The Story of a Lifetime 14a

Mary Smick was born Mary Elizabeth Swent in Russia in 1893.  She and her siblings Katy, Hank and Phillip Swent emigrated together.  I do not know the names of her parents, but they must have emigrated as they had more children in the U.S.: John, Ryle and Leah Swent.  Mary's father must have died (possibly in World War I or from the flu epidemic?) so Mary's mother re-married someone with the last name of Janke.  Thus Mary had a half-sister from that marriage named Martha.

Mary married John Smick in late 1915 or 1916. At some point, probably during World War I, he anglicized his family name, so when married he may have had the previous name. I do not know for sure.

He was born Johannes Schmick in 1893 in Saratoff, Russia, a Volga River port located about 450 miles southeast of Moscow.  His parents, Conrad and Cattarina, arrived at Ellis Island in 1898 when Conrad was 35 and Cattarina was 34.  With them on the journey were Justin, Johannes, Anna and Conrad, Jr.  Conrad, Jr. died during the trip over the Atlantic and was buried at sea.  He was about 7 years old at the time.

The Story of a Lifetime 13b

What do I remember about my oldest relatives?  We are not talking heresay information, but just what I know from being around them.

Actually, there was really only one oldest relative whom I knew in any way, and that is my mother's mother, Mary Smick. 

Grandma was very much like my mom, something Mom probably knew but didn't like to think about.  You see, Grandma was very controlling especially when my Mom was in her late teens and early 20s.  This is something my mom rebelled against and one of the key reasons my mom tried to get away from the farm as soon as she graduated from high school. My mom became a nurse and got to see a good part of the world.

Grandma apparently was impressed and decided to become a nurse herself.  Imitation is the sincerest form of flattery they say.

Okay, well, fast forward to when I knew Grandma.  Mom brought us up to Spokane, Washington where Grandma lived at the time.  She had a small house with two or three bedrooms and a chain link fence around the yard with a well trimmed lawn.  Her Rambler was parked in a little garage as I remember: I don't think she parked it on the street.

I was warned by my mom to obey Grandma, so I did.  But Grandma was always nice.  I don't remember her doing anything that bothered me.  I liked cutting out comics from newspapers and asked her if it was okay if I did so from her old newspapers.  She was fine with it and helped me find some scissors.  I somehow remember she was slightly amused I was going to all this trouble to cut out the strips so carefully.

There is not much more I can say.  We were only there for a week at most and didn't do much.  It was not exciting, but generally pleasant.

The Story of a Lifetime 13a

In the past week I have purchased what is essentially a "fill-in-the" Blank Book called The Story of a Lifetime.  It offers a way to document your life, prompting you with questions and allowing you to answer in the blanks.  When you are finished filling everything out you have a sort of autobiography (or at least all the basic facts to create a readable autobiography).  It would be great if everyone did one of these.

What I am going to do is fill out the blanks in this blog first before committing to paper, then will handwrite my comments into the book.

The first blank is 13a which essentially requests information about how my family moved from one country to this one.  That is a story in itself.

I will give a brief answer now and will edit it later.

My father's family emigrated from Switzerland, arrived in New York City and were processed through Ellis Island.  It is unclear why they chose to come to the United States: it was not part of some political change.  The Epiney's and the Caloz's came together and there is sort of a triangle relationship that existed in Switzerland and continued when they came to the USA.  I have documentation about this.

My mother's family, the Schmick's and the Schwent's, were Volga Germans.  They moved to the state of Washington but, like the Epiney's and Caloz's, they came through Ellis Island (in 1898).  I don't know how they came to a Pacific coast state, however as they were wheat farmers it made sense they travel cross-country to settle in Eastern Washington.  The reason to move was simple: The Czar didn't want them in Russia anymore.  The Volga Germans were farmers from Germany who were invited to raise wheat and other crops in Russia by Catherine the Great in the 1700s.  They came and they prospered.  Then, in the late 1800's the Czar asked them to leave.

Ebay 13

Ebay just sent me a notice that I have been on Ebay now for 13 years. Wha?!  Seems like only yesterday when Colleen Condron sent me email encouraging me to use Ebay to find some choice records.  I eventually used it to buy everything from old magazines to furniture! 

Our bed, bed stands, vanity, vanity stool (all Heywood Wakefield) were purchased through Ebay.  The vanity, vanity stool, a bookcase and a china hutch/desk were picked up in Polson, Montana in early 2000!  The bed and bed stands were purchased in Oklahoma and picked up by me in a moving truck in December 1999 on the way from Kansas to Oregon.

My Ebay number is 4775, indicating I won at least 4775 auctions (some sellers I had problems with may have given me negative or neutral ratings, so the number is not an accurate count of all auctions won).

Distributed Denial of Service Attack

(the last post I made isn't showing up, so here I go again)
* LJ reports it is a victim of a massive Distributed Denial of Service Attack.  Still going on.
* half of today at work: catching up on support issues.
* the other half: boring while waiting 5-50 minutes per program execution.
* picked out new frames for my new prescription.  Difficult to get the style I like.
* picked up my $75 dental appliance today.  I am wary but will give it a try.

Back to work

Back to work today after a week away.  Kick off, though, with a dentist appointment to fit a "night guard" which is supposed to help protect me from putting too much pressure on my teeth while sleeping.

Marisa is back from NYC.  Despite the hot weather there she still managed to make it a worthwhile trip but she was obviously glad to get home.

We had dinner last night at Beaches before heading home. 

The vegetarian pizza was good: had good, fresh ingredients.  Unfortunately it disagreed with my digestive system and I awoke at 2:30 a.m. to deal with it.  Lots of gas, however nothing more than that.

A week of culling ended yesterday with moving all stuff from the bedroom and hall way into the empty office closet. It is now much more serene outside my office.  Unfortunately I won't be able to move any of the boxes in my office into the closet as well.

More culling ahead....

Live Journal Down

I have been a Live Journal user for many years, but this week it has been difficult if not impossible to view my journal or access any LJ page.  Today is the worst, in fact.

So I have decided to try another service, this one!