It's Still All About Rome: "SPQR- A History of Ancient Rome" by Mary Beard

Senatus Populus Que Romanus: an ancient motto meaning the Senate and People are Rome. But even in the days of the Republic, the Senate was mostly what mattered.

The book is a primer on Ancient Rome from the days of it's founding as a tiny but aggressive village on the banks of the Tiber to the time of Caracalla-about 200 BCE. It manages to be sweeping and detailed, written for the reader of "today" and with humor. Mary Beard really enjoys her subject and seems to love telling others about it.

I never studied Ancient History in any depth, even with a university degree. I went to Rome last May without knowing much about it; when we lived in Europe in the 1950's, our family never thought of going to Rome (tho I did). So this solid little history book was just what I wanted; full of maps, photos, sources, bibliographies, time lines. The book almost "reads like a novel". You will enjoy it.

Probably every Roman emperor and most major military heroes could be subjects of a book or novel each; very exciting people.

Merry Christmas and Happy Channukah--double feature of Holidays this year. And Happy New Year!

Or Happy Hanukkah.  Did you know that there are about half-dozen ways to spell this Holiday. I don't know which one is preferred, but I hope that it is Happy!

In our part of the world, the weather is mild; 40-degrees C. expected all week. Good weather is always welcome, though overly warm winter weather in the Great Lakes region of NA sometimes leads to dead perennials in the flower beds in spring.

The best, most enjoyable and worthy novel of 2019, already... And Ships Pass in the Night.

Why wait? The sooner you are aware of this wonderful novel I found, the sooner you can be loving it on your own!!

"All the Light We Cannot See" by Anthony Doerr. Hands down, best novel I read this past year. No contest.

Get ready to fall in love with Saint-Malo, France.  You already love Paris, of course.

Get ready to learn how a little boy in desperate circumstances in the Nazi era in Germany learns to build a radio with the materials on hand and available. Be amazed when, by chance, this knowledge gives him access to a powerful Nazi who sees his value to the nation and helps him advance to a  special school for Nazi tech leaders.

This lad is not a Nazi himself, he is not political. He is an orphan, trying to protect his little sister. Who understands electronics in those early days.


But wait. There are two novels at work in this wonderful story: in France there is a young girl, Marie-Laure, who went blind at an early age.  Her father holds all the keys and secrets of a Paris museum. And he constantly trains his young, blind daughter to know (by counting her steps, for example) where she is at all times.....and how to locate things she knows about. After Paris is invaded by the Nazis, the two travel on foot most of the way to Saint-Malo.

Her relative in Saint-Malo also built a radio, many decades before-- that was heard by the boy and his little sister in Germany.

There is a wildly precious gem in the Paris museum, btw.  Everybody wants to find or keep hidden this wonderful gem.   No one wants the Nazis to get the jewel. The father hides the gem near the little girl. She finds it, not knowing what it is.

All roads lead to the meeting between the two kids. One of the scariest literary scenes I've read: when the evil Nazi jeweler (one of the few expert jewelers in Europe who was not Jewish) gets into her vacant (except for her) 5 or 6 story, picturesque home in Saint-Malo and starts padding around. She's stone blind, remember. She's well hidden, but he doesn't leave and he knows she's there. And he knows about the gem.

Update to last summer: while we were in Rome, we had an (undeserved) connection to the American Academy in Rome, where Anthony Doerr was staying (as some American artists do when visiting Rome.) Our son invited us to participate in a service project sponsored by the Academy; we would have gladly done it, except we had imposed on the kids too much. We needed to go off together and gain experience touring the city alone.

Alas....guess who was on the service project??? You got it. Anthony Doerr. But! I owned the novel at that time, but had not read it.  I did not know how great it is.    Ships pass in the night.

Dad's 100th Birth Anniversary Coming Up Soon

My Father lived to see his 93rd birthday, just barely. He never anticipated that he would live as long as he did. You never know, do you?

In this photo, he was 86, cuddling his one-year old "bonus grandchild"; the happy surprise. She's 15 now.

In Recent Months, I'm working on Family History again.

Don't worry, I don't envision turning this into a "Family History" blog! That seems too intrusive, especially with mention of names, etc.

Plus, one person's Family History is not very interesting to other people, unrelated. Heck, even members of my own family show little or absolutely no interest in family members who happened to come before!

I think: how can you possibly understand where you are now, or where you are headed, if you have no idea where or from whom, you came?

My cousin recently came upon a large stash of mostly unidentified historic family photos from the 19th and 20th Century. These were thought to be lost, or even destroyed! But she found them on the family's old Home place farm where she now lives.  Currently, she and I are trying to figure out who some (or all, if possible!) of the subjects of the photos were. When they were alive, in their time, walking the earth, etc; you know, just like us.

After the death of my Mother, in 1999, I spent a couple of years riffling through this new gadget called the "Internet" on an overpriced under-powered old Mac---and I learned a lot. Formed a good base for what I am doing at the current time. Back then, I was trying a sooth the grief we mostly all feel when we lose our Mom.  Now we have Ancestry.com and these photos! Time to build on the foundation I already made.

How did I get interested in this subject?

It started with the idea that--when I was a young child in the 1950's--there were still a small number of people alive who had experienced the period of the American Civil War; the veterans were almost all gone, but their younger siblings and children were among us.  As it happened, one Saturday, when I was 6 or 7, my Grandfather had care taker duty of me for the day; he was planning a visit to his hometown a few hours drive away. As a physician and son, he was likely going to look in on the health and condition of his very elderly parents.  So I went with him.

His father--my Great Grand Father--was in a nursing home (temporarily) at that time; our visit was to see him.  I have a vaguest memory of him; perhaps the only time I ever met him?  After we left GGF, we visited another room way down the hall, dark and small.  Nursing homes smelled worse than they do nowadays, so I wasn't very comfortable.

In a single, low bed lay a very, very elderly withered old lady all swathed in sheets. I can remember it as if it were yesterday. 95 year old people in those days looked older than they would today. She knew my Grandfather, but was unable to move much.  He comforted her and we left.   Later, he mentioned to me that she was one of those people from the Civil War.  The name "Aunt Addie" was mentioned, I think.

Once I grew up, I began to ask around the family: who was this woman? No one seemed to know. There were some old aunts, cousins and uncles remembered from visits made in the 1920's--but no one knew much or cared. It was as if no one remembered anyone who wasn't alive at the moment?

Finally, during my research binge of 1999, I located her. She was a sister of my GGF's mother, Louisa. Her name was Adeline (called Addie, of course); she had another sister, Della. Part of a typical huge family of 12 or 13 children. Neither Addie or Della married, but helped take care of aged parents, socialized with friends and visited among relatives around the state. Not a bad life, probably. They were not grandly wealthy, but not poor either. They seem to have spent a lot of time together.

Now, with my cousin's photos, I believe we may have located the image of the two of them--the only photo with two young ladies together.  Of course, we don't know which one in the photo above was Addie. But I'm OK with that; this may be the best we can do. Addie and Della both lived well into their 90's, passing away by 1957.

Correction or addition, dated February 17, 2020: After a recent trip to Kentucky and some rummaging around on Ancestry.com: Della passed away in 1957; Adeline died in 1960. It is still a mystery: unless the Lady in the Nursing Home was different was the two I suspect, more likely my subject was Della. It doesn't matter, after all these years, I know this.

These two ladies came from a family of at least 13 children! Their older sister (my 2G-GM) had 13 children that lived to grow up (we have photos) and a couple who died as young children; over a span of years from 1860-1894.

It is time I move on... The Last Photo From Our Rome Adventure in May 2019

The scene, the graffiti, our kid--who was so generous with his time and expertise, to show us around the city.  We walked for miles and miles; that helped to define my understanding of the city's scene both modern and older.

For example, (I'm reading a biography of Gian Lorenzo Bernini) I learned that when Bernini discovered that his younger brother Luigi was having an affair with GL's mistress Costanza, he went nearly berserk, drew his sword and chased his brother---raging and thrashing with the sword---all the way from the Vatican to Santa Maria Maggiore!  Passersby, including the police, were brushed aside.   I picture a vision of Johnny Depp playing Capt. Jack Sparrow!

We walked the area and distance of that route, so my understanding was fresh and real.

We squeezed every drop of adventure from the 2 weeks our visit. Most precious, we spent more time with our younger son than since he was in high school. Even better.   If only our older son and his wife had been with us.

I'm still obsessed with all things Roman; I'm on my third or fourth history book related to the city. More about those as time proceeds.

I want to go back.