Dan Forman
02-09-2009, 1:31 AM
My family has recently put up a website based on the experience of my grandmother and her two children - my mother and uncle - who lived on a small farm in northern Minnesota (near Nevis and Park Rapids) for 2 years during the Great Depression. They corresponded almost daily with my grandfather, who stayed behind in Minneapolis, conducting and eventually driving streetcars, with the plan of moving up and making a go at farming. My grandmother had saved all of the letters, and made copies of them for my mom and uncle back in the late 70's.
My mother, who passed away a few years ago, had worked on putting together a narrative based on the letters, but was unable to find a publisher for it. In the past year or so, my sister decided to begin reworking it a bit, and came up with the idea of creating a website, where the narrative as well as the entire archive of letters could be made available to those who might find it interesting. It turned into a project that the whole family, spanning three generations, has been working on - my sister and I reworking the narrative; my dad (who is in his 80's) editing 740 pages of the typed letters (copies of the originals), which in the process of being transferred to digital accumulated many errors where the scanner misread the original manuscript; and my sisters son, who helped my dad with editing the letters. My sister in law did much of the web design, and my brother made the video of the Christmas Top, a link to which I posted here back in December.
We currently have about half of the content up on the site, hope to have the rest by the end of March. There is the narrative, the letters, photographs, some of Grandma's recipes, a bibliography of books that they read during that period, and more to come. Just last month, we came discovered some of the original letters, mostly in pencil, but some in pen and ink. They will be scanned and put up as well. Included is a prologue and forward, which will set the stage, so no need to say more here. I hope you find it an enjoyable visit to the past.
http://www.deardaddy.com/
The name from the website came from the greeting of the kids letters, which, without fail, started: "Dear Daddy, How are you, I am fine".
Here are a few teaser photo's from the site.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/p20_600.jpg
The cabin they lived in.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/p9_600.jpg
Uncle John Linsley, Ruth Linsley (my mother), and their friend Darrel, on their way to school.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/p37_600.jpg
My grandfather James Linsley in front of his streetcar in Minneapolis.
Dan
My mother, who passed away a few years ago, had worked on putting together a narrative based on the letters, but was unable to find a publisher for it. In the past year or so, my sister decided to begin reworking it a bit, and came up with the idea of creating a website, where the narrative as well as the entire archive of letters could be made available to those who might find it interesting. It turned into a project that the whole family, spanning three generations, has been working on - my sister and I reworking the narrative; my dad (who is in his 80's) editing 740 pages of the typed letters (copies of the originals), which in the process of being transferred to digital accumulated many errors where the scanner misread the original manuscript; and my sisters son, who helped my dad with editing the letters. My sister in law did much of the web design, and my brother made the video of the Christmas Top, a link to which I posted here back in December.
We currently have about half of the content up on the site, hope to have the rest by the end of March. There is the narrative, the letters, photographs, some of Grandma's recipes, a bibliography of books that they read during that period, and more to come. Just last month, we came discovered some of the original letters, mostly in pencil, but some in pen and ink. They will be scanned and put up as well. Included is a prologue and forward, which will set the stage, so no need to say more here. I hope you find it an enjoyable visit to the past.
http://www.deardaddy.com/
The name from the website came from the greeting of the kids letters, which, without fail, started: "Dear Daddy, How are you, I am fine".
Here are a few teaser photo's from the site.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/p20_600.jpg
The cabin they lived in.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/p9_600.jpg
Uncle John Linsley, Ruth Linsley (my mother), and their friend Darrel, on their way to school.
http://i98.photobucket.com/albums/l279/T-Caster/p37_600.jpg
My grandfather James Linsley in front of his streetcar in Minneapolis.
Dan