Treasure Chest Thursday - DoDo's Trunk

Our great-grandfather came over from Croatia in the early 1900's. He always claimed that he swam over to the United States, but if he did, the trunk above came separately.

We recently asked my grandmother if we could see any old papers she might have. Her response was "Papers? I don't have any old papers." She then remembered DoDo's old trunk. We pulled it out of the garage and opened it up.



Every drawer was filled with old papers. There were letters (in both English and Croatian) dating back to the 1930's. Lots of exciting pieces of family history to look through and learn from. The youngest generation had to get in on the fun too.

Wordless Wednesday - Whiting, IN ~1937

Tombstone Tuesday: Henry A. Grubb

Henry A. Grubb is our great-great-grandfather. He's buried in Coddingville Cemetery, Medina County, Ohio with his wife - Harriet Randall. We visited his grave this fall with our father and brother (pictured below). The cemetery is located on a small country road and we almost missed it. It was cold and rainy that day - but we were glad we took the time to find it. Harriet's death date is missing from the stone and we plan to see if we can have that updated.

One of Henry's sons was David Austin Grubb. Pictured below are David Austin Grubb, III and David Austin Grubb, IV. The name David Austin appears to come from Harriet's uncle (David Austin Randall) who married Henry and Harriet in 1864.

New Years Traditions

For 2011, Style My Tree will participate in the weekly series, 52 Weeks of Personal Genealogy & History. It’s a joint effort between GeneaBloggers and Amy Coffin at the We Tree blog. Each week a new topic is introduced as a prompt for blogging about our own past and family history.

Week One: Did your family have any New Year’s traditions? How was the New Year celebrated during your childhood? Have you kept these traditions in the present day?

Being 3 sisters, and close in age, we share many of the same childhood memories surrounding New Year's Eve and Day. Our parents didn't go out much when we were kids but special occasions, such as New Year's Eve, were often one of the rare occasions that they did. For us, as kids, that meant a fun night with our cousins and our only real babysitters, our maternal grandparents. From a young age, we all knew that the life of any party was my grandfather. He was the source of most things fun - loud party favors, balloons, pop and the kinds of treats that we were not normally allowed to have (Hostess pies, candy bars, and ice cream floats). We played games (Charades was a favorite), watched TV, and generally got loud and crazy! My grandmother was there to keep things somewhat under control but when you have seven to eight kids 12 and under hyped up on sugar and able to stay up way past their normal bedtime, that's not an easy (or realistic) task!

Our grandparents, now in their 80s, continue to host New Year's Eve for any family who show up at their house. I believe that the party is considerably tamer these days though. This year our younger set of cousins (ones who missed out on the NYE parties mentioned earlier) spent the evening with my grandparents making homemade pizzas and playing cards.

No matter how the party changes over the years, we always appreciate New Year's Eve with family!

Wordless Wednesday

Who doesn't love a good yearbook photo?

Recently Ancestry.com provided our family with yet more interesting family history information. Through their site you can now search many US Yearbooks and by doing so we came across our paternal grandfather's High School yearbook photo, circa 1929. He's at the bottom - D. Austin Grubb.
Our father had apparently never seen this particular yearbook or photo and commented with the following "Interesting. Must be from West High School in Akron. I think he only spent his last year there. Before then he went to Western Reserve Academy in Hudson. But then his father died and the money dried up. I didn't know that he was "Bud" that early in his life."
The part that we found amusing was once again the strong similarities in the Grubb men through the generations. Beyond the physical resemblance which is again very apparent, there are definitely some personality traits that shine through even in the little comments next to his photo, i.e. "Hobby: Finding a suitable hobby." Apparently being a bit of a smart ass runs in the family because if we didn't know better we could attribute that quote to either of the two David Austins who came after him!

Finding Croatian Family

My daughters asked me to do a "guest blog" for this week about my adventures in Croatia last year. A couple of years ago my sweet husband thought we should take a trip to Croatia and look for my relatives. My paternal grandparents were both born in Lika, Croatia in the 1890's and immigrated (not together) to the United States when they were in their late teens. Both settled separately in Whiting, Indiana with other Croation immigrants, and subsequently met and married in 1924. After my grandmother died in 1963, we lost touch with her family in Croatia.

Anna and Jack Manovich (my paternal grandparents)

Last October we headed off to the Lika region with just an old address of my grandmother's sister. Within one day, with the help of our bed and breakfast host, Vlado, we found my second cousin--her grandmother and my grandmother were sisters. She was so excited about meeting us, that the very next day she and her son-in-law drove 2 hours to Gospic and brought pictures that my grandmother had sent over the years to her sister. The pictures were of my dad when he was little and my dad and mom's wedding. There was even a picture of me when I was about 7 years old!!


We were able to spend three days with my cousin and her family and became part of the family. It was like we had always known each other, while we were talking and talking about our families and our lives in different countries. I plan on visiting again next summer and am hoping that some of our Croation family will make the trip to Ohio some day.


Looking for your family can have wonderful and exciting benefits, as well as making new friends.