This Is the Face of My Genealogy

Here are two of my favorite photos.

This is Otto Dinkel and Helena (Lena) Winter, my maternal grandparents.

This next photo represents one of my "Aha!" moments. The younger man is my father (Lester Johnson's) graduation photo and the guy with the awesome beard is my dad's great-grandfather Isaac Armfield. Look at their similar appearance. The acorn didn't fall too far from this particular tree, did it?

This is being posted in response to the GeneaBloggers post on June 5. The genealogical blogging community rose en masse to protest LA Weekly's publication of an offensive illustration accompanying an otherwise very nice announcement about Jamboree. After editors received an astounding number of complaints from around the country, they replaced the photo with a graphic of the Jamboree app within hours.

Thank you to everyone for your support.

July 4th: When Dad Turned to Crime

Independence Day was my dad's favorite holiday. He LOVED his fireworks. We grew up on the stories he'd tell of legendary trips with his best friend, Wayne, to buy fireworks "When $100 would really buy something," back in the late 40's and 50's. His gaze would turn a bit wistful when he related antics with Cherry Bombs and tin cans.

We lived in Sioux City, Iowa, which is located in that little sticky-out part of northwestern Iowa that borders South Dakota and Nebraska. We could jump in the car and drive about 10 minutes into South Dakota, where firework sales were legal. My brother Steve and I would spend time shooting off Black Cats in the field behind the fireworks stand while dad carefully chose the elements for the neighborhood display.

While purchasing fireworks in South Dakota was legal, transporting them across state lines into Iowa definitely was not. The old blanket that lived in the trunk of Dad's car was used to cover the box of contraband, and we always warned that "Dad could get into a lot of trouble if he gets stopped." I think that meant we were not supposed to hold up signs that read "Help we're being kidnapped" if we saw someone in uniform.

We were always closely supervised when it came to the fireworks. We were allowed to play with those awful smelly snakes that left black marks on the sidewalk; they were legal in Iowa. Sparklers became a family activity when the sun went down. We'd get tiny stings when a stray sparkle would hit our arm. We were taught to be careful with the hot metal wire and never, ever, dropped a wire on the ground. Dad would get a variety of sparkle colors--silver, gold, red, green, blue, and it was fun to see how the wire would bend when we would do whoop-de-dos and circles with the sparklers.

The area fireworks show was at Atokad Park, a greyhound racetrack just over the river into South Dakota. Mom's duty would be to pop a paper grocery sack full of popcorn and pack the mosquito repellent. Dad had a favorite spot bordering a cornfield just outside of the park, and that was our vantage point every year. He'd park the car, take the blanket out of the trunk and put it on the hood of the car. We'd take off our shoes and climb up to claim our spot on the blanket, feeling naughty because car-climbing was on the verboten list any other day of the year. We would lean back against the windshield, munch popcorn and wait impatiently for the first big BOOM that marked the start of the fireworks display.

One....
by....
one....
by....
one....
Each display would be propelled into the night sky. Ooohs and Ahhhs would bubble forth at all the appropriate times. After 20 or 25 minutes, the big finale of multiple displays would fill the sky overhead and a volley of booms would mark the end of the legal fireworks display.

The neighborhood fireworks display was another matter. We lived on a corner that saw very little traffic, so the intersection became Fireworks Central. Beer-wielding adults would pull up lawn chairs to watch the spectacle and thereby became co-conspirators in the crime. Fortunately, we had a friendly group of neighbors and there was little risk of some grouch calling the police.

The bottle rockets, firecrackers, Roman candles, aerial displays would be planned in detail. Spinners were nailed to the telephone pole and showered sparks in the darkness.

The display didn't last long, because in the Sixties, $100 didn't go as far as it used to. Plus Dad wanted to move quickly just in case the police drove by.

Dad's neighborhood fireworks display was something he gave to his friends and family every year but I think he enjoyed it even more than we did. It's a cherished part of growing up and I'll be thinking of him tonight when I hear the first BOOM to mark the 2009 fireworks display.

Father's Day

I had long suspected that Father’s Day was something of an afterthought, created in response to Mother’s Day. A quick check of Wikipedia supports that. Sonora Smart Dodd, a young mother from Washington, formed the idea for the celebration in 1909 while listening to a Mother’s Day sermon at the Central Methodist Church in Spokane. She felt her father, a widower, deserved recognition for the sacrifices he had made in raising the family of six following her mother’s death.

The idea did not gain instant approval. Whereas Mother’s Day was easily adopted, it took several years – over two decades - for Father’s Day to gain wide acceptance as a celebration. Articles ridiculed and satirized the idea of commemorating Father’s Day. After all, fathers didn’t need flowers, and they certainly didn’t need mushy greeting cards.

Spurred on by support from retailers, the idea eventually caught on and grew to be celebrated in countries around the world. Many countries observe Father’s Day on the third Sunday of June, while others celebrate on other days of the year.

As a native Iowan, I have always been partial to the Kevin Costner movie, “A Field of Dreams.” If you haven’t seen it, it’s the story of Ray Kinsella, an Iowa farmer by marriage who hears a voice murmuring through the darkness among the corn stalks, urging “If you build it, he will come.” He bulldozes his corn field to make a baseball diamond where old-time ballplayer ghosts appear to relive their past glory. Final moments reveal that one of the baseball players is Ray Kinsella’s father. Ray, who was estranged from his father, has the opportunity to meet his father as just another man. That part always makes me cry.

My father passed away in 1985. I’d like to have an opportunity to sit down with my dad and talk to him as just another person. It’s one of the recurring themes as I work on my family history and discover those things that just never came up. I learned too late that due to his 4-F draft status, my father spent World War II as a dance instructor. (Tough job but someone had to do it.) I never danced with him. And when I think of that, it always makes me cry, too.

As I learn more about the influences on the lives of my parents and grandparents, I have gained insight into the motives and reasons behind the actions they took, the beliefs they held, and the things they said.

Talk to your father this weekend. If you are lucky enough to be able to sit with him in the same room, or listen to his words over the telephone, celebrate and rejoice in that. If you can’t reach out and touch him, or can’t hear his words, you can still feel him in your heart.

Happy Father’s Day


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The photo? Taken at my wedding in 1972.