Goal setting

Senioritis

~ marestales ~ 1 Comment

By all indications I have a serious case of senioritis. With just two more courses to complete by December 16 for NIGS (National Institute of Genealogical Studies) in order to receive my certificates in German Research, American Research, and Professional Learning, I am feeling like a high school senior. Lack of motivation. Easily distracted. Procrastinating like crazy. Falling asleep while doing assignments. Watching the clock for the end of my study time. Watching my phone and hoping someone will call. Playing puzzles on my iPad longer than I should.

I started this journey during the fall of 2015 and completed 62 online course in less than three years, while also completing ProGen, GenFed 2017, several institutes, and taking care of family. Not bad for a retired school teacher in her 60s! But, I can’t stop now…

Time to let another kind of Senior-itis kick in. What’s that, you say? It has to do with taking advantage of all the benefits that come with acquiring the status of being a “Senior Citizen.” Better coping skills learned from years of experiences. Time and opportunity to pursue a dream.  Emotional and intellectual maturity. Pride in all that I have accomplished already. Willful determination to complete what I began, because I know I can!

Time to finish those last two courses! I can see the light at the end of the tunnel… Looks like a celebration lies ahead of me!

 

Restart Number 2

~ marestales ~ 2 Comments

Where does one begin? Oh my gosh… My head is so full of thoughts and memories, bouncing around in every possible direction. I like to think of it as creative energy, but maybe I am more scatter-brained than I ever realized. Nah… that can’t be it.

So, today I am beginning again by announcing to the world that I am “on the clock” with BCG as of 5 February 2018! This is huge for me! I have one year (providing no extension is needed) to complete and submit my portfolio to the Board for Certification of Genealogists (BCG). I have prepared a year-long plan to keep myself on track and focused. (Some people think retirees have nothing to do, but I have never been so busy.) I have begun writing and/or researching for every requirement. I have planned research trips to the Family History Library in Salt Lake City, and to a number of repositories, libraries, courthouses, historical and genealogical societies, and museums in the Midwest.

Besides the BCG portfolio, I will be finishing about ten courses for NIGS (National Institute of Genealogical Studies) and the Beyond the Basics course for AGS (American Genealogical Studies). As a board member and volunteer for SGGS (Sacramento German Genealogy Society) I have the honor of working with an amazing group of people to help plan the 2019 IGGP (International German Genealogy Partnership) Conference to be held in Sacramento. (More on that later.)

This year is going to be an amazing one for me! I hope you will follow along with me as I share some of my successes and hurdles, discoveries and revelations, and more of my family history, and maybe along the way, offer some ways you can Show Your Tale, too. See you soon.

My First Taste of Teaching

~ marestales

I love it when teachers find creative ways to challenge their students. Having been on the receiving end of that during my school days, I did my best to be creative and challenging as I planned how to present curriculum in my classroom every year. One of my most memorable experiences as a student came during my senior year of high school.

I was in my fourth year of math and was at the top of the class. Yes, I was one of those girls who kept believing that she was smart enough to learn anything she wanted, even when society told her, “No. That’s just for boys.” I guess having a mechanic for a father , one who loved to challenge me with thinking/problem-solving puzzles during my childhood, had something to do with that attitude.

Our teacher let a handful of us, who caught onto ideas quickly, work ahead of the others in the class. We completed the curriculum by the spring of that school year. Now, he had to figure out what to do with us for the next month or two. So, he made us peer teachers/teacher’s aides. We were given the opportunity to prepare and present math lessons to the class, always under his watchful eye and occasional intervention. We became classroom aides, helping our peers one-on-one to understand concepts they found difficult. We helped with grading papers, and more. I found that by  teaching, my knowledge and understanding grew. An unexpected outcome of a new and novel experience.

Applying to college earlier that year was another interesting experience. I decided to start at a nearby junior college. When it came time to fill out the application, there was a list of majors one could choose. I didn’t know at the time what I wanted to study, but I felt I had to choose something. So, I started down the alphabetical list. Many were definitely out, but there were some maybes, as well. When I got to the “M” section of the list, mathematics stared me in the face, and I couldn’t help but stare right back. I was good at math. I enjoyed the challenge and the problem solving. I had transcribed pages and pages of math problems from my 6th-grade math book to do over the summer, since I was moving away with my parents to Northern California and knew I would have lots of free time. Yes, I could major in math. I wasn’t sure what I would do with a math degree, but that wasn’t too important to me at that point. Check! I majored in mathematics and minored in English, both subjects I enjoyed then and still do today. An uncommon pairing, for sure, but one which served me well over the years.

Skipping ahead to forty years later…

I came across an old fill-in-the-blanks sort of book, Senior Memories, while trying to find some high school pictures and memorabilia to share with some of my students. One of the last pages was about goals, short-term and long-term. Next to the word “Career” I had written these words: “Mathematics teacher in a high school.”  Next to the words “Where You Will Be Living”, I wrote, “Somewhere in a rural town.” I was amazed to read those thoughts after boxing them away so long ago. Even more amazing, those long-term goals, written down at the age of 17, were realized. I spent the last 10-12 years of my career teaching high school mathematics in a rural Northern California community. I even served as Math Department Chair most of that time.

Maybe the elementary school PTA and my high school math teacher knew something I didn’t know. Maybe I knew it all along, deep inside, but was too young to know it consciously for myself. Becoming a teacher was certainly my destiny, for whatever reason.

What about you? Do you have a story about how you chose your career path? I bet your kids and grandkids would love to hear about it. Share Your Tale!!

 

 

Turning Point

~ marestales ~ 2 Comments

Journey to Certification, Part 3:

Defining moments come to everyone, probably more often than we realize. One of those defining moments came for me during our visit to Minnesota for the Olson Family Reunion in July, 2014. The journey with my sister B. and Aunt L. was so much fun! Seeing my aunts reunited was heartwarming. Reconnecting with cousins we haven’t seen for years (some for over 50 years) was a true blessing. But it was one cemetery visit, with memories of burying our other sister still fresh in my mind and heart, that brought it all home for me. I understood at that moment what I was to do with the rest of my life.

I had been dragging my sister B. around for a week, taking her to every cemetery I knew of where ancestors were buried. She helped me walk up and down rows and rows of markers trying to find the names on my lists. Our travels took us from Albert Lea, MN, to Sioux Falls, SD,  and then south to Sibley, IA. Of course, there was an agreement made my sister that, if she was going to go with me to cemeteries, then I was going to take her to Falls Park while visiting Sioux Falls. Not a problem. Aunt L. accompanied us on that excursion, too. It was a fun day for all.

One of our last cemetery visits took us to Sibley, IA. Before leaving on our road trip, I found the cemetery where our grandfather, Peter Brinkman (1890-1914), was buried. We never knew him. He died two months before our father was born. According to Google Maps, the cemetery was south of Sibley, out in the middle of a corn field. I wasn’t even sure whether it still existed. It was called the Hope German Presbyterian Cemetery.

Our first stop in Sibley was at the Chamber of Commerce. When asked about this cemetery, the woman in the office said she had never heard of it. She sent us to the public library, just a block away. We had no idea what we would find there.

The main librarian hadn’t heard of the cemetery, either. However, they just happened to have a binder of a compiled list of all the cemeteries in Osceola County, recently donated to the library. The man who compiled the work listed the name of every person found, dates on the inscription, the cemetery in which they were interred, and the town where that cemetery was located. (There may have been other pieces of information, too, which I don’t recall now.) She brought out the binder and let us look for our grandfather’s name.

“There! There it is! Oh, my gosh!! I can’t believe it! Hope Cemetery! We found him, B.! We found him! The cemetery does exist!” I was so excited, I think my heart took a leap or two!

There was another young woman helping at the counter. When I showed her the entry for our grandfather, she said, “I think I have been to that cemetery with my grandmother.” She went straight to the computer and printed out directions. Almost there, I thought, an anxious lump growing in my throat.

Well, the drive to find the cemetery was interesting, to say the least. The directions wanted us to turn off of a nice paved road onto a dirt field road. I started to turn, determined to get to our destination. Being a country girl married to a rice farmer, driving on field roads didn’t intimidate me. However, we didn’t make it more than 50 feet, or so, and there was a huge mud puddle. A thunderstorm had come through and dropped a bunch of rain for two days. Next to the puddle was a sign to the effect, “Enter at your own risk.” We decided, since we were not in a 4-wheel-drive vehicle, it would be best to heed the warning. There had to be another way to get to the cemetery. Thank goodness for GPS!

After backing up, we were back on pavement, at least for a while. Eventually, we found ourselves on a public dirt/gravel road, obviously maintained by some road crew. While I drove, my sister concentrated on the Google Map and the car’s GPS map. Finally, she says, “We are very close.” We passed a cornfield, a long row of trees, and a white farmhouse with a sign that read “Olson.” All of a sudden she said, “We missed it. We have gone too far.” Slowly, I backed up from the corner, past the farmhouse, past the row of trees, slower and slower. Then, I stopped.

There, between the cornfield and the trees, was a road, covered with grass/weeds, green from the fresh rain. Our eyes barely caught sight of something at the end of the road–a cyclone fence. Could that be it? I backed up just a bit more, and there it was. Beyond the fence we saw headstones! Heart racing, I drove slowly to the edge of the fence. We got out and looked around.

The cemetery was not very big, maybe 30 or 40 headstones at most. Many of them had the surname of Frey, another ancestral name on our father’s side. We walked around for a short time, then my sister proclaimed, “Oh my gosh! We found it! He’s here! I don’t believe it.” We stood in front of our grandfather’s headstone, the closest we had ever been to him in our lives, held each other, and cried. They were tears of joy in the discovery, but also tears of sadness. We were sad that we never knew him, but even more, we were sad that he never knew his son. How much our father needed him as a child! We just stood there for a while, thinking out loud, relishing the experience, and took lots of pictures.

That was my defining moment. That was the moment I knew that I had to pursue genealogy with a purpose.  I needed to find out about my ancestors more deeply. Who they were. How they lived. Where they came from. I wanted to learn more about genealogical research. I decided then and there that, once back to California, I would turn this dream into a reality. I didn’t know how, but I knew this would be my new path in life–a life-long passion turned into a new career, possibly.

TO BE CONTINUED