Recently I have been going through a lot of boxes that my Mother brought me with things from my Grandma's house. My Mother saved me bits and pieces that she knew I would treasure. She kept spiral notebooks on her end table where she sat and filled them with all kinds of good "stuff"! She always said "'stuff' is a good word, it's in the Bible 8 times". She had looked it up in the concordance. That's just how she was. Anyone who lived in her town could see her little white "dandelion" head sitting on her couch in front of the front window. She read her Bible, Grace Livingston Hill and Essie Summers books. In her "handy dandy notebook" she wrote down lists (copiously) of names she liked. "My Hobby", she penned next to some of the lists. She copied down phrases that she liked from her reading (I too enjoy a well phrased novel and smile at the descriptions and words I know she would have jotted down). There were hundreds of pages of Bible study notes, lists of animals, plants and birds in the Bible and key verses to memorize (I plan on doing my devotional studies from some of these pages this year). I could go on for several more paragraphs about the kinds of things I found, but I won't! ;-)
Last night a little slip of paper fell out of one of those notebooks and I have included it on the page above. Tucked in amongst quotes, lists and so on, here and there are family history gems. It is truly like a treasure hunt. This particular note talked about her Dad, my great grandfather Fred (F.W. Tisdale), who was quite an interesting man. Because of this little note I now know where my Grandma, my Mother and I got our love of quotes. As I read it, I remembered her telling me this before. Every Monday, Mr. Tisdale would write an inspirational quote on the black board. He said it would "rub off" on his students.
The note also listed the last two places he taught and was superintendent as well as what subjects he taught. On the back side were some of the silly quotes he would say. He was fun loving by all accounts (he died in 1940) and most picture show him with a twinkle in his eye.
This man I never met, passed on so much to me through his oldest child, his daughter Holly - faith, creativity and a love of learning. There are some pesky traits he pass on too, but no need to mention those here! HA HA!
Today I created a layout with his school superintendent photo, that slip of paper in Grandma's school teacher printing and a photo of all the students of Lake Stevens (WA) High School in 1922. For the layout, I used primarily my new School Days Kit along with a key from my His Story - Family Tree Kit which shares the same color palette.
Thank you for taking a journey down memory lane with me today!
