I started clearing out old Adobe files from my laptop–the download file was where I began. The first files to go were odd newsletters I might have read… or not.

Since I’ve been working on this computer for ten years, there’s a lot of junk I need to sweep out. The thing is I also found some files I lost–sometimes I’ve downloaded and saved a file only to forget to rename it. It’s then lost in the black hole of my computer hard drive.

Many files got trashed and dumped but then I came upon a PDF from my uncle that listed family birthdays and death days. He also shared family stories from his brothers and sister about my mother’s family that I didn’t know or remember reading.

I’m going through the papers now (I printed them out). My Grandpa Henry’s mother was a midwife in Chicago. It is thought that she delivered some of Grandma’s siblings. Henry and Josephine met and married in 1921. That was the beginning of the Fuchs, now Fox Family, that I know. (They changed their name after Mom was married so she was always a Fuchs.) When they were first married they opened a small store in Argo, IL, outside of Chicago.

This photo shows Grandma and Grandpa as I remember them, or like to remember them before Grandpa had his stroke.

I will share the stories I found with family this coming weekend. It’s their history, too. Geology is great, but stories bring our ancestors to life. (I hope to bring other family stories to this blog in the future.)

Today’s assignment: Write down a memory.