Father's Day

Cheryl, Kathy, Melody and Dad 1963

To Wink, Lee and my wonderful Rich.   And in honor of my father, John Junior Ralf (1921-2006) whom I miss every day.  He was the best father that always had time for me and loved my mother with every fiber in his body.  He encouraged me in whatever I wanted to do - at least until I wanted to be a policeman like he was.  He would not allow that!  He loved his three daughters and approved of the men they married.  He was a good man.

On June 19, 1910, the first celebration of Fathers' Day occurred which was also the birthday of William Smart. In 1924, President Calvin Coolidge would further support this day and in 1966, President Lyndon Johnson declared that Fathers' Day be celebrated every third Sunday of June. Finally in 1972, President Richard Nixon made Fathers' Day a permanent national observance.

OH, MY PA-PA
Eddie Fisher
Oh, my pa-pa, to me he was so wonderful
Oh, my pa-pa, to me he was so good
No one could be, so gentle and so lovable
Oh, my pa-pa, he always understood.

Gone are the days when he could take me on his knee
And with a smile he'd change my tears to laughter

Oh, my pa-pa, so funny, so adorable
Always the clown so funny in his way
Oh, my pa-pa, to me he was so wonderful
Deep in my heart I miss him so today.

Cat's in the Cradle

Cat Steven (from a poem written by his wife, Sandy)

My child arrived just the other day
He came to the world in the usual way
But there were planes to catch and bills to pay
He learned to walk while I was away
And he was talkin' 'fore I knew it, and as he grew
He'd say "I'm gonna be like you dad
You know I'm gonna be like you"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home dad?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

My son turned ten just the other day
He said, "Thanks for the ball, Dad, come on let's play
Can you teach me to throw", I said "Not today
I got a lot to do", he said, "That's ok"
And he walked away but his smile never dimmed
And said, "I'm gonna be like him, yeah
You know I'm gonna be like him"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Well, he came home from college just the other day
So much like a man I just had to say
"Son, I'm proud of you, can you sit for a while?"
He shook his head and said with a smile
"What I'd really like, Dad, is to borrow the car keys
See you later, can I have them please?"

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

I've long since retired, my son's moved away
I called him up just the other day
I said, "I'd like to see you if you don't mind"
He said, "I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time
You see my new job's a hassle and kids have the flu
But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad
It's been sure nice talking to you"

And as I hung up the phone it occurred to me
He'd grown up just like me
My boy was just like me

And the cat's in the cradle and the silver spoon
Little boy blue and the man on the moon
When you comin' home son?
I don't know when, but we'll get together then son
You know we'll have a good time then

Around the State, part 2

Just as I did last year, here is a list of what everyone is working on.

Betty just finished the last of the San Juan county cemeteries books- a huge undertaking.  Now she is transcribing "Community Cemeteries of Sierra Count" (978.967 Vol 2)

Wink just finished a huge book of Union county cemeteries.  There are 6 volumes in the series.  He did volume 4.  Now he's working on "Eternal New Mexicans" (978.9 Quentin)

Barb is working on another large book, "Rosario Cemetery, Santa Fe" (978.956)

I am transcribing "Cemeteries of DeBaca County" (978.944 Eldridge)

Gloria took on the job of transcribing all of the Eddy County genealogy books referring to cemeteries.  She has just started "Miscellaneous Unpublished NM Genealogical Records: Death Records from Mohoney Mortuary, Deming NM" (978.9)

Rich continues with "Silver City Memory Lane Cemetery" (978.9692 Henderson).  I think he was working this book last year too!

Sharon continues getting through "Fairmont Cemetery" Santa Fe (978.922)  She is ALMOST through!

Lee also continues with "Cemeteries of Lea County" (978.933 Lanning)

Diane, like Wink, has been working through one of the 6 large volumes of Union County.  She is working "Cemeteries of Union County" Vol 1B (978.923 Lofgren)

All of us are in large volumes, books that require months of transcribing work.  It gets boring at times, very tiring most of the time, but we all get eager to finish up one of the big tomes. 

What are we doing?

What a erudite, scholarly group of people looking at all those books!  But what are they REALLY doing?  We are doing shelf checks, pretending to be librarians!  Looks like fun, doesn't it. 

When we first started at the Albuquerue Public library we weren't sure where to start with transcribing.  The library workers pointed me to shelves and said "there is all we have".  So I went through lots of the books seeing if there was any information we could use, like death certificates, mortuary records or more importantly, BURIAL records.  I found many books so we started transcribing them.  Over the years the helpful people at the library would give me other ideas as to reference materials and books we should look at. 

When we started coming back into the library this summer, I noticed that we were running out of work!  There were only about 45 books left to transcribe.  With my group, it would not take long to do that.  It was time to REALLY search through ALL the books, one by one to be sure we got everything.  Our job is not done until we get it all!

So section by section, shelf by shelf and book by book, we all went through every book in the New Mexico history sections looking for anything that resembled records we needed to transcribe.  And we found more to do!  As of 2011, we have transcribed parts of or all of 300 books, about 1000 cemetery or mortuary documents.  After going through the books, we have 75 books left to do - should keep us busy for a few more years.

After two days of shelf checks, we resumed our previous work that we are all comfortable with at the tables.

Betty and Gloria, best friends



Gail, head librarian, came over to talk with us



We have found through the years many, many cemeteries in our state that have been forgotten.  Only through some of the published histories of the counties, or family histories do some of these live on today.  So many of these old cemeteries had fewer than 10 burials, the most recent being early 1900's.  They have disappeared in our desert climate and tumbleweeds, mostly forgotten.  But we find them, write as much as we can, try to get good location information (thank you Wink!!!) and submit the information to the internet as well as the Genealogy library.  They will live on forever now!

The Tombstone Project is so very important.  In a perfect society, every city, village, town and county would have volunteers working on this.  Once these graveyards disappear, so does our history, our families and our heritage as Americans.  All of our ancestors fought for their land, fought to survive and preserve their future.  We cannot forget about them now!  My wonderful group works with great dedication to this cause and with a great sense that they have protected some of New Mexico's history as well as all of our futures.  God bless all of you!

Gate of Heaven is done

GATE OF HEAVEN Cemetery

Albuquerque, New Mexico

        

                                            

We have finished re-walking one of our favorite cemeteries - Gate of Heaven. This beautiful cemetery is one of the three regular large ones we keep up to date in Albuquerque. It is a favorite of everyone because it is green, has lots of shade, conveniently located (not too far for any of us to drive), and can be re-walked in 3 months. There is a wonderful sense of peace here.


We added 1008 burials to the update this time. The last time we were here it was late 2007. There are 8,871 names at this cemetery as of the end of May 2011.

Mount Calvary is the sister cemetery of Gate of Heaven and we finished re-walking that in 2009. Sunset Memorial is the third cemetery we regularly re-walk and it will be on our schedule for 2011 when the weather cools down. Both of these are considerably larger than Gate of Heaven and will take 1-2 years for their rewalks. But we only work on the grounds of a cemetery about 6 months out of a year, typically February to May and then again late September to late November or early December. We are irrevocably linked to the weather. When it gets above 80 degrees, or below 50 degrees, we retreat to the library.  Not that we are chickens, but it isn't fun to write when your fingers are too cold to move, nor when the sun beats down on you unmercifully. 

Those working Gate of Heaven were Wink Winkeljohn, Gloria Henderson, Betty Lamberti, Sharon Serrano, Diane Bloom, Lee Miller, Barb Borowy and Rich Harris.