A Night In Chester (003/365)

TIME:  6:57 PM to 8:43 PM
PLACE: Chester, Illinois
SUBJECT: Sign

The husband and I moseyed on down to Chester VFW for the annual gun club Christmas-Dinner-in-January soirée.

I amused myself by seeing what kind of photos I could take from where I was sitting. 


Hangers.  Hangers are fun.

Playing with the fish-eye function (taken by the husband).
Gotta love that Stag beer.


The floor was cool.

I’m seated closest to the door on the right in this centerpiece reflection.


You know that detail from my Coach boots from the 1st? 
Here’s a full view of them.
Nice, huh?


On the way home we passed St. John’s Lutheran School.

…and the Chester Mental Health Center.

I also made HH stop at McDonalds in Red Bud so I could get an iced tea.

I didn’t take a picture there.

Found Him! (002/265)

TIME:  February 8, 1858
PLACE:  Břeskovich, (now Vřeskovice) in the Plzeň region oof the Czech Republic
SUBJECT:  Josef Dolanksy birth record
From: Porta fontium 

After almost 9 years of doing genealogy, I was finally able to go “across the pond” and found my maternal, great-grandfather’s birth information!

This is what I knew: he was from Břeskovich Czechoslovakia; his father’s name was Charles; he had a birth date of February 8, 1858 and he immigrated to the US with the Jansky family..

I found a link to the Porta fontium site from Wesley Johnston’s “Researhing Czech Church Records on the Internet. 

After blindly searching, I finally figured out how the things were organized (thank you Google translate) and performed a search with Břeskovich as the place and checked “Matrika narozených” (birth registers).  I clicked on the result with the correct time frame and started looking page by page for the name “Dolansky”

It turned out to be easier than I thought.

Even though the registers are all in Czech, and the handwriting made it quite challenging to decipher some words, I actually found him quite quickly. 

Now, I know the names of his father and mother :
Karel [Czech form of Charles] Dolanksy and Katerina Jansky 

The names of his grandparents :
Paternal-Vavrince [Slovak form of Laurence] and Anna Dolansky nee Jicovy
Maternal-Vaclav & Katerina Jansky nee Hrebec

Where they are from and what they did for a living:
Father-a peasant cottager [an agricultural laborer who lived in a cottage on the landowners land] in Břeskovich (house #53);
Paternal grandfather-a owner of a farm in Chlumčany (house #4); Maternal grandfather-a peasant cottager in Jina (house #12)

This makes me so happy.

I love the Internets.

Name Dropping (001/365)

TIME: 10:12 PM
PLACE: Home
SUBJECT:  Zipper pull

I wore these Coach booties tonight while meeting up with Dana and Mike.
They were an early Christmas gift to myself.
I found them at Marshall’s on Black Friday.
On clearance for under $100.
Combined with my $50 VISA gift card that I had been holding onto since January?
SOLD

Bah Humbug!

TIME: 1:22 PM
PLACE:  My Desk
SUBJECT:  Tessa

Tessa has no Christmas spirit.
I’m grumpy that I have to go back to work tomorrow.
We are made for each other.

Lazy Saturday

TIME: 4:19 PM
PLACE: Living Room
SUBJECT: Oreo

TIME: 7:53 PM
PLACE: Couch
SUBJECT: Jack

We didn’t do a whole heck of a lot today.

Except for napping.

There was quite a bit of napping going on.

Ironwork

TIME: 6:08 PM
PLACE: Bella Milano, Edwardsville, IL
SUBJECT:  Table

HH and I went out to eat – no kids.

The place where we originally wanted to go (Gulf Shores Restaurant & Grill) had an hour wait.

We were impatient and hungry. 

So we went for Italian instead.

Christmas 2014

 
TIME : 8:54 AM
PLACE: Living Room
SUBJECT: Stella, Claudia & James

Merry Christmas!

…from Oreo too!

TIME: 9:19 AM
SUBJECT: HandsomeHusband

His boy bought him a Cardinals hat.


TIME: 9:22 AM
SUBJECT: Grandpa

He can wear these while drinking coffee out of his “World’s Greatest Grandpa” mug from prior years.