoke with family the night of that unexpected initial event that sought to claim Greg’s life. I also noticed, in the official-looking listing of symptoms at the National Institutes of Health’s PubMed Health website, a mention of “learning disability,” which turns out to be diametrically opposed to my own experience in knowing those several family members who were confirmed Marfan syndrome patients. You will also have your own observations as you engage in this research endeavor with your own family lines. While you may not feel like you are the medical expert, write down your own observations. These notes will also, someday, become part of your family medical history’s narrative.
  

Same as Sam

Some brothers grow up, having the kind of relationship that observers often excuse with that overused phrase, “Boys will be boys.” Others have a lifetime together that models those sought-after ideals we think of when we use terms such as “fraternity” and “brotherhood.”

While I don’t know what type of childhood Earle Raymond Bean shared with his older brother Sam, I do know they shared a common destiny. Both of them succumbed to the cardiovascular issues that plague people with Marfan syndrome.

Firstborn Samuel William Bean—named after his father—arrived on the family scene on September 26, 1921. I don’t know whether anyone ever remarked at his extraordinary height at any time during his childhood, although I’m fairly certain not much was widely known about the syndrome that was, even in childhood, shaping his body with its distinctive markings. Perhaps because he had cousins with similar propensities, the physical distortions were assumed to be due more to family resemblance than medical anomaly.

Almost five years later, Sam—or Sammie junior, as he was called in his younger years—was joined by his brother Earle. Just like his older brother, Earle turned out to be a long, lanky lad with the characteristically thin face, bony arms and legs, and long, long fingers.

There are a few pictures remaining of that time when Sam and Earle were still young children. Though faded through the many years since, one photo captures the family in front of the “Beanery” in Alameda, California. To the left, standing by her front step, is Ella May Shields Bean, the paternal grandmother of Sam and Earle. Standing next to her—at least this is my guess, as the picture is not marked—is her daughter-in-law, Maud Woodworth Bean, nearly shoulder-to-shoulder with her husband, Samuel senior. If my guess is correct, the last person in the back row of the photograph is Sam’s older sister, Leona.

It looks like the photographic session has interrupted some important play activity, for young Sammie is standing in front, between his dad and his aunt, donning an impressive cowboy hat. His younger brother seems deeply interested in whatever he is holding—surely an item meant to complement his feather headdress.

I’ve long remembered seeing the photograph of Sammie junior as a baby, being held by his grandmother as if she is seeing him for the first time—and simultaneously presenting him to the world. I also remember hearing family members talk about “that picture of Sam in the baby carriage”—and wonder if the photo I found of the oversized boy in that old-fashioned stroller would be the one they meant.

But I never had the chance to meet Sam. He was gone long before I could possibly have met him. As for his younger brother—the one who played “Indian” to Sam’s “Cowboy”—he followed suit in the same fashion. All I know of these brothers is the stories they left behind.

A Little Girl’s Daddy

When we come through joyous moments like the Christmas season we’ve just passed, we sometimes forget that times like that are not necessarily as happy for everyone else.

I found a mystery photo in the box handed down to me from the Bean family that—if I’m identifying it correctly—marks the last happy Christmas together for one little girl and her dad.

The baby girl may be Judith Louise Bean, second-born child of Earle and Marilyn Bean. Arriving in October, 1954, she would have been just over the two month mark in time for her first Christmas that year.

I’m not really sure about that identity, however. The baby looks a little too hefty for a two-month-old (give or take the extra ten days past that mark for her age). And her hair color seems a little too light.

The photograph is definitely from the holiday season, though—you can see just the slightest hint of the Christmas tree to the bottom right of the shot, where the old-fashioned tinsel cascades down from a few of the branches.

The man seated in the chair is not cooperating in this identity-fixing quest, either. Looking down at the baby, his face is partially obscured. Hair color, hairline, and glasses are the only possibilities for confirming this subject as Earle Raymond Bean, Judy’s father. Well…and the characteristic long, bony appearance of legs, arms and even hands. Plus that pronounced nose bridge. That, however, could be the Marfan Syndrome speaking louder than the Bean family resemblance.

Though the picture doesn’t include any date—nor any other marks of identification—my speculations would lead me to assume this photo was taken for Christmas in 1954.

Fast forward a year.

The Bean family household, now residing in San Lorenzo, California, would otherwise have been preparing for another Christmas season by now, except for some news the extended family had just received. Earle’s brother, Sam, had been given some devastating medical news which, unfortunately, left him without any treatment options. Soon after, Sam passed away that December second.

The news for Sam was that the Marfan syndrome he had was about to cause some serious problems to his cardiovascular system.

Hearing that news could only mean the same thing for his younger brother, Earle, who had the same condition. While the brothers were nearly five years apart in age, the news took only days to catch up with Earle, who followed suit on December eleventh—nine days later.

That news left Marilyn bereft of both her husband and her brother-in-law—and left alone to care for two small children, one of whom was barely over a year in age. Within a short period of time, she made the decision to move from the family home in the San Francisco Bay Area to a new place farther north, in Santa Rosa, California, where her mother now lived. At least she could be near her mother and step father—she had lost her own father only the past spring—and have some assistance in raising her two children.

The new town proved to be a wise choice for this family—not only a beautiful place to live, but one near extended family. The house she purchased was just down the street from her mother’s place—within walking distance for when the grandchildren were older and more independent.

Perhaps one picture I found in my box—a faded photograph of Marilyn, Greg, Judy and an unidentified older woman who may have been Marilyn's mom—was an example of an opportunity for them to get together as the children grew.

The house, itself, became a symbol of a life where the children could grow in a peaceful neighborhood—just down the street from school as well as a beautiful park. It became a place the kids could call their own in this brave new life, where they could confidently create their own decorations as they looked forward to new Christmases and life together, just the three of them.