AHSGR

 Those letters stand for the American Historical Society of Germans from Russia.   

I am leaving in the morning for a trip to their museum and research library in Lincoln, Nebraska.  

It's a straight shot due North, but while looking at the maps, I keep finding all sorts of other places to stop and other things to see.  It's hard to make my mind remember that this trip has a purpose and it isn't sight-seeing.  

I think I've mentioned a time or two or twelve that I don't know much about where my grandmother and her parents came from - said to be Saratov, Russia.  The end.  Saratov is a province and a huge city, even in the early 1900s when they left there.

https://betweenthewindows.blogspot.com/2013/07/halfway-round-world.html

Friday morning, the 24th:  I have returned and am continuing this article rather than starting a new one.  Sitting here this morning with a first cup of tea (it's 4:30 a.m.) and thinking about people, it occurs to me that I am at a point of life that there will soon be three generations ahead of me with the birth in January of my first great- grandchild.  It has also occurred to me, lately, that one of these days I will die and I have a lot of loose ends to tie up before then, if I am blessed with enough time to do so.  

In the meantime, in the 947 miles I drove (in three days), some things were disappointing and some were wonderful.  

Wonderful things first.  

---Driving.  I don't listen to a radio or audio books, or anything vocal while driving.  I like to focus on my driving, on what is outside my windows, and on what is inside my head.  To me, driving long spells out on US highways or county roads is therapeutic.   I am free from distractions and am able to Think, to Ponder, to Wonder, to Make Decisions (whether they be temporary or permanent remains to be seen).  That's wonderful.

---People.  I meet the most interesting and kindly people when travelling.  Innkeepers, Service Station attendants, Museum hosts, Helpers - cheerfully giving me directions when I am unsure of the way.  It's a blessing to find how glad people are to help when it is needed.  I didn't meet anyone who was grumpy.  That's wonderful.

---New Places and Old Places, too.  Kansas is one of my favorite places on the planet.  Yes, I know that covers a lot, but I find 'lots of spots' that are lovely for various reasons.  

Disappointments.

---Didn't find anything new about my Germans from Russia.  Disappointment.

---Nebraska.  All the trees left in Nebraska must be in the old parts of town in Lincoln - and lovely they were - as well as the old neighborhoods.  The rest of the countryside has been stripped bare of nature in order to grow vast patches of some grain.  Whew!  Devastation.  More than Disappointment - leaning toward Despair.

Now for the best news of the whole trip!  

The Douglass, Kansas, museum is open again.  

Irregularly for the time being, but open it is. 

 Douglass Historical Museum

Douglass Museum on Facebook

Besides research on families in the town and area, the building displays are astonishing.  I have gone many times over the years for research, but until yesterday had never seen all that the museum holds.  This is a very fine museum.  

Time for another cup of tea.  

The Dearest People in the World

 

Today is October 15, 2025, a Wednesday.

A while ago, I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes.  I have the window open because the temperature outside is about 80 degrees.  Out the window, halfway down the yard, is a well pulley on one of those yard hooks for plants or birdhouses, or whatever needs to be outdoors.  I chose to hang the pulley.  

It is an Oklahoma pulley, I am sure.  It came to my husband and I from Chickasha, where his aunt and uncle lived.  They were country people - farmers both on a large scale and then on a smaller scale but growing, then putting up, their own food for as long as they were able.  

Uncle Lafe died in 1975.  That was a long time ago but I still miss him.  Auntie lived quite a bit longer in their home, but eventually had a stroke and had to come to the city.  Her household belongings - most of them, that is - were moved up here, too.  But there were things that were left behind.  Some of those are what were most valuable - think memories - to Steve and I.  

Auntie and Uncle Lafe had a plot in Chickasha, very near the College.  Lafe built their house with a livable basement and single story but with full attic, on the east lot.  Here he planted pecan trees; lots of them.  Across the road (which was a city street, not a country road) he had an acre or two for: raising rabbits for his family-famous rabbit sausage; a fish tank on the lot; and the rest of the ground, as far as I know, was for just food of all kinds - and plenty of it.

We brought home an old cast iron stove - the parlor kind, but not at all fancy, just wonderfully strong.  It was under the house and we crawled under there to get to it.  We brought plenty of other things, too.  Things that we had no practical use for, but just because they belonged to Auntie and Uncle Lafe.  

I have several of Auntie's notebooks and here are some of her notations:  

Record of Odds and Ends as thot of From Time to Time.  VE

1940: canned 18 qts beef . . . 9 qts green beans . . . 5 qts beets . . . 8 qs corn . . . 4 qts cow peas. . . bought 2 bushels peaches . . . bought bushel grapes, put 7 1/2 qts marmalade, 9 qts grape juice & 5 qts just grapes . . . 

From those pecan trees Uncle Lafe planted, we had a tree ourselves, planted in the city when Steve was a kid, at the house where he grew up.  We ended up living in that same house for 25 years and our pecan tree was a wonderful treat.  One year I had a full bushel basket and another 3/4 bushel to crack.  And crack them I did, savoring the pecans, the work, and the joy of the memories.

There are more mentions of Lafe Eggleston and Veda Berry Eggleston in these dated articles:   2018:  April 25 and 26    2019:  September 14 and 15  

After Auntie had a stroke and moved to the city, she stayed with her sister (my mother-in-law) for quite a while.  But she worsened and was moved to a nursing home.  I put together a photo album for her.  This is what it looked like.

And this is the inside front cover.

Each of us who were her family had a page to add a photograph of themselves and a note to Auntie.  It worked out wonderfully well.  She kept it with her in the nursing home and after her death my mother-in-law - her sister - asked if she could keep it for a while.  That was fine with me.  We had all put our hearts into the album.

In 2019 I added the photos in the front and made a pocket in the back cover and added several more photos.  It was finished.  It is one of the treasures in my Treasure Chest.