Jarrett House North: Family

Electronic text comes to family research

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 15:49:09 GMT

When my grandfather passed away in January, I made a resolution that I would do what I could to ensure that he was not forgotten and that my descendants would know about him. So I started a little project that blossomed. The Brackbill Wiki is a set of pages I set up to collect family genealogy information, primarily original documents and pointers to photos. In the process of getting the site together, I also collected a bunch of information about various family members, friends, and institutions.

The core of the site is a set of documents from my grandfather and other family members that he gave to us or that he left behind. In particular, other family members and I are in the process of transcribing four years of his journal that span from the time he graduated from the state teachers’ college to the time my mom was born. The 1939 journal has been completely transcribed and the 1940 journal is in progress. We also used the site to provide a new home for my sister’s project, “Great Aunt Eva’s Blog,” which disappeared when her old blog host shut down. Esta is in the process of bringing it back on the new site right now.

There are a bunch of cool things that have come out of the process of transcribing these journals. I’ve gained a new appreciation for my grandparents’ lives (just how did they work six days a week and go out every night to choir practices and committee meetings? I only work five and I’m exhausted when I get home), for the people they spent time with (Twiddley!), and the infrastructure in which they grew up. I’ve also gotten to know my grandfather, and his sense of humor, a little better.

What occurred to me the other day was how this project is analogous, on a humbler scale, to big digital humanities projects like the Valley of the Shadow project, in which former UVA professor Ed Ayers and a team of students indexed and digitized reams of original materials from two Civil War era communities. In this case, our scope and our team is quite a bit smaller, but thanks to the wiki technology we used the material is coming together quite a bit faster.

Found: my grandfather’s mill

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 21 Jan 2008 05:07:51 GMT

My grandfather worked at an old fashioned water-powered mill, making flour and animal feed for the county, during the first years of his post-college life and of his marriage. The family has always known where the mill was—right around the corner from the Brackbill farm—but not what has become of it in its post-mill existence.

This weekend I learned that the mill now is the home of an antiquarian bookseller.

(Yes, I think God has a sense of humor. What better way to ensure I make a pilgrimage to uncover part of my Pop-pop’s history than to make sure it’s filled with books?)

The other ironic part: the mill is practically just around the corner from the family farm where I’ve attended reunions my whole life. Why ironic? Because I’ve been reading daily complaints in my grandfather’s diary about how he couldn’t get to work on time. It surely wasn’t because of traffic that he had problems getting there…

Planted

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 15 Jan 2008 08:39:33 GMT

There are three texts that have been in my mind since my grandfather’s funeral service today. One, the morbidly funny Laurie Anderson line from “Gravity’s Angel”:

And at his funeral all his friends stood around looking said. But they were really thinking of all the ham and cheese sandwiches in the next room. And everybody used to hang around him. And I know why. They said: There but for the grace of the angels go I.

Because you know what: after a sleepless night, and the morning viewing, and the service, and walking out to the cemetery in the rain, and placing a flower on the casket, and walking back, I found myself frightfully hungry. So I got two ham salad sandwiches and listened to the guests reminisce about my Pop-Pop, and drank coffee. And I said: So. This is life reminding me that I’m still in it.

Quotation number 2: Also from Laurie Anderson, “World Without End”:

When my father died we put him in the ground
When my father died it was like a whole library
Had burned down. World without end remember me.

Because all day long I wanted to turn to him and ask a question about this relative, or that one, or about his life in Kinzers, or something about the house. And someone had taken all the books away.

The final quotation running through my head is a part of one of the verses that was read at the funeral. This version is from the NRSV (I Corinthians 15:35-57):

But someone will ask, “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?” Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed, perhaps of wheat or of some other grain. But God gives it a body as he has chosen...

So it is with the resurrection of the dead. What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonour, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body. Thus it is written, “The first man, Adam, became a living being”; the last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first man was from the earth, a man of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the man of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.

What I am saying, brothers and sisters, is this: flesh and blood cannot inherit the kingdom of God, nor does the perishable inherit the imperishable. Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed. For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality. When this perishable body puts on imperishability, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

“Death has been swallowed up in victory.”
“Where, O death, is your victory?
Where, O death, is your sting?”

And really, if I didn’t learn anything at all from my grandfather, I learned to listen to the preacher, and the Bible, and chew over the theology, and argue about it, sometimes vehemently, and then to come back to it over and over again. But this much I know: we have planted my grandfather, but he continues to grow in us.

Herman Brackbill, 1917-2008

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 09 Jan 2008 18:05:44 GMT

I got a call from my mother this morning informing me that my grandfather, Herman Brackbill, passed away earlier today at the age of 90. He would have been 91 next month.

As regular readers of my blog know, my grandfather’s health hasn’t been that great over the past few years, and it took a significant downturn a few months ago when he was diagnosed with pulmonary fibrosis. But when we saw him in December he was as alert, funny, and warm as ever. It hurts that he’s gone.

My fondest memories of my grandfather are from when I was a kid. We used to see him and my grandmother fairly often, and we had a little ritual going. In the days before my dad finished our basement, they would sleep on the pull-out couch in the living room, where the TV was, and we would come running down the hall early on Saturday morning and make Pop-pop watch cartoons with us. He would generally sit still with us for Looney Tunes, and he would invariably get caught up in the action with us and start laughing until he cried.

And I remember visiting him in Pennsylvania on Christmas Day and having his big voice boom out “Joy to the World” along with the radio—he inevitably sang the echoed “and heav’n and nature sing” like a true chorister. More recently, I had the privilege a few years back to sing next to him at a family gathering. His bass voice was less powerful but no less sure.

When my uncle Harold passed away recently, my grandfather missed him and the opportunity to spend time with him. They’re back together now, along with his other brothers and sisters that have gone before. It’ll be quite a family reunion tonight. I hope my great-grandfather has loosened up a little now and will allow some singing at the dinner table.

From a psychic landscape

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 23 Jul 2007 03:38:00 GMT

I uploaded a bunch of photos last night to Flickr, including some from our vacation in North Carolina: some purely family photos and one large set of a visit to the place I will always remember as Grandmother Jarrett’s house.

As you can see in the photos, it’s not really a house so much as a farm, with as many as seven or eight buildings on the property (counting various barns and one chicken shack). The property was built up over the years starting with my great-grandfather, Zeb Jarrett, who built the house. In one photo you can actually see the evolution of the house: the section with the porch on the right was the original house built by Zeb and Laura, while the middle section was added on a few years later and the part on the left was added by my grandfather. The house was well kept up over the years, and my aunt has put it in exceptionally good shape after my grandmother passed away a few years ago. But without my grandmother there, it feels like a stage set waiting for someone to walk on.

In fact, walking past the barns I felt the truth of Laurie Anderson’s lyric: When my father died we put him in the ground. When my father died, it was like an entire library burned down. In this case, everything still stands but the spirit of the place is gone.

December 18 and all is well

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 19 Dec 2006 06:28:37 GMT

To those of you who know what’s going on with me and Lisa: all is well with our world. To the rest: you’ll find out soon enough.

But here’s a note from last year’s Christmas mix to tide you over:

I heard the bells on Christmas day
Their old familiar carols play,
And wild and sweet the words repeat
Of peace on earth, good will to men.
And thought how, as the day had come,
The belfries of all Christendom
Had rolled along the unbroken song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

Till ringing, singing on its way
The world revolved from night to day,
A voice, a chime, a chant sublime
Of peace on earth, good will to men.

And in despair I bowed my head
“There is no peace on earth,” I said,
“For hate is strong and mocks the song
Of peace on earth, good will to men.”

Then pealed the bells more loud and deep:
“God is not dead, nor doth He sleep;
The wrong shall fail, the right prevail
With peace on earth, good will to men.”

Thanksgiving, early

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 16 Nov 2006 16:30:52 GMT

Reading today’s Cary Tennis advice column (one of my guilty pleasures, btw), “Does less of a paycheck make him less of a man?,” I find myself thankful for how lucky I really am.

When I was between jobs after moving back east, it was extremely difficult. Financially it was OK, though not great; Lisa was chomping at the bit to do some much needed house renovations and we didn’t have any cashflow to permit it, and trying to find a job was challenging. But emotionally it was one of the worst periods of my life. I have since discussed this with my therapist and concluded that there were two major factors at work on top of the standard major-life-change stuff that depresses anyone: having a major part of my identity bound up in what I did for a living, and not wanting to disappoint my wife. The pressure of those two things combined with an uncertain job market and existing depressive tendencies were enough to drive me through the floor into a major depression. A glance at any of my writing between October 2004 and March 2005 won’t bear that out, because I didn’t write much about it, but it was pretty severe.

The one thing that pulled me through was Lisa’s support. Which brings me back to the advice column: I can’t imagine being in this guy’s shoes and having to deal with the lack of support his partner discusses. Talk about kicking someone when they’re down. Ladies: this is not how to help someone who is underemployed and trying to get their self esteem back.

So yes, I am extremely thankful for what I have with Lisa. I’m not sure I would be here today without it.

Happy anniversary

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 04 Oct 2006 16:40:17 GMT

Since I’m still on the road, I would like to take a moment to say a quick word to my wife on our 9th wedding anniversary: it feels like it was just yesterday, and it feels like it has been since the beginning of time. Happy anniversary, dear, and I’ll call later.

Brackbill picnic photos

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 02 Sep 2006 15:29:11 GMT

New on Flickr, a set of photos from the Brackbill picnic. I was in more of a hurry than last year, since I had a long drive ahead of me, but I managed to capture a few things.

One that surprised me was how many kids there were… and how grown up they were. This shouldn’t surprise me; there are a bunch of the kids of my generation (who I still remember as being, at most, teenagers) who, like me, are over 30 and married. One part that surprised me was the children of my mother’s cousins who were now entering their teens… and holding down conversations… and clearly having a blast hanging out with each other. But the smallest kids were the most fun to watch, as the photoset indicates.

Happy 35th Anniversary

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 06 Jun 2006 03:14:17 GMT

Continuing the festschrift in honor of my parents’ 35th wedding anniversary, as started on my sister’s blog:

…erm, well, no one could possibly have said it better than my sister did. But I’ll just say this: When I think about how two unpretentious farm kids from opposite sides of the Mason Dixon line managed to raise a pair of liberal city kids like us, I thank heaven that they didn”t kill us before we reached maturity. Our continued existence is tribute to their supreme patience and skills as parents.

But I will second many of the thoughts that my sister raised in her post. And I’ll raise another one, borrowed from a powerful sermon that Dr. Nancy Taylor preached last December at Old South:

When my husband and I were married, our friend who officiated at the wedding spoke of dance as a metaphor for marriage. He described marriage as a way of moving in synchronicity with another. He said that to love and cherish each other for richer for poorer, in sickness and in health, was a kind of dance. For the dance to flow, each partner must be keenly sensitive to the moves and moods of the other.

Nancy and Peter continue to be an inspiration to me as they dance the slow dance at the end of Peter’s life.

I only know one other couple who has anywhere near that grace. That couple danced their first dance in North Carolina over 35 years ago, in a church music conference. They danced their way into each other’s families…as challenging as that must have been for someone whose families had always been in the remote valleys of North Carolina and in the Mennonite farmlands of Pennsylvania. They danced their way through 35 years: through NASA and music lessons and church music and ultimately retirement, of drawings and PTA meetings and ballet and soccer and orchestra. Of MGs that were never quite finished in the garage. Of back deck barbecues, vegetable gardens, church potlucks. Of making music together. And they’re dancing now, probably on the deck of that house overlooking the Smokies. Hopefully after a good dinner.

Thanks, Mom and Dad.

Watch out for those pills

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 27 Mar 2006 17:10:48 GMT

I had a great weekend in Pennsylvania with my parents and my grandfather. I’ve written a bit about his health from time to time on the blog: the stroke, his struggles with diabetes. When I saw him last summer he was withdrawn and uncommunicative, and had trouble moving, though he did respond when I talked with him a little, and I came away very worried about him.

The good news is that he has made tremendous improvements since then. He had a brief hospital stay earlier this winter after falling (fortunately, nothing was broken) and in the course of his rehabilitation went through a thorough evaluation of his medications. The doctors took him off all but one or two of what had been probably ten or twelve different prescriptions. The difference has been astonishing. He was much more mobile, told some stories, laughed a bit, had far fewer tremors...

The consensus about his improvement is that his previous doctors were prescribing medications to treat symptoms and never evaluating the cumulative effect of the medicine on him—and in some cases never taking a step back to see if the medications were still needed. It seems shocking that such a thing could happen, but I suspect it’s all too common.

My wife is the coolest ever.

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 09 Feb 2006 16:32:37 GMT

My wife decided to surprise me last night. We won’t be able to spend Valentine’s Day together this year—I will be at the Pink Elephant IT Service Management Conference—so she decided that we would celebrate it last night. I had already been planning to grill some steaks, but she added a surprise to the mix: a Bluetooth keyboard and mouse for our computer, and an AirClick USB to allow me to control iTunes playback from other rooms. Very important, since the Mac is now the source of our dinner party music.

I’m very lucky to have a wife who likes Apple and speaks geek.

Days before a festival of light

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 23 Dec 2005 23:04:22 GMT

Not much to report today. I survived my last Pops concerts, Esta is here, and we’re just enjoying time with family. More updates later; have a merry Christmas until then.

Free death date databases

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 20 Oct 2005 17:01:15 GMT

I may not be using their software, but I definitely appreciate the work that Family Tree Legends is doing in putting free databases of death dates on line. So far the most comprehensive one looks to be the Social Security Death Index—that is, provided the person had a SSN. Other free databases are listed on their site with the annotation FREE.

Home is where the contractors are

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 12 Oct 2005 17:29:02 GMT

Lisa got stuck in the Logan radar mess this week; a quick day trip down to Richmond via National Airport turned into an extended travel trauma when her flight back to Boston was cancelled. Fortunately her flight was early enough—and she learned that it was cancelled early enough—that she was able to take advantage of the time to drive up to her parents for a day.

I’m looking forward to seeing her tonight when she gets in. I’m also envious, as she got a chance to be with our dogs, who are currently bunking in New Jersey while our bathroom renovations take place. (Aside: I never thought I would be the sort of pet owner who gets teary eyed—hell, occasionally bawls—when his dogs drive away. Don’t tell anyone.)

Demolition for the downstairs shower starts next week. I can’t wait. This will be the last set of major contractor projects (except for the replacement of our front door, which will necessitate a day’s worth of carpentry due to water and sill problems) for a while, and then we get our house back to ourselves again.

Wonder and loss

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 22 Aug 2005 08:54:18 GMT

It was good to see my extended family over the last two days, but sad as well. My great-uncle Hershey Brackbill passed away on Saturday. What was originally going to be just another annual family reunion turned into a commemoration of Hershey.

To back up: My grandfather had eleven brothers and sisters, of whom all but two survived to adulthood. For many years the ten remaining siblings, even after the passing of my great grandfather Harry, have brought the family together summer after summer, and the part of the family that stayed in Lancaster County (virtually everyone in that generation and most of their children) formed a tight knit extended family.

But recently the family has been thinning. After the second church service this morning I walked with Esta down the hill to pay respects to my grandmother. On the way I passed the markers of Hershey’s brother Jake, who died earlier this year, and Florence, who passed away several years ago. I also passed Hershey’s tombstone, which he will share with his first wife Jane; his stone was awaiting his final date. So the family is coming together in a corner of the cemetery at Leacock Presbyterian.

Fortunately the living family was able to come together in a more substantial tribute this morning. My second cousin Don Brackbill got a chorus of eleven Brackbill men, whether by blood or marriage, to sing an anthem at both Sunday services—in the Old Leacock church, which dates back to 1750 and is as historic as it is sweltering on an August morning, and the “new” Leacock church, which is probably close to 100 years old and is the one that was a block and a half down Route 30 from my grandparents’ home when I was growing up. The music was nice, the theology—the wonder of God’s love—somewhat better.

After services we all headed to the picnic, where my mother decided it was time for a changing of the guard and had me lead the family in the singing of the doxology (something my father or my cousin Lee would have otherwise done) and my sister the seminarian, as the most ecclesiastical person there, lead the prayer. Given how rarely I can spend time with the family, I didn’t feel entirely comfortable leading the song, which may have been the point for all I know, but it felt like a passing of the torch anyway.

And who is grabbing it? My mother’s generation, with a few exceptions, stayed pretty close to Lancaster and the rest of the family. My generation? One of my cousins is close by but the other is in Puerto Rico; other cousins were getting married in Michigan this weekend while another, my cousin Chris, lives on the west coast. As we spread further apart, the capacity of the yearly gatherings in Lancaster to keep the family bonds together is likely to strain.

There are solutions, I think, but I’m too tired to chase them tonight. Instead, I’ll close with an assortment of photos from the day. They won’t win any awards, but at least the resolution is higher than my last batch of Lancaster County photos.

Family updates

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 01 Jan 2005 23:42:20 GMT

I updated the genealogy section of the site; this long overdue update added in all my living Brackbill second and third cousins. I had never had a chance to transcribe the Brackbill Book, the 1989 compilation of our family tree from Great-Grandfather Harry on down, and so I was in the embarrassing position of having tons of information about people born in the 17th, 18th, and 19th centuries and no representation of my living cousins. The updated genealogy has been uploaded to the site; as always, please note the caution about the Freeman data.

Holiday with friends

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 31 Dec 2004 16:41:00 GMT

We had Shel and Erik over last night and inaugurated our second floor guest bedroom, which has been “just” a storage room since we moved in. By “inaugurated” I mean we shoved some boxes in the storage space under the eaves and pushed the others out of the way; it’s not remotely close to being finished, but it’s a start. Maybe I’ll hang pictures up there this afternoon—in time for Charlie and Carie, who will ring in the new year with us, to have the option to stay there rather than dodge drunk drivers on the way home to New Hampshire after midnight. And Esta and one of her fellow seminarians will join us week after next. As I said to Greg over IM last night, we’re turning into quite the little bed and breakfast. Y’all come.

Thogsgrafen

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 26 Nov 2004 01:15:55 GMT

Today I’m thankful for a whole bunch of things, including:

My wonderful wife
My family, including my amazing mother, who’s on a pilgrimage to Guatemala this week—this being the first time she’s been out of the country in 30 years
My in-laws who are with us enjoying the day
Our dogs, who have I think finally given up on getting at the turkey now that it’s been put away
Our house, even though it’s too damn warm in here after baking a pie, roasting a turkey, and doing countless other stovetop and oven dishes
About a bajillion bloggers
You, my readers
This blog, which makes me keep my brain exercised and keeps me honest

Distributed census records

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 30 Aug 2004 17:51:28 GMT

I periodically get email questions from people who have come to my site by searching Google for their ancestors and have found my genealogical records. (In fact, I’m currently working through a backlog of six questions, some of which have sat in my inbox for six months…the shame.) Anyway, in looking up some information about a distant cousin, I found out that there’s a regional repository of census microfilm in the Boston area at the Frederick C. Murphy Federal Center in Waltham. Since driving to Waltham is cheaper than paying $20 a month for access to the records, I may have to make a little field trip…

Happy Birthday, Dad

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 20 Jul 2004 18:16:16 GMT

My dad hits one of those milestone birthdays today (the Beatles one, for those of you playing along at home). After the excitement earlier this year, it’s especially good to be able to wish him many happy returns.

Of course, today is also the 35th anniversary of the Apollo 11 moon landing—serendipitously enough, given my dad’s thirty-something year history as a NASA employee. That (unfortunately pop-up laden) page on Space.com, in which the moon mission is discussed in the context of a return to space, carries a little of how I feel today. The significance of a birthday or anniversary like today isn’t what went before, but in what is still to come. In both cases for today, I’m feeling pretty good about what’s coming next.

Many happy returns, Dad.

No catfish, just blueberries

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 07 Jul 2004 04:26:42 GMT

Doc Searls: And the living is easy. Doc writes about his childhood summers in Brick Township, New Jersey, just a few stoplights away from the part of Lakewood in which I spent my Independence Day weekend this year. I was probably even in the parking lot that now sits over where the Searls family played hide and seek fifty-plus years ago. When Lisa visits the beach with her parents this month, she’ll go to Mantoloking (mentioned in Doc’s post from last year about summers at the Shore).

For what it’s worth, Doc, I’m with you on the fresh blueberries. Only my version was late July/early August harvest in southeastern Virginia. For many summers we’d visit a berry farm in Gloucester, across the mouth of the York River from Yorktown, and fill a 16" by 30" by 24" Igloo cooler half full of blackberries and a smaller one full of blueberries. The tradition (started as a birthday gift for my dad, later moved to my Mom’s birthday because the blueberries were riper) lasted from about the time I was 10 or 12 in the early to mid 80s until just before I went to grad school in 2000. That fall my parents sold the house in which I grew up in Newport News, Virginia, and moved to my dad’s family farm outside Asheville, NC. To the best of my knowledge, they haven’t found a pick-your-own place there yet. But I still keep my eyes out for the first blueberries every summer, and am still quite capable of devouring several quarts of them without blinking or losing stride.

(Fellow Jarretts, I can’t remember the name of the farm we patronized; feel free to jump in on the comments.)

In-laws in-town

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 07 Apr 2004 14:05:25 GMT

Lisa’s folks arrived last night from New Jersey, somewhat stiff but otherwise no worse the wear for their six hour flight. The dogs had not forgotten them from Christmas and were in such a transport of ecstasy to see them again that it was very hard to get them to go to bed.

It’s quiet this morning, but I know that won’t last. I don’t know what Lisa has planned for her folks today, but it probably has something to do with gardening…

In other family news, my father appears to be making a good recovery, and my aunt has successfully made it through her second knee replacement surgery. I think I still have a sister in seminary, but as she hasn’t blogged in over a month it’s hard to tell.

Learning to pray again

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 26 Mar 2004 20:20:08 GMT

I wrote earlier that I joined a church choir after years in semipro vocal groups because I wanted to explore my faith more. I didn’t realize that I would get an opportunity from a completely different direction.

My dad had a minor heart attack (now there’s an oxymoron) last Sunday. He spent the past few days in the hospital while they first verified that it was, in fact, a heart attack and not a stomach condition; then tried unsuccessfully to clear the build-up in the minor arteries where the attack took place. He’s home now and relatively comfortable, thank God, but I think we were all pretty scared for a few days.

And I’ve been seriously praying again. Not bargaining, as I prayed when I was younger (you know: “God, if you’ll only get me through this test I promise I’ll be good”). Not raging, as I might have done in my angry teens and early 20s. Just talking to God about how I’m feeling, my hopes and fears for my dad and my mom, and asking for strength.

The blogosphere has helped too, between AKMA and Real Live Preacher. But the biggest help has been being with other people every day who don’t shy away from talking about faith and about their challenges and fears and joys and dreams. Hey, who says Presbyterians are the frozen chosen?

Christmas wrap-up

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 27 Dec 2003 16:26:59 GMT

We’re leaving Lakewood in a few hours and driving back to JFK to start our long flight home (fortunately, it’s direct to Seattle. I don’t think I could handle connections with the dogs). My parents and Esta left yesterday for Pennsylvania.

It’s been simultaneously a relaxing and exhausting vacation. Relaxing because it was nice to get away from everything, out of the rain, and to spend time with family and with the dogs. Exhausting primarily because of the dogs. After this week we are finally ready to declare Stage 1 of Jefferson’s housebreaking complete (Stage 2 is getting him to go on command). Unfortunately, we weren’t at Stage 1 at the beginning of the week…

I managed during a Monday trip to Princeton to find time to get to the Princeton bookstore, where in 1990 as an early action admittee I bought a Princeton sweatshirt—and a T-shirt from Moscow University. This time my findings were more modest: remaindered books from Joseph Brodsky and Jerome McGann, and a British Library book about great books of the past 500 years. About which, more in time.

Christmas itself was unexpectedly generous: Esta gifted me with a hardbound Charles Addams collection and the Smithsonian Book of Newspaper Comics, both freebies from a professor of hers, as well as the Three Colors trilogy on DVD and a copy of “Have You Fed the Fish?” And my long-suffering wife replaced my broken 1st generation iPod with a brand new slim 10GB model.

And Jim Heaney came down from Mahwah for an afternoon yesterday, with pictures and the long awaited explanation of his Appalachian Trail nickname, “Mothman.” Apparently a week or so into the hike, he was holding a small flashlight in his mouth and washing dishes when a moth flew up his nose. There you have it.

The best present, of course, was the company. It’ll be hard to get back to real life.

Blog less, email more?

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 12 Nov 2003 14:46:14 GMT

I’ve been a little quiet here lately—but that doesn’t mean I haven’t been writing. I had a backlog of email from people with questions about my genealogical research: lots of interest in the Brenneman family, for whatever reason, plus an assortment of Freeman and Jarrett questions.

I should probably instrument the genealogy pages to see how many people find my site through them. I’m afraid I’d find that they draw many more readers than my blog does, though. :)

Slow week, for some

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 16 Oct 2003 03:19:11 GMT

Sorry for the lack of posting recently. I think getting caught up after BloggerCon has meant that I’ve run out of blog material for a while. Esta has the opposite problem: she’s been crazy busy and learning a ton at school, but her blog host is down. Hey, sis, want to guest blog here for a while?

Happy birthday Lisa

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 18 Sep 2003 18:55:49 GMT

Today is my beautiful wife’s birthday; please spare a minute to wish her a happy day. Our big celebration will actually be a few weeks from now, coinciding with our anniversary, when we return to Boston for a little visit and mini-vacation.

Family history linked in

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 02 Sep 2003 16:21:53 GMT

Another genealogist found my weblog and wrote me to tell me that the autobiography of Rachel Jarrett’s brother-in-law, James Patton, is on line courtesy UNC at Documenting the American South. I look forward to reading the material and learning about this distant connection to my family.

The best part about the trip

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 18 Aug 2003 21:12:21 GMT

Since I have just come into our house and have all but collapsed prostrate on the bed, I’m tempted to declare the ability to nap at 3 pm on a Monday afternoon the best part of the vacation. Of course, I’d be lying. It’s somewhere in between a fresh ear of corn just picked out of a field and steamed/roasted over a fire, laughing with my grandfather, and having my young first cousin (once removed) grab my index finger with a chubby fist… and then attempt to maneuver said finger to his mouth where he could eat it. I swear, the child almost had his feet in his mouth at one point.

Heading back

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 18 Aug 2003 20:46:53 GMT

More detailed notes, including Rough and Tumble, soon. For now a quick link to photos of the picnic and the Brackbill farm—and the newest cousin, my cousin Catherine’s son Johnathan. And probably the best picture I’ve ever taken of my grandfather, right.

I’ll get to post this entry, started in Baltimore where I had WiFi, when I get home. Right now I’m waiting in Chicago, which is obstinately WiFiFree, and so have a chance to look over some of the photos I took this weekend with my phonecam. The major thing that strikes me (and has probably already struck any more photography-savvy readers of this blog) is the color balance problem. The Nokia 3650 appears to do some image processing, including at least color and level correction—what I see in the viewfinder before I snap the photo isn’t exactly what I see afterwards. And the results can be uneven. I already noticed this with the Tradiscantia photos I took in my garden last weekend, and am noticing it more with the series I took of the farmhouse. Though I took the photos from more or less the same vantage point, the color of the grass is dramatically different in the photos I took from the tree shade than the ones I took closer to the house. Not ideal. And there doesn’t seem to be a way to turn it off either.

A small regret: the picture I took of the dedication stone in the center of the farmhouse’s wall didn’t come out clearly enough to show the engraving. I could only see a little from the ground, but it was something along the lines of “Hershey, 1857” with a good deal of text before and after. I never noticed it before, and when I asked my mom about it she confessed she hadn’t either. Something to check out another time.

Happy birthday, Mom

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 08 Aug 2003 14:09:06 GMT

Today is my mother’s birthday! I owe this woman a big debt of thanks, not only for my existence, but for my love of reading, cooking, and (in large part) music, as well as my sense that the world ought to be better than it is.

I can’t hug her in person today, but I’ll get to do that next weekend when I fly to the family reunion. In the meantime, happy birthday, Mom, and many happy returns.

Summer is passing

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 24 Jul 2003 16:24:16 GMT

Last night we visited a new wine bar in town, the Purple Café, and then put ourselves to bed early. Coming back to bed from brushing my teeth, lights out, I could still see a yellow and blue corona around the trees through our north window, the remnants of the sunset on Lake Washington. Summer is passing and our days are growing shorter.

Moxie’s post about summer with her folks and picking gooseberries made me think about my own summers, often spent with one grandmother or the other. With my Grandmother Brackbill, picking peas, stringing beans, and shucking corn. Or with my Grandmother Jarrett learning to appreciate the mountains and slowly coming to understand my family connections in that strange to me place. I remember more summers in Pennsylvania, as we generally saved trips to North Carolina for less-hot times of the year.

Happy birthday, Dad

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 21 Jul 2003 00:48:52 GMT

Many happy returns of the day to Dad on his birthday.

Now compare that to Esta’s birthday wishes and you can tell which of us writes the better birthday card…

To South Carolina for pig-pickin

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 08 May 2003 13:26:23 GMT

So, what’s the story with South Carolina, Greg asked me last night. Well, I’m not sure how best to describe the setup, but here goes:

My uncle and aunt live one hill over from my parents on the family farmland in western North Carolina
My uncle retired as an executive in a transportation company; his company has an executive retreat in a forest in South Carolina
Said retreat features fishing, hunting, horseback riding, and other outdoor sports facilities (when I was younger (11?) I rode a horse for the first and last time there; it bolted and I got a bloody tuchus)
My parents, my aunt and uncle, and another couple or two are sharing a multi-bedroom house at the retreat for a week next week
I managed to squeeze in two days off next week to join them
I will arrive on Saturday, the day before the pig-pickin’

What’s a pig-pickin’, my Northern readers are now asking. It’s something like a barbecue, if by barbecue you mean “cooking and eating a ridiculous amount of pork cooked on a fire.” But that doesn’t do it justice; neither does this (though it gives a little of the flavor and some of the recipe). All I can say is, after you’ve been cooking a whole pig on an enormous grill for a day, you’ll be hungry enough to eat anything. The fact that even without the anticipation the meat (dressed in a vinegar sauce only, please, no “smoky barbecue” tomato sauce here) is ambrosial is icing on the cake. And of course there are all the side dishes, and beverages, and occasionally (if it’s a pig-pickin’ that my uncle organized) live country music.

Why is it called a pig-pickin’? Well, because after being cooked over a slow fire all day the pork is soft and moist enough to be pulled off the pig and eaten with one’s bare hands, if one is feeling barbaric. And after a taste of the stuff, one could certainly feel that way. It does seem to awaken a deep hunger. In fact, I’m hungry now…

So this has been a dry week for posting, partly because I’ve been crazy busy at the office, but partly in anticipation of the stories to come.

Happy birthday, Al

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 24 Apr 2003 03:15:47 GMT

My father-in-law celebrated his birthday today with us at Szmania’s. I only hope that I can be half as feisty, and in half as good a shape mentally and physically, when I’m an octogenarian-plus. (Yes, my in-laws are in town. A suspension of garden postings is in order, since my mother-in-law, a true pro, is here to straighten us out.)

Our little cousin (once removed)

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 15 Mar 2003 04:52:53 GMT

Our cousin Catherine’s son Johnathan has his own web page with a picture and a guest book. No blog, but it’s only a matter of time. :)

A promising arrival: Johnathon Levengood

Tim Jarrett — Mon, 03 Mar 2003 16:37:58 GMT

Add my voice to Esta’s congratulating my cousin Catherine and her husband Jeremy on the birth of their first child, a boy; and to my grandfather on becoming a great-grandfather (not that he wasn’t already. Ba-dum-pssh!). I’m definitely going to have to plan another East Coast sweep in June when I go out for the Sloan reunion so Lisa and I can meet little “Chonnie.”

Updated 3/5/2003: Okay, I got the name wrong (now corrected). It is in honor of my uncle, but it’s Johnathon, not John. And apparently they don’t want to use diminutives (which I can understand), so “Chonnie” is out. After this post.

Get well soon, Dad

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 28 Jan 2003 18:40:00 GMT

A quick shout out to my father. As Esta reported, he went in for carpal tunnel surgery today. The preliminary news is that he came through the surgery well and is okay to travel. This is actually the second time he’s had surgery for the same condition, which gives me lots of confidence in the procedure... Carpal tunnel syndrome appears to be another one of those conditions that runs in the family. I have at various times felt stirrings of the distinctive pain, and Lisa has had fairly severe bouts with it at various times. Here’s best wishes that Dad’s surgery is a complete success and that he’ll be back to painless wrenching on the MG’s twin carburetors soon.

Presentses, my precious

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 26 Dec 2002 16:54:51 GMT

Almost forgot. I gave Lisa a few presents this year to make up for a couple B-school Christmases without: an All-Clad 8 quart pot, a Cuisinart mini-prep, and a couple books on dogs to make up for the fact that we didn’t manage to get any puppies under the tree. We’re still working on finding a breeder for the Bichon Frise puppies she wants to get.

Emptier house

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 26 Dec 2002 16:51:44 GMT

I just got back from taking my parents and sister to the airport. It feels weird not having a totally full house. Lisa’s folks will be here for another week, so we’ll be able to taper off slowly.

Now that our five-guest experiment is back to two, I can report it was mostly a success. One thing we figured out a few days in is that it’s a lot harder to get seven people moving in the morning than two or four. We had a long list of activities, but each morning by the time everyone ate breakfast and showered it was almost time for lunch.

We’re off to do a bit of after-Christmas shopping. Should be fun, he said grimly.

Vacation day 5: all here

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 22 Dec 2002 19:41:37 GMT

Esta came in last night, so our family is all here now. Just in time; if I had to wait any longer to see The Two Towers, I would have been… extremely unhappy.

Found: history

Tim Jarrett — Sat, 16 Nov 2002 02:12:58 GMT

Family history, to be exact. The unpacking has progressed to the point that I’ve found the box that had the pictures from my office and—more importantly—of my family. Pictures of the University, of the barn up the hill from my Grandmother Jarrett’s house, of the ancestral Brackbill farmhouse, of my Pop-pop and Grandma, my parents and my Aunt Marie. Plus some other odds and ends: a framed Glee Club poster that I designed, a signed Edward Gorey print, a framed photo of the Rotunda taken from the vicinity of my Lawn room door, an antique mirror. Plus some Legos, for some reason.

All this stuff has been in storage, not just since we moved from Boston, but from our move from Cambridge in the early spring of 2001. I’ve particularly missed having familiar images to hang in my office; not any more.

Esta: No red ears for our grandfather

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 22 Oct 2002 15:49:32 GMT

Esta was in Lancaster County this weekend visiting our relatives and found my grandfather in great shape:

Pop Pop was more like himself than I've seen him since the accident. On Friday night we somehow got started talking about old farming methods, and he told stories for nearly 2 hours about planting and harvesting corn and pumpkins, and the shucking parties they'd have in the fall. If you found a red ear, you got to kiss your girlfriend! Even at 85, Pop Pop's chagrin that he never found a red ear was quite evident...

Fifty-four year old blog

Tim Jarrett — Tue, 22 Oct 2002 15:34:43 GMT

Yesterday Esta started one of the cooler genealogical blog projects I’ve seen recently: Great-Aunt Eva’s blog. She’s transcribing our maternal relative’s 1949-1951 farm journal one page at a time. It’s astonishing how much it reads like the happenings of a far distant past even though it’s only fifty-four years old. The entries aren’t floridly written; most are only a single sentence. But her voice still comes through.

My Dad, local TV celebrity

Tim Jarrett — Wed, 16 Oct 2002 16:14:20 GMT

One of the family’s newer traditions, now that everyone is back on the farm in Buncombe County, is to spend a day after the apple harvest making apple butter by hand the old fashioned way -- in a cast iron pot over an open fire outdoors with lots of people on hand to stir. My uncle Forrest has a trout pond down the hill from his house, in a little dammed-up river valley he calls “Quail Hollow” (random aside: the second word is generally pronounced holler), and they meet up to do the work there.

This year local TV got wind of the event and did a spot on it in last night’s news. The transcript will linkrot tonight, but I’ve transcribed the text in its entirety (lowercased for everyone’s sanity).

Dad (Olin), as always, hits the tone just right:

I’m a retired aerospace engineer. Is this rocket science? I think it’s harder.

Also, trust my uncle to claim that he had to go back to the family farm to be important--this is a guy, after all, who’s had pictures taken with presidents over legislation that he got lobbied through Congress.

One note: my mom was a little miffed they didn’t interview her--she was the only woman participating. Mom, if you have anything you want to add to the story, shoot it over and I’ll publish it...

Congratulations, Tim and Lisa

Esta — Fri, 04 Oct 2002 17:29:48 GMT

While Tim is (hopefully) at home sleeping off his jetlag, I'm sure you'll all join me in wishing him and Lisa the very best on their 5th wedding anniversary. It's times like this that being on opposite coasts really bites; a card and phone call hardly seem adequate. Fortunately, they're both sensible people who know a good thing when they see it, so while I can't help them celebrate in person on the 5th, hopefully I'll catch them on the 10th through 50th and beyond.

Happy birthday to Lisa...

Tim Jarrett — Thu, 19 Sep 2002 02:43:54 GMT

Happy birthday today to my wife Lisa. She has put up with me and has made some very stressful years of school and moving not just bearable but enjoyable because of her continual wit, humor, and energy. Plus she makes sure that I keep on my toes!

Source of my boyish good lucks no longer in question.

Tim Jarrett — Sun, 15 Sep 2002 05:31:47 GMT

Courtesy my Dad: a spectacular picture of my maternal grandfather, Herman Brackbill (aka Pop-Pop), ca. 1939. His hairline is about where mine is today...

Pop-Pop was with my parents for a few weeks and by all reports is doing much better than he has been for a while. Esta reports that at my cousin's wedding he was in great form, cracking jokes and generally having a good time. I look at how he's doing in his eighties, and remember how my great-grandmothers on that side of the family both were--essentially non-responsive, at least as far as us kids were concerned--and I feel even better about how he's been.

Visitors from the East

Tim Jarrett — Fri, 09 Aug 2002 19:36:52 GMT

My in-laws flew into SeaTac last night. Unlike our last flight, there was no lost luggage. We loaded them into my car and swept them to our house so they could ooh and aah before we tucked them into bed.

This is a big visit for a couple of reasons:

This is the first visit by any of our family to the house.
My father in law is the reason we went through all the renovations on our guest bathroom. It's kind of a payoff to have him finally using it.
This is also the first time that the older portion of the house (the guest bedrooms) gets a real shakedown.
Finally, Lisa's mom can help us figure out what the heck to do in our garden. We don't know very much about gardening; she ran a $500K gardening budget at their retirement community.

They'll be here for a couple of weeks, so my late night blogging activity will be curtailed. (It probably would be anyway, as AT&T Broadband has been really flaky recently--download speeds of 1.5K/sec last night, no connection at all this morning!)