Annette Gendler's Blog, page 3

How to Capture Family History in a Book of My Things – Course Countdown: Day 5 – My Great-Grandfather’s Sewing Machine

Welcome to Day 5 of my countdown towards my online course Capturing Family History in a Book of My Things, which begins on January 16, 2022. Each day I am sharing a story about a family object, including tidbits of my process putting it together. I hope that’ll give you some ideas and inspire you to come up with your own stories. And of course I’d love it if you joined the course! [image error]

When I moved back to the States as a grad student in 1988, I took my great-grandfather’s sewing machine with me.

U...

How to Capture Family History in a Book of My Things – Course Countdown: Day 4 – A Wad of Fabric from my Great-Uncle’s Store in Czechoslovakia

This wad of herringbone fabric dates back to the 1940s and is from my great-uncle’s store in Liberec in the Czech Republic. It is mentioned in my memoir Jumping Over Shadows on page 13.

Welcome to Day 4 of my countdown towards my online course Capturing Family History in a Book of My Things, which begins on January 16, 2022. Each day I am sharing a story about a family object, including tidbits of my process putting it together. I hope that’ll give you some ideas and inspire you to come up with ...

How to Capture Family History in a Book of My Things – Course Countdown: Day 3 – My Parents’ Vintage Steamer Trunk

Welcome to Day 3 of my countdown towards my online course Capturing Family History in a Book of My Things, which begins on January 16, 2022. Each day I am sharing a story about a family object, including tidbits of my process putting it together. I hope that’ll give you some ideas and inspire you to come up with your own stories. And of course I’d love it if you joined the course! [image error]

My parents’ steamer trunk from our move from the U.S. to Germany in the summer of 1964 serves as a side table in o...

How to Capture Family History in a Book of My Things – Course Countdown: Day 2 – Nana’s Handmade Tapestries (Gobelins)

My mother-in-law, who always went by Nana, made this tapestry specifically for our children. It still hangs in what used to be the main children’s room in our home.

Welcome to Day 2 of my countdown towards my online course Capturing Family History in a Book of My Things, which begins on January 16, 2022. Each day I am sharing a story about a family object, including tidbits of my process putting it together. I hope that’ll give you some ideas and inspire you to come up with your own stories. And...

How to Capture Family History in a Book of My Things – Course Countdown: Day 1 – My Dad’s Old Latin-German Stowasser Dictionary

I’m so excited that my online course Capturing Family History in a Book of My Things begins in ten days that I decided to run a countdown. I’ll be sharing some of my stories about family objects, including tidbits of my process putting them together. Hopefully that’ll give you some ideas and inspire you to come up with some of your own stories. And of course I’d love it if you joined the course!

First up: My father’s Stowasser Latin-German dictionary

As I was cleaning out our bookshelves this ...

Pumpkin Bread: One of my Favorite Quick Bread Recipes that Always Reminds Me of an Old Friend

Lately I have been sharing recipes from dear friends; recipes that have become family favorites (see White Chicken Chili recipe). Today’s recipe for pumpkin bread comes from my friend Dawn Pleasant. We worked at the same company in the early ’90s – my very first job in the U.S. Even though Dawn is my mom’s generation, we became fast friends. We shared, in particular, a love of reading.

Dawn used to make big batches of this pumpkin bread, usually baked in coffee tins, to sell at her church’s bak...

Offering a New Online Course: Capture your Family History in a Book of Your Things

Are you interested in finally “doing something” with your family history?

Would you like to organize and present your family history in a way that will be useful and interesting for the next generation?

“Doing something” with your family history can be overwhelming. Maybe you don’t know where to start, or you have too much material, or too little, or you don’t consider yourself a writer.

Creating a Book of My Things is a great first step!

Focusing on writing stories about family objects is a su...

The Best from Our North Dakota Road Trip: Wide Open Horizons, Fab Fargo, Muddy Hikes and Grand Badland Vistas

This is all I really wanted from our trip to North Dakota: The open road and wide, wide horizons. (That, and finally visiting Theodore Roosevelt National Park, see below.) I took this picture on our first day driving I-94 going west.

Fargo, North Dakota’s biggest city and right across the Red River from Minnesota, was our first stop.

I didn’t expect to fall in love with Fargo, and really pretty much everything else I saw in North Dakota.

Fargo turned out to be a charming city, with a bustling...

The Best Recipe for Leftover Chicken or Turkey: White Chili

This recipe is from my friend Nita Brooks, who’s a) a quintessential Southern belle, and b) an amazing cook. She prepares the greatest dinners at my former online writing group’s conferences (which hopefully we can do in person again!). Cooking for a crowd is its own skill!

At one of these conferences she made this chili, and I loved it. I loved it even more once I learned how easy it is to make.

This white chili has become my go-to recipe whenever we have leftover turkey, i.e. after Thanksgivi...

The One Gift from Grandma: an Amber-Colored Glass Candy Dish

In 1978, when I was fifteen, my mother and I flew from Germany to Detroit for an extended trip around the U.S. First up was Michigan to visit her extended family.

By then, my mom and her mom had been estranged for several years.

We stayed at her older brother’s place, which was more like a bustling chicken coop with eight teenagers/young adults coming and going. Dirty clothes piled high in the laundry room, and there were plenty of people for backyard softball games on Sundays.

Mom probably wou...