Precious Moments

Princess Ava Marie

Manayunk Brewery

What a beautiful afternoon to have lunch on the deck.
While overlooking the water and watching the ducks.
Sometimes a boy just needs a little time to think.
Just being together.The frustration of having to wait too long for one's chicken tenders.

Update

The family history book is right on schedule. It is nearly two hundred pages long and I am in the process of arranging the final layout while adding stories to some family members. So far I have added stories written by Terry Wittman, Eileen Dougherty Russo, Janet Savino, Helen Malervy, Jack Gallagher, Mary Gallagher Maier, Christine Kelly and of course myself. All stories and/or photographs are cited as to give the proper credit to the proper person. If anyone else has a photo and/or story you want to add, please send to me "via" personal email.

I made the decision to delete "Census Records" in the book because the preview does not allow the reader to view all the details due to lack of print size. Why waste previous space on documents that do not print well when I can use those same pages for photographs and/or other records. The military and ship passenger records print pretty well so the reader may actually be able to view the detailed information in those records. I will add a "post note" at the end of the book for those who wish to have copies of the actual Census records, they can email me and I will send them a copy. I have Census Records dating back to 1850 on the statistics of many of our family members.

The Book will be titled "A Journey Into The Past" and will include information on the following families; Beatty, Bednarski, Boland, Cafferty, Cannon, Dabkowski, Dolhanceyk, Dombrowka, Dougherty, Forte, Gallagher, Keller, Maier, Malervy, McCaffery, McCarrick-Doherty, Mervine, Nicholson, Pester, Ritter, Schroeder, Silverthorn, Valentino, Voigt, Walsh, Weleski/Wislocki/Wisloski and Zysk.

Other names are mentioned throughout the book. However, there is probably no detailed ancestral information on those "other" names. Many names are mentioned because of whom a person married. The list is too long to go into it on this website.
Remember, this is 18 years of research.

Happy Birthday Sophia

Happy Birthday Dad

Barnegat LightHouse

Long Beach Island

Friday Afternoon At Mom Mom's House

These two had a ball together.
I think Nikolas enjoyed Ava as much as Ava enjoyed Nikolas.
It was fun to watch the two cousins together. Yes. Ava is now walking.
Even though Ava was not sure if she liked that taste of Nikolas's lime Popsicle.

Happy 30th Birthday Shaun

I am still trying to figure out how I have a 30 year old son. While I am pondering this question, I want to say he is my pride & joy and I love him dearly, completely, unconditionally and without reservation.

What Mom Mom & Ava Do When Daddy's At Work And Mommy's At School

Grandpop In 1976

A Great Prize

Bill came across an old book written in 1918 called "The History of the Church of St John the Baptist" located in Manayunk known as the Grand Souveuir 41,ooo dollar campaign.

According to the book, in 1918 the church was in debt, and they organized a fundraiser with the expectation of collecting 30,000 dollars, half of the total debt the church owed its creditors. In the end, the parishers gave Father Murphy 41,000 dollars to help cover the costs incurred in building a new church, church hall and school between 1894 & 1906.

What was interesting about this particular fundraiser was the amounts of money those who belonged to the church gave. Yes, there was a list of who gave & how much. Yes again, if you wondered if any of our relatives were on that list in this book dated 1918.

Grace Silverthorn & Sally Keller gave a total of 50.00 dollars. Address of residence listed in the book was 3886 Terrace Street, which was the home of James & Grace Gallagher Silverthorn. John & Sally Gallagher Keller lived with Grace & James at the time. Daniel & Katherine Boland Malervy gave 5.00 dollars and they resided at 17 Osborne Street at the time. George & Mary Gallagher Cannon gave 10.00 dollars and resided at 137 Kalos Street at the time. William & Mary Keller gave 10.00 dollars and resided at 143 Seville Street at the time.

To donate 50, 10 or even 5 dollars to the church in 1918 was a lot of money for a Manayunk factory and/or Iron worker. Again, it says a lot about our ancestors' character and their devotion to church and community. The above residences were not houses our ancestors' own but houses they rented. It would be several more years, before they own their homes.

Bill discovered this little treasure in an used book store near a train station located in Mt. Airy. I guess you never know what you can come across at any given time. My husband, the flea market/yard sale/used book store junky.

Another First For Ava Marie

Today, we took advantage of the beautiful weather and introduced our granddaughter to Valley Green.
Ava has a fascination with "ducks" and so we decided to allow her to experience "real ducks" in the wild or in our neighborhood park.
I know I have said this before on previous posts.

But, this is the same park, my own grandfather took me to on numerous occasions to fish when I was a little girl.
To take my own grandchildren to this place gives me the opportunity to experience it once again through their eyes.


Now, I have the opportunity to experience it yet again through another set of eyes and that is of my granddaughter, little Ava.

The excitement and joy of watching this little girl experience this beautiful place of peace & tranquility was simply amazing.

This is just the first of many visits we intend to make to this wonderful place.
Guess who we ran into while walking in the Wissahickon park?
Puddles a.k.a Puggles with her new owner. We were so happy to see her.