Friday, December 3, 2010

Wednesday's Child - Susie Quirk

Susan "Susie" Quirk was the 2nd child of William and Mary Quirk nee Lee of Jeanesville/Hazleton area of Pennsylvania.  She passed away on August 13, 1889 at the age of 15 years and 8 months.  I actually found out something rather interesting when preparing this blog.  I have a baptismal certificate from the church for Susie giving her a date of birth of September 22, 1870.  See the problem?  If this was the same Susie she would have been 18 years 11 months if she died on August 13, 1889.

My guess is that there was another Susie.  I had previously requested baptismal records for all of William and Mary's children and what I got was rather surprising.  I received 3 baptismal records for a William Quirk born to these two people.  My guess is that, sadly, all of their William's died as children (except the last one, of course).  I guess William felt it was important to have a child named after him.  Perhaps he was a first born and was passing on his father's name as well.   

What I do know is that Mary's mother's name was Susan.  Perhaps the Susan that was born in 1870 died and Mary really wanted to name a daughter after her mother.  Don't know, but I'll be writing to the church and asking if they can double-check the records!  It's always fun to make these discoveries!

Anyway, I was given an album with some beautiful card photographs (and a few tin-types).  In there I noticed 4 pictures of a young girl.  The pictures were all on the same page and one page away from a funeral card of Susie Quirk.  I don't know who anyone in this album is for sure.  I only know that it's from my Quirk ancestors due to the dozen or so newspaper clippings referring to marriages and deaths of various Quirks.  I like to think these 4 pictures are Susie, but I'll most likely never know.

 

Advent Calendar of Christmas Memories - Christmas Cards

Did your family send cards? Did your family display the ones they received? Do you still send Christmas cards? Do you have any cards from your ancestors?

We never sent Christmas cards when I was a kid...or if we did, I knew nothing about it.  Money was almost always tight and I'm fairly certain that every bit that we had was used to make Christmas as special as possible for us kids.  We did receive some Christmas cards though. 

In my post on Holiday Foods I had a picture of our (fake) fireplace with cards taped to the mantle.  I remember hanging cards near the entryway that lead to our living room.  We'd wrap tinsel around the square pillars on either side and tape the cards along the tinsel.

Do I send Christmas cards?  I mean to every year.  I've got a ton of cards packed away with the Christmas decorations from previous years.  Each year I've wanted to send them out and never got around to it.  I love receiving them from friends and family and always want to do the same, but I'm so bad at it.  It's not happening again this year...most likely.  We can hope for a Christmas miracle! :)