Objectives Met

Upon the completion of Literacy and Family History, I find that acheived the six main objectives of the course.

• Adhere to accepted ethical and legal principals. Though there was little required of me in this area, I took care to create original materials, give credit to my sources where applicable, and to keep much of the family history research confidential, which is to say I only discussed findings within the context of the class and among my immediate family members.
• Use appropriate rhetorical tools and technologies tailored for specific audiences and purposes. For the family history project, I compiled data into a 20-page document that could be used by other family members as they continue their family history research. Also, for the graduate discussion and class facilitation portion of the class, I finally learned how to use Power Point to create a presentation for our class.
• Integrate verbal and visual elements in composing family history projects. Here is where I struggled the most in class. Without a clear structure for an 8-week project, and not nearly enough time to accomplish what I wanted to for this project, I found it difficult to compose a document with both visual and verbal elements. Though I did create charts and add photos to my final project, I did not feel successful in this aim of the course.
• Evaluate, interpret, and document archive materials. For both projects this semester, I evaluated photos, letters, and Internet artifacts for usefulness to my project, interpreted each through several lens to get more than a surface-level understanding of each, and carefully documented and labeled where and/or from whom I acquired each artifact.
• Collaborate with a non-profit organization (the LJHP) in producing something that meets their needs. For this portion of the course I have accumulated, documented, and organized a binder of research materials on Camp Pokagon.
• Keep an active research journal in which [I] reflect on the process of writing [my] own family history and of helping the LJHP write their manuscript. This entry, as well as all the following entries, illustrate the reflective practice I used throughout the entire semester.

Drafting My Lake James Project

In FieldWorking:Reading and Writing Research, 3rd Ed., authors Bonnie Stone Sunstein and Elizabeth Chiseri-Strater ask writers in the process of drafting to consider three crucial questions as they work toward their final projects. These include: What surprised me? What intrigued me? What disturbed me? As I prepare my final research binder for LJHP, I find it necessary to answer these, even though my final project is not a narrative (as I would have loved to do!).

What surprised me?
The amount of information available on Camp Pokagon for Girls came as a surprise to me. Within one day I unearthed weeks worth of artifacts perfect for the coffee table book Flaim and Jim are designing. As I scrolled through page after page, picture after picture, song after song, I found that many of the former campers had stayed in contact with each other over the three or four decades since their camping experiences on Lake James. Not only that, but they had composed a virtual scrapbook of memorabilia from their camping days that brought Lake James of the 1960s and 1970s alive for me. Even though their were very few stories shared on message boards, photos, maps, Pow Wow newsletters, recipes, and more told a story at the heart of the camping experience. The silliness, the sneeking, the singing--all the types of things I remember from my own camping experiences as a pre-adolescent were spread before me. Looking at a Crayola-crayoned drawing of the campgrounds showed me much more than what a traditional map would have. Though I did look for those "official" types of artifacts in my research, the hand-drawn map showed me where I could have found all the subversive activities of campers and counselors that never would have made it into the bi-annual Pow Wow.

What intrigued me?
What drew me into researching Camp Pokagon in the first place were my own childhood experiences camping on various lakes throughout Michigan. Since my camping experiences were always all-girl experiences, I never got to see camping from the eyes of boys. Sure I had read My Side of the Mountain and other fictional tales of adventuresome boys, but I always wondered what kinds of things boys did at camp. Did they sing songs? Did they have skit nights? What things might they have learned that girls did not?

What disturbed me?
As a full month of researching dwindled away, I became disturbed by the complete lack of information about Camp Pokagon for Boys. Though it had been in existence for at least two decades longer than Camp Pokagon for Girls, Camp Pokagon for Boys did not exist on the internet except in one tangential message board in which a former camper mentioned that the counselors used to ride their bikes down the giant slide after hours on Lake James. Oh yeah, and Google results also turned up this blog. This brings about many more questions. Is there something special about girls camp? What sorts of bonds between boys might have formed? Do bonds still exist? And if so, how do they manifest themselves outside of the Internet? Why didn't former boy campers come together in a virtual social space as the girls did? Where might the artifacts of boys' camping experiences reside? The list goes on.

The US Supports Family History Research!

Early this week a man came to the front door of my house, explained that he worked for the US Census, asked a few questions about the type of residence I live in, and then proceeded next door to do the same. He left me with a handout that read:

"Your answers are confidential and protected by law. All U.S. Census Bureau employees have taken an oath and are subject to jail term, a fine, or both if they disclose ANY infomration that could identify you or your household. Your answers will only be used for statistical purposes, and no other purpose. As allowed by law, your census data becomes public after 72 years. This information can be used for family history and other types of historical research. ..."

All semester we've struggled with answering the question, Is family history research a legitimate type of research within the academy? Here, we have the government suggesting it! Not only that, but they group it together within the spectrum of historical research, which suggests a place for it among history classes. Wouldn't it be great to offer a 16-week family history composition class crosslisted as a history course?! I think this would be a great fit and bring many types of researchers together on campus.

Writing Center as Service-Learning

An argument in class last week that discredited the Writing Center as a site of service learning was that there is never a time when consultant and consultee are both experts on the writing they are doing. The consultee is always there for help that the consultant gives.

I disagree. Many times undergraduates, graduate students, and faculty come to the Writing Center as experts of their own fields and the questioning, brainstorming, writing, and revising that is formed as a result of these consultations is more collaborative in nature that the typical tutor-over-tutee relationship.

Positioning and Service-Learning

Last week I wrote "Public service entails joining others in a common project of social change. How are we helping a larger public than just the LJHP? And why haven't we discussed issues beyond our immediate projects?" I've given this topic a lot of thought, especially as I've worked on my annotated bibliography, and the conclusion that I've come to is that our project is safe. I say safe because (our and their) race and class among other positionings are not challenged in the process of completing our project(s).

Students and instructor included, we are all white (though some of us may have well-hidden racial backgrounds) and bring with us white privilege. We all have at least four years of university experience and, since we are highly educated individuals, we are all assumed to be middle-class Americans, or at least people who had a middle to upper-middle class upbringing. All of those distinct positionings, though we rarely analyze them, give us the privilege to do exactly that--ignore our positionings and assume that we are all the same (or drastically different from Others).

Flaim and Jim, as representatives of the LJHP, are white, college-educated, middle-to-upper-middle class individuals, so there is little to discuss as far as social issues in our project(s) with them. However, one of the goals in many definitions of service-learning is to work with a group toward social change. Without the added critical look at social issues within the LJHP, I feel like this part of the course is aimless. So I've helped and will continue to help these people. So what? Without a critical look into "social injustices" that brought about the need for this project, I cannot answer that most important question. In fact, without professor guidance (i.e. questions for the blog, modeling of stories, etc.), we are not posed to delve into the issues, if any, that bring about a real need for this project.

I guess the question of need is a stopping point for me. I have a hard time justifying the work I'm doing as a real need of the LJHP and the greater community. In fact, considering the positionings and privileges of LJHP members, I see our research as fulfilling more of a want than a need. They want to produce their book sooner rather than later (maybe in five years, as opposed to the ten without our collaboration). Does the community need this book? I don't really think so. Will the community benefit from this book? No. Flaim and Jim claim that one of there missions is to stop the growth of McMansions on Lake James, but I don't see a connection between their project and this.

What could their projects, and our reflections, look like if the focus was truly on stopping the McMansion-izing of Lake James? First of all, I don't think the final product would be a book. In fact, I believe this course would focus on creating and performing public events in Angola and around Northeast Indiana to shed light on how upper classes taking over lake property effects other classes and lake life in general. Flaim and Jim already do this, but their focus is more on nostalgia and entertainment rather than on preservation. Instead of helping them with research for a book, we could be writing to government officials and giving demonstrations at town halls. Instead of journaling about research gaps, we could be reflecting on social injustice in class readings, our personal lives, and in our service-learning experiences. In this way, the course could also be cross-listed with an undergraduate sociology course.

Oral Performances at Camp

(Chapter 6, Box 27 Action)

Here are three songs representative of what at least one generation of campers sang at Camp Pokagon for Girls.

SPIRIT OF POKAGON
By Lou Meynard

Wake up every morning with a smile upon your face
Like the sun as it dawns across the lake.

Dreams of Pokagon that your memories can’t erase
The fragile times that time could never break.

Spring has its blossom, and autumn drops her leaves
But summer at Pokagon never ends.

‘Cause now it’s yours forever, sing out what your heart believes:
The spirit of Pokagon is your friends.
The spirit of Pokagon is your friends.

Due to lack of humor, this particular song seems to be one of the more serious songs sung by campers. From the use of metaphor in this song (and the sheer amounf of songs I've compiled--about 200) we can tell how much of a bonding force 4-8 weeks of camp life was for these girls.

TAKE ME OUT TO POKAGON

Take me out to Pokagon, take me out to the camp.
Buy me a sweatshirt and sleeping bag;
I don’t care if my counselor’s a hag!
For it’s slap, slap, slap the mosquitoes,
Stay away from the snakes!
For it’s 1,2, 3 clean the john
And the other rakes!

This song, sung to Take Me Out to the Ballgame, illustrates some of the more humorous elements of camp life. Campers eveidently needed sweatshirts, which tells us that weather was probably unpredictable at camp. Apparently, there also seems to be a tradition of ugly "hag" counselors, as well as persistant pests, such as mosquitoes and snakes. This song also reveals some of the values at camp; cleaning was definitely something everyone, like it or not, had to participate in.

WE ARE POKAGON GIRLS

We are Pokagon girls, we wear our hair in curls.
We wear our father’s shirts, we are the biggest flirts!
We wear our dungarees way up above our knees.
Hey boys, here come Pokagon girls! Hey!

To me, this song reveals the desire many girls had to maintain their feminine side while spending their summers in a traditionally masculine way. Though these girls wore men's clothing, they still did their hair and maintained a charm to attract what I assume to be the boys from Camp Pokagon for Boys. This song also alludes to the fact that there may have been a connection between the boys' camp and girls' camp, though they were located in different areas on Lake James.

Insider Language

(Chapter 6, Box 25 Action)

In gathering information about Camp Pokagon for Girls, I found a lot of terms used by former campers. For instance:

Pow-Wow The end-of-camp newsletters issued by Herman Phillips--"Phil"--the director. I found copies of these newsletters dating from 1966 to 1976.

However, I found many mentionings of camp events and, without explanations, I can only guess from pictures what they entail. For example, I found pictures of whaleboating, Miss Icky, Water Olympics, Kangaroo Court, Pokagon Playhouse, Dew Drop, Horseback Breakfast, and several other events.

I'm awaiting a reply from the former Camp Pokagon for Girls staff, but so far all I've gotten is an automated message that tells me rather enthusiastically that I will be receiving a reply soon. Without an interview, will some of the events be lost, only recorded as random pictures? Here is where our family history project research ties in with service learning research. In both areas of study this semester I've come across great artifacts (pictures, letters, etc.), but have had little luck finding an insider to tell me the stories behind the artifacts.

Due to limited time, what I might have to do is collect as many songs, jokes, and other written oral performances as I can and let those artifacts tell the stories. Afterall, performances reveal at the very least "the everyday rules and rituals that a culture lives by" (337), so I might be able to create narrative materials loosely based on the word choices repeated in songs.

Lake Memories

(Chapter 4, Box 15 Action)

I hated my house and my homelife in Holland. However, Holland welcomed me with its miles of clean beaches, its plush green parks, and its brilliant displays of tulips. Holland comforted me in ways my parents never could. I remember freshman year lying in the sand at VanAndel Beach and watching the 4th of July fireworks literally explode over and rain down upon me, black cinders falling next to my bare arms and legs like giant snowflakes from a dark sky. I remember sleeping on a private beach and waking at dawn to the sound of perfect three-foot golden waves lapping against the wet sand.

I remember one late-fall day standing on the pier just in front of the lighthouse watching in childlike excitement as enormous waves gathered before me, paused briefly as they climaxed and blocked out the red setting sun, and then spilled forth over my body. I remember walking out on the icebergs, trecherously close to the icy water, as snow blew sideways in pellets that stung my face, yet awakened my appreciation for nature.

I remember the yearly painful sunburns, my shyness in exposing my bikinied body to beachgoers, the sand in my hair, the sand clinging to the wet inside of my bathing suits, how syrupy sweet soda felt so cold in my aching throat, how bittersweet it felt to drive home with all the windows down after a day at the beach--the wind whipping my hair across my red face, my towel hugging my half-wet body, the scent of baby oil and suntan lotion everywhere. God, coconut and cocoa butter, I swear that is what sand and lake smell like on a sunny summer day. Even as an adult, it would be hard to convince me otherwise.

Floating on half-deflated rafts, my disappointing sandcastles, guys who were always looking at somebody else, coolers, cerulean blue, armadas of sailboats and motorboats traveling the horizon, cold water, the shock of the first dive head-first, drifting upshore with my eyes closed, swimming out to sandbars and buoys...

There was a night my freshman year when Josh, Josh, John, and I drove John's car out to the empty State Park lot and stood against the food court building that overlooked an expanse of indigo-colored water reflecting the indigo sky that held the tiniest of white diamond-like twinkling stars. The beach breeze held the smell of an impending storm. An indescribable smell that even when remembering it still fills my body with overwhelming emotion, a reverance for the unpredictable power and beauty of nature. Quickly, a gray-black mass of clouds gathered in the fuzzy place where water and sky meet. The clouds rolled forward, spilling steely rain and flashing yellow-white bolts of lightning. Thunder booms and echoes at the beach in a way that suggests the very God of nature is speaking directly to you. The water swirled and ran in haphazard waves toward the shore. The crashing of water on sand repeatedly warned us that it was too late to leave. The rain fell in large plops against my face. Warm, full drops of healing rain cascaded down my upturned face and into the collar of my teeshirt.

It has been eight and a half years since I last visited the lake, my home, in Holland. When will I go back? I've been waiting to hear the sea gulls, to feel the sand burn the soles of my feet, to see the green-blue water sway under a still, gray sky. Will there be kayaking, boating, swimming, tanning, wave-jumping, walking, beach volleyball? Will the beach grass slice red slivers into my ankles on the walkway? Will I walk out on the channel, follow it precariously out to the lighthouse always looking over at the water's edge and wondering if I will fall in? Will I sit in the sand and watch the sunset?

Most importantly, at least when considering the Lake James project, how does my sense of place, this internal landscape of lake life, add to or detract from my portion of the project? Was camp life at Camp Pokagon all that different from my remembered experiences of Holland State Park? Is there something that connects all of who have spent significant amounts of our summer(s) on and near a lake?

Lake James Project Questions

Since there is too much to do and not enough to start with in regards to the Lake James service learning projects, it is imperative that we, as researchers, ask several questions about both the project as a whole and our individual projects. First, one of our main concerns is: What is the context of this book? Sure, Lake James is the focus. However, we know little more than the eight or so areas of interest being researched for the book. In class we discussed ways to tie our research topics together, but the idea of uniting the "chapters" with a fictitious family makes me cringe. I suddenly envision a project resembling the awful ACPL genealogy tutorials. No, no, that will not do. At least in my mind.

So, what are other ways to make the "chapters" more fluid? One possible organization is chronologically, but I doubt Flaim and Jim want something that reads like a historical text. Another way to organize the book would be to start with Paultytown and move clockwise around the lake. A problem with this organization may be gaps in development, but I think this is the best organization for a coffee table book.

One crucial thing to consider when organizing this book is audience. The fictional character scenario might be mildly entertaining, but it appeals to a younger audience, an audience that may not even be interested in coffee table books. Conversely, a clockwise organization that is semi-chronological appeals to an adult audience, an audience that Flaim and Jim seem to want to target. Afterall, one of their largest aims is to preserve the older cottage-style ways of living on Lake James, as opposed to the newer McMansion-style living.

In sum, service learning for this project must entail extracting Flaim and Jim's envisioning of this book and giving back as much targeted research as possible. What we really need from them is a storyboard. Without it, we can only offer heaping folders of potentially tangential research.

A Box About Boxes

(Chapter 7, Box 28 Action)

When I visited my parents in January, I came across a box of old letters that had been given to my father (Brian Jasch) after my great-grandmother (Nettie Ludington) passed away in 1998. The most logical arrangement for this collection was to arrange the letters chronologically according to the date they were posted.

April 9, 1951: postcard to Nettie from Chuck (my grandfather).
September 15, 1954: hospital bill for my father when my grandfather decided to keep him.
1956-59: Brian's immunization card.
May 9, 1965: homemade Mother's Day card made for Nettie from my father.
1972?: my father's enlistment card for 2 years of Regular Army Enlistment.
Unmarked: postcard to Nettie from Brian.
January 16, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
February 5, 1973: postcard to Nettie from Brian.
February 24, 1973: postcard to Nettie from Brian.
March 7, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
June 1, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he mentions his girlfriend, Sandy.
June 2, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
June 8, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
June 29, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her of his upcoming engagement to Sandy.
August 16, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
September 25, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her to not tell Sandy about his "German chick."
October 4, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her to apologize to Sandy about his German chick; he wants to be with Sandy when he returns home.
October 12, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he talks about the German chick and tells Nettie once again to not mention his girl on the side to Sandy.
November 5, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
November 15, 1973: letter to Nettie from Brian.
December 21, 1973: letter to Nettie from Debbie regarding the twin boys she had with my
father and her plans to marry him when he returns from Army service.
February 11, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian.
March 22, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian.
September 11, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian.
November 14, 1974: letter to Nettie from Brian in which he tells her of his plans to move out when he returns home.
March 31, 1980: Nettie's invitation to Brian and Joyce's (my mother) wedding.

Though the contents of the box were originally haphazardly strewn inside the airmail box they originally arrived in back in 1998 (many letters needed to be matched to their corresponding envelopes), organizing them for the first time made many things clearer for me. Most importantly, I found proof that my father had two children with a woman immediately before entering the service. He had apparently promised to marry her when he returned. However, throughout his time stationed in Fort Polk, LA and in Germany, he had promised two additional women he would marry them. He had a long-term girlfriend with whom he broke up and got back together with several times over the two year span of letters. He also had a German girl on the side.

I was surprised that my father confided all of this in Nettie (his Ma). What must she have thought of it all? All I know is that Grandma Nettie could hold her secrets--she took as many as of them as possible to the grave. My dad, of course, just snickers and turns red when I confront him about all of this. His nose flares and twitches in a way that prepares me for a lie or a cover-up of some sort. My mom just pretends she doesn't hear it all. I guess what surprises and frustrates me most of all in this family history research-business is how strongly people want to cover up and/or deny their pasts. All I want to do is figure out where I came from before it's too late. At least this box of letters tells me a few things no one else is prepared to.

Questioning My Fieldnotes

(Chapter 2, Box 8 Action)


Saturday, January 31st, 2009
2:00 p.m. 27-degrees and sunny
Fort Wayne to Angola, IN

Outskirts of Angola: There are dense trees covered in a thick layer of white snow. The roads are hilly and winding. People are out on the lakes ice fishing and corn stalks poke through the snowcovered fields.

Crooked Lake: 290West to West Shady Side Road. Mobile homes and McMansions sit side-by -side. There are no kids, no traffic, no people outside, just bare trees with golden brown clumps of leaves fluttering in the wind. The roads continue to snake along the lake and many snowmobilers are darting over the ice in patterns.

Lake James: Paulty Town East: There are mobile homes and a church with a health center. Between the crowded homes there is an island upon which sits one house. The further we drive, the bigger and newer the houses are. Sowles Bay: There are lots of trees and a few pricy homes and there are many tiny cottages clumped together. After a patch of trees we come upon many more expensive houses and a marina. Other neighborhoods: Red Sand Beach (where we see a deer), Glen Eden Springs (up on a hill), and Cruscoe Point (private).

I haven't been back to Angola since I left it nearly five years ago. It is bright and bitterly cold. It's weird how much my memory of this place has been erased by the events of the past five years.

What surprised me: I was surprised by how big the Lake James area is and how, during the entire time I lived on Crooked Lake, I had never once driven the short distance to Lake James, even by accident! I also saw more deer than people on the drive around the lake. It appeared as if no one was even living out there.

What intrigued me: In Fort Wayne, most neighborhoods are clearly divided into lower income, higher income, and ridiculously huge income areas. However, on Lake James, all of these housing types seemed to be intermixed, especially in Paulty Town. How do these different types of lake people coexist? How do the wealthy people not look at the patchwork mobile homes in disgust, and how do the cottage dwellers not resent the three-story mansions that now block their lake view? What a mystery.

What disturbed me: Honestly, I was disturbed by all the mansions. They looked so out of place on the lake. Yes, some of the smaller dwellings were old, some had definitely seen better days, but when I think of lakes, I think cabins and cottages, not giant estates. Especially giant estates that sit unused for eight months out of the year. Privatizing such large parts of a natural resource seems ridiculous to me.

Camp Freewrite

(Chapter 2, Box 4 Action)

As Erin and I begin to work on our big Lake James project, I must think back to my childhood. For those of you unfamiliar with the topic Erin and I will be writing about, we are writing about the history of Camp Pokagon with a focus on some of the boy's and girl's camps in the Lake James area. Like many of the children who played on the beaches of Lake James, I, too, once spent a weekend of my summer at camp.

At age 10, I was a second-year member of the Campfire girls in Holland, Michigan. My particular troop originated from Maplewood Elementary School, which was located just a few short miles from Lake Michigan. During the school year many of us Campfire girls worked hard at many projects to earn patches and beads for our Campfire vests (similar to Girl Scouts). We learned about recycling, learned photography, practiced using our imaginations, visited a real news station in Grand Rapids and later filmed our own program on public television, and even learned how to make homemade candy. However, nothing beat preparing for our first weekend (well, at least my first weekend) away from home to earn our badges for learning real camping skills.

I remember learning to tie at least ten different types of knots, learning how to start a fire with sticks and brush and also with pieces of flint, and learning the different plants on nature walks near the dunes of the lake. I remember staring in amazement at the bunk beds stacked three high that wrapped around the room of our cabin, and I remember unrolling my green sleeping bag on a bunk that was literally less than two feet from the ceiling.

The most fun of all, as I imagine it is for all young children, was the nighttime. Outside we built a fire as big as we were and set out immediately making Smores. Even though I never liked Smores, making them was exciting. I'd see how long I could hold the marshmallows over the fire before they erupted into flame and oozed down into the glowing embers below. After Smores were classic campfire staples such as star gazing, rounds of "Koombaya" and ghost stories. Under the full moon we also carried our flashlights on a nighttime hike that was punctuated with the shrill shrieks of pre-adolescent girls who swore they just had heard an animal/murderer/ghost following us through the woods.

The last day of camp was filled with equal parts rain and sorrow. I had to leave this entirely different way of life and head back into the city where I'd be learning nothing other than reading, writing, and arithmetic in the fall; where nighttime would be filled with orange light pollution and random music from the cars that sped past my house; and where my bed was just another mattress covered in New Kids on the Block bedsheets. I wonder if all those kids who spent their summers on Lake James felt the same as I did.

Hiccup

Last weekend I was supposed to visit Aunt Ginnie and all of her siblings; however, the trip was canceled. In fact, I doubt I'll be able to reschedule it. When I called Aunt Ginnie last week, I was shocked to find out that my Uncle Chet (her husband) had suffered a heart attack while he was shoveling snow and soon after underwent open heart surgery.

I am glad to hear that Uncle Chet is recuperating well, in fact, I'm almost chuckling to myself. Before you think I'm some horrible, sadistic person, let me explain. Chet and Ginnie have been married for over half a century, and even though I've only known them for half that time, nothing about them has ever changed. They've lived in the same house, with the same furniture, and with the same habits. One of these habits has always been to ignore their respective ages. So when my kids visit them, Aunt Ginnie, at age 83, can be found RUNNING during an hour long game of tag on the front lawn. Yes, running, not shuffling or speed walking--running! It comes as no surprise that Uncle Chet, at age 84, would spend his winter mornings shoveling away the heaps of lake effect snow that Chicago has been so kind to usher over to Michigan City this season.

Will everything change now? Will Ginnie and Chet finally slow down?

One thing is for certain, my project may have just changed. Without the final and most substantial interview, I may be left with only a few stories--not nearly enough. And a draft is due next week. Yeah, I'm not freaking out or anything...

Our Extraordinary Mail

Every day in residential America, millions of adults approach small magical boxes located outside their homes and apartments with fear, excitement, and disappointment. This custom ceases to fascinate me. In fact, the daily interaction between Americans and their boxes is so amazing that it must be examined and shared.

The practice of going to the box has occurred throughout my entire life and, as I have been told, it has occurred throughout America for a couple hundred years. It seems that going to the box is inevitable and unavoidable, because otherwise almost no one would do it.

The slips of paper that appear magically in the boxes by the day's end usually seem to have an upsetting quality. The person sent or compelled to gather the paper bundles will shuffle through the paper slips and often display olympic disapppointment. Occasionally, a slip of paper will cause the person holding it to smile, laugh, or even dance. Positive interactions are most likely to occur the bigger and more brightly colored the papers are. This is a rare occurance. Even rarer is the day when no paper bundle is to be found in the box. Oddly, this also has a negative impact on the emotions of the paper gatherer.

Once the papers have been gathered and brought into the person's dwelling, the papers are distributed. Men, women, and children each receive a share of these papers and the emotive quality of each piece of paper never seems to lose it's potentcy. The emotional interactions with the papers keep occuring no matter how many people in the house or apartment touch the papers.

Once each recipient has either throughly examined his or her paper slips or dismissed their contents entirely, the papers are stored. Some people place the paper bundles on bureaus and in desks, or on top of refrigerators and in cabinet drawers. Others throw the entire contents away in waste baskets. Some people cry and burn the slips while others cry and store the papers in shoeboxes. This practice of storing the papers is so complex, but one thing is clear: Americans will do whatever they have to to deny that these paper bundles ever existed.

Once or twice a month Americans will procure magic paper bundles of their own and place them back into the box located outside their residence. Once again, the outgoing papers are interacted with in the very same manner that the incoming papers were.

In conclusion, this look at the magic practice of receiving and sending paper bundles has certainly shown that millions of Americans will subject themselves to daily disappointment despite the terrible odds of ever receiving a happiness-producing paper. Perhaps this ritual is reflective of an overall American tendency to seek out happiness in the most unlikely places.

Women and Genealogy

As I began working on my family history project (and I still feel as if I'm quite new to it), I quickly discovered three family members who have done some research in the past. My great-aunt Ginnie was the first person who introduced me so-to-speak to my great-great grandparents Freyer. Through a few lengthy phone conversations and one five hour visit that almost never happened, I discovered within Aunt Ginnie a desire to pass down the stories and facts that she had acquired over the past nine decades. She spoke to me with urgency, yet simultaneously with an immense sadness. "So many things I wished I could have asked your gram, Hidi. You know? Back then, no one ever thought to ask these sorts of things," she said more than once as she drove me through the neighborhood in which she has spent her entire life.

At the end of our visit, Aunt Ginnie pointed me in the direction of her sister-in-law, Caroline (Rebac) Jasch, who has also been practicing genealogy for sport over the past twenty-five years. Though I have yet to see the culmination of her research, it was fun to speak with her over the phone. I think the last time I had spoken with her was as a shy 8-year-old on Easter Sunday. My mother would dress me in these frothy pastel nightmares and in stockings that ran just by pulling them on and then parade me in front of relatives at Aunt Caroline and Uncle Ed's. Aunt Caroline scared me back then. She was always yelling at someone as she filled tables with dish after dish of food I was not about to ingest. I ate a plateful of dinner mints. Now, on the other end of the phone, there was Aunt Caroline yelling, "Ed! Get down, Adolph! Get the damn dog outta here! I gotta get outta this room. Yer Uncle Ed's got the set turned so loud, I can't hear a thing. He's trying to make me watch those shows and I don't want to watch those shows. That's better. Your Aunt Gin tells me you're doing a project. Now, you, see I've got a lot of information over the past twenty-five years. I can e-mail it all to you..." Yes, all of this and I hadn't said a word to her since Uncle Ed had passed her the phone. I could only smile to myself thinking about how little she'd changed.

The third woman in my family who works on genealogy is my great-great aunt Bernice. (I should add that she is not likely a Jasch by blood, but was raised as one, and as far as I am concerned, she is a Jasch). I have never met or spoken with my Aunt Bernice. My Aunt Ginnie tells me that she lives in Utah and has done a lot of work on the Freyer side of the family.

In my family, these three women are the only people who actively engage in genealogical research, either through historical societies, like Aunt Ginnie, through online resources, like Aunt Caroline, or through libraries, like Aunt Bernice. This leads me to believe that genealogy, at least in my family, is a gendered practice. That said, there are many factors that lend this "hobby" (as they define it) well to females. Most of these women spent the majority of their lives raising few to no children, only one that I know of was ever seriously employed outside of the house, and none of them have been employed over the past several decades. Also, my family of origination is very traditional in the sense that there are women's things and there are men's things. The passive practice of passing written and spoken things down from generation to generation has always fallen under the category of women's things, whereas the active practice of hunting and fixing things has generally fallen within the scope of men's things. From this, I will assume that, traditionally, genealogical practices are typically gendered.

Research Questions

As I work on my project proposal, I'm beginning to have very serious questions.

I'm starting to uncover family stories, but I'm also digging into the facts (dates, certificates, publications, etc.) that complicate the stories. For instance, I hear that Relative X was doing ABC with Relative Y; however, according to the obituary of Relative X, this is impossible. Do I then write about the facts? Do I ignore the facts and write down the story? Do I write them both down side-by-side and let my readers (including family) decide what they want to? What are the consequences of all three methods of "delivering" my family history?

And what if this sort of thing happens as I begin my service learning project? The people with whom I'll be working won't be my family, they won't know me, so how do I handle these inconsistencies?

I guess this all comes down to issues of truth. But I don't want my family history project to be centered around fact-as-truth. I want my deliverable to be a rich narrative, not a dry report. How well can I integrate narrative and report styles with my visuals? What do I say about the gaps and overlaps when it all comes together?

What are your thoughts?

My Subcultures

(Brand-Spanking-New) English Instructor
Ritual: I read the Norton Field Guide, create detailed lesson plans that are accompanied by writing assignments and in-class activities, spend a lot of time editing those lesson plans, and then spend my office hours comparing the lesson plans and assignments with other English instructors. I arrive at class about 5 minutes early, write pertinent notes on the chalkboard, squeeze into the kidney-bean-shaped circle my students have created, look at my materials for the day, and then look up to ask if anyone has any questions. I call roll, cover the material mapped out in my lesson plan, do an in-class activity, collect writing assignments, pass out new assignments, ask if my students have any questions, and then dismiss class. I leave class with a folder full of material to be graded.
Insider phrases: "What are you doing for the literacy narrative?" "How do you handle this?" "What's your attendance policy?"
Behaviors: I spend too many hours reading and way too many hours editing lesson plans at home at my computer desk. I spend also go to the library and Writing Center on a weekly basis. Overall, I spend daylight hours walking from building to building, from classroom to office and back, in clothes that I don't enjoy wearing in order to look somewhat professional. I never skip class because I am now an "example" for undergraduates to follow, so I can be found at the same places at the same times. The stress of teaching has also acted as a catalyst for my nail-biting habit, so I frequently enjoy a cuticle sandwich.

MMO (Mom's Morning Out) Member
Ritual: 9 a.m. Arrive at Community of Hope in Columbia City, Indiana, on the second Thursday of every month of the school year. Check in at the welcoming table and collect my B.A.B.E. coupon. Smile and wave. Walk downstairs to the gathering room and sit at one of six tables with six chairs. Smile and wave. Walk to the food and beverage tables to check out the breakfast dishes that are arriving. Smile and wave. Set down the juice and snack I just purchased at Kroger. Smile and wave. Return to my seat. Introduce myself to the moms arriving at my table.
9:30 a.m. Opening prayer, pregnancy and birth announcements, and a reading.
10:30 a.m. Brief activity during which I smile and say Hello to a few moms.
11:10 a.m. Everyone packs up and begins filtering out. Everyone smiles and waves.
Insider phrases: "When are you due?" "How long was your labor?" "How many kids do you have?"
Behaviors: Waving with a perma-smile plastered on our faces, eating not-good-for-you food when our guest speaker is a dietitian, whispering to each other during the long opening prayer-announcement-reading, touching each other's bellies, and looking at ultrasound photos.

Substitute Teacher
Ritual: Arrive early, check in with the office, get the sub folder and room key, go to the classroom, search for lesson plans, create lesson plans when none are found, locate the nearest bathroom and faculty lounge, and then return to the classroom and write name on the board. When class begins, I introduce myself, explain goals for the day along with the "quiet signal," and then begin following the lesson plan. When the last student has been dismissed for the day, I write the sub report, organize the teacher's desk and classroom, make contact with the absent teacher, and then check out with the office by returning the keys and sub folder.
Insider phrases: "Do you have something you want to share with the class?" "If you guys want to pass love notes, you can do that after school." "Everybody raise your hand. Touch your head. Touch your nose. Now leave it there!" "How do you define respect?" "What does your teacher do?" "Where does your teacher keep it?" "I'm sorry, but I'm not your teacher."
Behaviors: Calling the office, going to neighboring teachers for help, writing referrals, writing copious notes for the teacher, passing out stickers, "pulling cards," and showing a video when all else fails.

Freyer School

Of the 40 acres owned by my great-great grandfather, Robert Freyer, one acre was deeded to Michigan School Township on May 3, 1915. This plot of land was developed that year as a one-room schoolhouse fittingly named "Freyer School." My great grandmother, Nettie Freyer, and her siblings, as well as my grandfather, Charles Jasch, and his siblings and cousins all attended Freyer School before it was sold.

Yet to be posted is a late-1930s class picture including Nettie and Edward's oldest child, my great aunt Ginny.

Today the Freyer School still stands on the corner of Freyer and Eastwood now converted and expanded into Emmanuel Baptist Temple, 820 Eastwood Road.

Freyer Homestead

In 1914, my great-great grandfather, Robert Freyer, built the Freyer Homestead (pictured at right) on what is now the corner of Freyer and Herman in Michigan City, Indiana. Robert and his wife, Dorothy ("Dora" Wilke), raised the majority of their 21 biological children on this property which encompassed 40 acres (from Eastwood to Schnicke).

As the children reached adulthood, each was entitled to one acre upon which to build a home of their own. My great grandmother, Nettie Clara Freyer, married Edward Charles Jasch on June 1, 1925 and soon acquired an acre of her own on what is now Schnicke Road. A few decades later, this neighborhood became affectionately known as "Freyer-ville."

Nettie and Edward's second child, Charles "Peanut" Harry Jasch, later had an affair in December 1953 with an unknown but married woman. Two days after the birth of their son (my father, Brian Charles Jasch), the woman put the baby up for adoption. Later that night Peanut arrived at the house on Schnicke Road with my father, who was then raised by both Peanut and Nettie. (Edward had passed away on May 27, 1934, and Nettie had divorced both William Schnicke and Harry Ludington before my father's birth on September 13, 1954.)

Rumor has it (according to my great aunt Ginnie) that my paternal grandmother's family is Woodruff from Michigan City. However, my father's birth certificate is allegedly signed once as "Virginia Jasch" and another time as "Virginia Hopkins of South Bend, Indiana" (according to my mother Joyce). Without locating a copy of my father's birth certificate, I cannot confirm this; however, I can consider this a starting point.

Just in case anyone is curious about Robert and Dora's phenomenal amount of children, of the 21 born, there was only one set of twins. Including the twins, four other children died at birth and went unnamed. The 15 children are as follows: Lillian (1896), Martha (1897), Herbert (1899), Clarence (1901), Edgar (1904), Nettie (1906), Lena (1907), Minnie (1908), Ruth (1909), Eva (1912), Florence (1913), Dorothy (1916), Lester (1919), Willis (1921), and Marietta (1923). Between the ages of 17 and 44, a time span of 27 years, Dora had given birth 20 times!

Going Into the Field

Saturday, 9:00 a.m. Heading to Michigan City, Ind. from Fort Wayne, Ind.

The thermometer reads 12-degrees Fahrenheit, but more accurately, with windchill factored in, it's more like -12-degrees. It's snowing sideways and the van reeks of Aaron's large coffee. I am staring down at my water wishing it was a Full Throttle Fury.

I wish I was the driver: Aaron rarely follows speed limits, and he so kindly ripped off the driver-side mirror that had been dangling all week, thus negating any chance I will get behind the wheel. On the bright side, the passenger seat's heated. He's in rare form this morning. Everything is cause for an argument. I'm just irritated that we got a later start than I had planned. Okay, and I wanted the iPod charger, the atlas, and the Full Throttle. And, oh, to be the driver. As for him, I think my mere existence is annoying him. Or maybe it's my "Oh my GAWD!" as he occasionally swerves into the shoulder as he fiddles with my keychain/wallet. This new level of irritation conveniently began yesterday morning. Just in time to make this trip a joy.

Maybe Aaron doesn't quite understand how important punctuality is to me. Or how it came to be that way. In my family "Five minutes early is on time" just doesn't cut it. As a child, on road trips such as these, my father would wake me and my sister, Whitney, no later than 6:00 a.m. Urgency, impatience, anxiety, and I don't know what else were in my father's voice as he'd constantly remind us that we had to leave, that we were going to be late, that he was going to leave without us all. He must have really loathed those trips. Any trips, really. My mother would dart around, flustered and obviously irritated, yet wanting to please my father every time.

Did I mention that a one-mile drive to school counts as a trip? Wanting to avoid the rush, by the time I was in high school, I began riding my bike or walking to school. Alas, the punctuality bug had set in and became a part of who I was (and still am). I'd get to school as early as 6:30 a.m. and wait out the remaining hour and twenty minutes until classes began. There I was getting to places even earlier than my parents had...

Where is US-35 North? Apparently, it doesn't exist. How many times have I driven to Michigan City? And I still don't know how to get there. Haha.

We passed Wanatah (the birthplace of my great-great grandfather Robert Freyer), so I guess we'll take 421 instead. 421 is covered in over an inch of snow.

The Family "Tree"

Food for thought:

Why do we say we're going to explore our family's "roots," yet when we display our findings on a family "tree," they're always in the form of "branches"?

In-Progress Pedigree Chart

Here is the 5 Generation Chart I've compiled:

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I've made it this far thanks in part to my mother Joyce, my great-aunt Ginny, and www.dunelady.com!

Introduction

In this blog I will be keeping track of my research progress. I will be recording personal notes and reflections on readings related to "Literacy and Family History."

For the next eight or more weeks, I will also post the stories, photos, and/or interesting documents I come across during my interviews with my great aunt, Virginia "Ginny" (Jasch) Keen, and my father and mother, Brian Jasch and Joyce (King) Jasch. Ideally, I want to discover who my paternal grandmother was/is, but many of these stories seem to have died along with my great grandmother, Nettie (Freyer) Ludington, in 1998 and my paternal grandfather, Charles Jasch, in 2005. Therefore, I will most likely center my research on family stories that were passed down to my great-aunt Ginny and those which took place during her lifetime.

I'm excited to see what I find. Last weekend's trip to Aunt Ginny's (Michigan City, Ind.) and my parents' (Fennville, Mich.) was canceled due to bad weather, so my fingers are crossed for clear roads this upcoming weekend!