TV Roundup: "Short" shows

1. The Good Place
2. Unbreakable Kimmy Schmidt
3. Brooklyn Nine-Nine
4. Derry Girls
5. Great News
6. Don't Trust the B---- in Apartment 23
7. Speechless
8. Shrill
9. Special
10. Grace and Frankie
11. Workin' Moms
12. Parks and Recreation
13. The Mindy Project
14. Feel Good
15. Chewing Gum
16. Lady Dynamite
17. New Girl
18. One Day At a Time (2017)
19. The Office
20. What We Do In the Shadows

A family history puzzle

 Except for the fact that kicks this off, all information is publicly available.

There are two people - Rheta Bailey and John Ramsay - that we suspect of having the same mother, but different fathers. I got a tip from another researcher that a child of John Ramsay (who I will denote LR) shows a potential 1C1R (first cousin once removed) to someone I will denote WS.  All we have is that person's name; they have not responded to contact through the genealogy website.

The first thing I do is search my DNA matches to see if the surname Sudds shows up in any family trees.  There are no hits, which supports the idea that the link is due to the father of John Ramsay, and not his mother.  I do the same thing for my aunt's matches; there are two, but one has a private tree that I can't check, and the other's Sudds connection died in 1714 in England, so is too far back to be the connection I'm looking for.

I turn to newspaper archives to look for the surname "Sudds" in Windsor, Ontario. I'm rewarded by 1,286 hits, so I filter down to just BMD (birth, marriage, death) for 49 hits.

That's quite a few to check, so I make a side trip to Find-a-Grave to search for Sudds buried in Essex; there are 10, a manageable number.  I use that list to search the newspaper archives.

• Charles d. 1948, no hits
• Dorothy d. 2011: bingo, she has a child listed of the same name, plus his wife's name and their two children.  I have a candidate for my WS already!  The obituary doesn't list her birthday or age, but I will probably find that later, which will give me an idea of when WS might have been born.  I've made the mistake before of assuming the first candidate I came up with was the person I wanted, so I continue on.
•  Elsie d. 1980, no hits
• George d. 1999; found his bio, and as a bonus we know he lived in Cottam (the tiny four-corners town my grandparents lived in).
• Howard d. 2006; found his bio, lists siblings and children.
• Margaret d. 2017; found her bio. At this point I'm seeing the same names over and over, which confirms these are all part of the same extended family.
• Margie d. 2018; found bio.
• Olive d. 2002; found bio.
• Oscar d. 1998; also lists a child WS, and I was expecting to see the name Dorothy as his wife, but instead it's Joyce; I check Dorothy's obit again and sure enough, she was "Dorothy Joyce".
• Thomas d. 1993; husband of Margie above.

At this point I only have one candidate for my WS, so I turn to Ancestry; not because I love it that much, but it's a useful sandbox where I can mess around, and lots of people have trees input there that can help me quickly find connections.  I enter WS and his parents Dorothy Joyce Offer (I can see her maiden name since her obit says "Loving sister of Douglas Offer") and Oscar William Sudds with their death years, since I have them handy.  I hit refresh and Ancestry is already offering me parents for Dorothy, so I accept them.

I go back to the newspaper archives and search for Oscar Sudds specifically to find out more about him. I look for all articles, not just obituaries now, and there only a manageable 17 hits.  I find the obit of Joyce's mother in 1992; obits for Thomas, Howard, Dorothy, and Oscar that I've already seen; a list of guests at a wedding in 1960 that includes Oscar and a lot of other people with the Sudds name; obits for Marguerite Greene, a sister of Oscar; a lovely picture of three of the Sudds children at the Leamington Fair in 1932 (which tells me Oscar was born roughly 1920); an article detailing the wedding of Oscar and Joyce in 1950; and an engagement announcement for one of this daughters in 1971.

Annoyingly, Oscar's obituary doesn't name his parents. It does list his siblings; Marguerite Greene, George, Howard, Donna Waggott, Sarah Preston, Thomas, Norris, and Beatrice Stevens.  None of the obituaries I can find name their parents, which is slightly odd... close siblings, but not a happy childhood?

I realize I've made an oversight and go back to Find-a-Grave.  The main page listing gives his dates as "unknown-1998", but when I go to the details and open the picture, the headstone clearly gives his birth date as December 14, 1925.  I'll be able to find the family in the 1931 census, which was what I was hoping.  I add that to Ancestry and search the 1931 records.  I can't find him, but this is enough for Ancestry to suggest parents for him; Charles "Wilfred" Sudds and Elsie Olena Jinkerson.  I search Wilfred in the 1931 census and it pops right up; I can also see why I couldn't find Oscar, because the writing is barely legible for his name and the transcriber wrote it as "Assor".

At this point I can look at the two trees side by side.  I have my WS, with their parents and grandparents. And I have my contact LR with their tree, and I know that these two people should be related at the 1C1R level.  However... 1C1R should be different generations, and both these people have parents born between 1920 and 1930. It's also possible that they are half first cousins, meaning that they share one (but not two) grandparents.  My next step, then, is to check if either grandparents of my WS had children with two people; which means checking records for two marriages, since these people were born between 1880 and 1900, and for that time and place, children were only produced from marriages.

Oscar's parents were Charles "Wilfred" and Elsie, and I find a marriage record for them in 1911 when he was 29 - which is already a clue he might have been married before.  I check the census records for 1921 for any additional children I don't have from 1931 (Beatrice born 1913), and in the 1911 census I surprisingly see Elsie Jinkerson, age 16, a servant in the Sudds household.  That's a bit... icky, since he was 29.  I look for a birth record for their daughter Beatrice, but can't find it.  I accept the birth date of July 17, 1912 that someone else has in their tree, but I can't help wondering if that's a convenient fiction based on the marriage dates of October 2, 1911 for Wilfred and Elsie.  I will have to search the birth records for any with Elsie as mother; fortunately her maiden surname of Jinkerson is unusual.

I search for any record with mother "Elsie Jinkerson" in a ten-year period centred over 1917. Two familiar names pop up immediately; Norris b. Apr 30, 1915 and Thos. Amberson b. Jan 20, 1914, and the rest are not what I'm looking for.  I try removing the first name and narrowing in on just births in Ontario, but I end up getting children born to sisters of hers, which is not helpful. Oddly, Ancestry throws in a record for an illegitimate birth of George Anger, born April 29, 1917 in York to unmarried mother Sarah Anger. This unusual last name of "Anger" has popped up somewhere recently, so I take note of it to look into later.  No father is listed on the record.

There should be a birth record for their fourth child, George, since he was born in 1917 and the records up to and including 1917 are available for searching; but I don't have any luck there.  That's not so important, but where is Beatrice's birth record?  I am about to give up when I think to search just the day of her birth without any names, and there it is: Beatrice May Sudds, and the problem was that the mother's surname is scrawled and looks more like "Jenkinson", which isn't a Soundex equivalent and wasn't served up in the searches.  There's still an open question what Wilfred was up to before his marriage to Elsie, but I'm not likely to find anything, so I put it aside for now.

I turn to the other grandparents.  I don't easily see their marriage record, but fortunately Dorothy Joyce was born in 1930, so I should find her in the 1931 census.  There she is, age 1, with an older brother who is 8 (no kids in between?) and her mother, but no father.  I find her parents in 1921, no children yet. Her father emigrated in 1913, so they must have married between 1913 and 1921.  I go back to her father and find his death of TB in 1940, which leads me to a 1931 census record for someone with the same name, also emigrated in 1913, a patient in the same hospital where he died.  Poor guy.  Under the War Graves Registers it says his death was related to his military service.

At this point I have all four grandparents, so I can start to work my way down looking for potential parents of our unknown WS!  The fact that I'm looking for 1C1R when it should be a little further removed is nagging at me a bit, but I start looking at descendants of the two sets of grandparents.

I'm looking for men who could have fathered a child in the Windsor area in 1921.  Wilfred and Elsie's first son was born in 1914, which means a) he was too young and b) I've miscalculated on my generations.  But it's all good in the end, because it fixes my 1/2 first cousin problem.  Now my theory is that WS is of the younger generation, and it's his father Oscar Sudds who is first cousin to John Ramsay.  This means I'm looking at an MRCA (most recent common ancestor) one generation further back.

Ancestry is happy to suggest the other three couples I need; William Jinkerson and Evalena Griffith, who I notice were from Wallaceburg, Ontario but died in Bay City, Michigan (a similar trajectory to John Ramsay's birth mother), Sydney Offer's parents who were born and died in England, so a lower priority (unless a brother emigrated too); and Alfred Setterington and Amanda Thorpe, who were both born and died in Kent and Essex county, so definitely in the mix.

I start on the Sudds grandparents.  William was born on Wolfe Island, which explains all the graves and newspaper hits in Frontenac.  I already have him in the 1911 census and I can see he died in 1912, so I work backwards through the 1901, 1891, etc. census until I find the first one where he and Sarah have children, which is 1871.  I almost accidentally collapse two daughters until I realize that both "Mary" (age 9) and "Mary Jane" (age 5) are listed in the 1871 census, so they aren't the same person. Mary seems to have gone by "Elizabeth" later in life, which makes sense since that must have been confusing.

In any case, they had only three boys.  The oldest, Thomas, died in 1899, so before he could have fathered the person I'm looking for - but he will come back into play if I need to go another level down.    The second, William John, died in 1924 in Kent, Ontario.  I can't easily find him in the 1921 census, so I look for his wife, but she died in 1914.  That seems young, so I check the death certificate... poisoning?? that's not something I see often.  I can't make out what the first word is. William's obituary doesn't mention her or their six children, which is slightly odd. I start looking for the children in 1921;

• I can't find Ella (b. 1900), but she ended up in Michigan, so perhaps was gone by 1921. Married a Foster, appears as "Helen" on later records. Died 1930 in Detroit.
• I can't find Mabel (b. 1901), but she married and had her first child around 1921. Married a Gyles, died 1971 in Essex County.  Her marriage record in 1920 says she lives in Windsor.  Mabel attempted to cross the border into Detroit on August 14, 1916. She is 15 years and 11 months old, born in Wallaceburg, a laborer by occupation. She has never been in the US before, has paid her own passage, shows $1 and is going to visit a friend, Miss Margaret Bishop, at 235 Bullet (maybe? hard to read) in Detroit. She is 5 foot and 2 inches tall, with a dark complexion, brown hair, and brown eyes. The back of the card says "Debarred.  Under 16, and LPC (No appeal)".
• I can't find Ruby May (b. 1903), but I notice in passing her marriage record has a different/wrong last name for her mother, which is something to follow up on. Married a Baldwin.
• I can't find Geneva (b. 1906). Married name Purser, died 2001 in Wallaceburg.
• I can't find Belvia (b. 1909).  I go back later and search for her, and find a Belva Sudds (mistranscribed "Sadde", which is why I didn't find it at first) living in Enniskillen, Lambton East, with Alice and George Houson (sp?) in 1921. She is a lodger and 13 years old.  Married McLean or MacLean.
• I can't find Wilfred (b. 1910). This is puzzling, but not wholly unusual after a mother died, for the family to be elsewhere and not easily found.  Died 1976 in Napanee.

I've probably spend enough time on this family group, but I hesitate to move on, for some reason.  I try searching each name in the newspaper archives, with no hits except for Belva Sudds; she is mentioned in two social articles in 1939 in the Windsor Star attending a birthday party and wedding shower.  Wilfred brings up the obituary for Mabel, who married Charles Gyles.  It mentions not only siblings but where they live, which was common at the time (1971), so that might be a good avenue to follow up.

I wander back to Ancestry and find Ella May Sudds mentioned in the World War 1 attestation papers for her father. As of 1916 she is living in Wallaceburg, Ontario. This reminded me of the obit for their father, which I looked up again; it's in Windsor in 1924, and mentions only his sister, "Mrs. Jerome Thompson".  He enlisted in 1917 when his son was only 7; did that cause a rift in the family? 

Moving on, I start on the descendants of William Jinkerson and Evalena Griffith. Their first census as a married couple was in Swan Creek, Saginaw, Michigan. They have three little girls at home, Elsie, Hazel, and Lillie. Oddly, they are also enumerated in the 1901 census of Canada in Chatham. Once again I have trouble with the 1910/1911 and 1920/1921 census records; I can't find them in either Windsor or Michigan.  Their children:

1. Elsie, already thoroughly discussed. Obit mentions siblings Oscar, Hazel Underwood, Lillian Bowden, Evelena Phillips.  Also mentions she has 32 grandchildren and 42 great-grandchildren!
2. Hazel, b. 1896. Married Norman McFarlane, is living in Wallaceburg in 1921. Married for a second time in 1931 in Lucas, Ohio; I have seen this before when couples wanted to get married in secret; sure enough, her first husband is still alive and living in Canada in 1931. Died 1981 in Bangor, Bay, Michigan.  Her obit mentions two sisters, Ena and Lillie, and a brother Oscar.
3. Lillian. Married Ray Gates in 1917, divorced 1930, married James Bowden in 1933.

Band Practice

Choral Style:

• The Erie Canal (SATB, unaccompanied.  Soprano line has splits and requires at least two people. Alto line has melody throughout and requires at least three people.  Someone needs to be able to whistle briefly.)
• L'il Liza Jane (SATB, unaccompanied.  No splits, can be done by a quartet.)
• "Sing We And Chant It.", 16th century madrigal (SSATB).
• "O occhi, manza mia", 16th century madrigal, in Italian.  'Oh eyes of my beloved'. (SSAA).
• "Can't Buy Me Love", Beatles, but in the style of the King's Singers.  (SSAA).
• "That Lonesome Road", James Taylor. (SSAA. Two middle lines have splits, so requires eight people.).

Modern A Capella Style:

• "Something", Beatles (SSSAAA).
• "Landslide", Fleetwood Mac. (SSSAAA).
• "Breakfast at Tiffany's", Deep Blue Something. (Solo line with SSAA accompaniment.)
• "Seaside Rendezvous", Queen.  (SSAAA with splits. Melody mostly in middle line).
• "Take a Bow", Rihanna. (SSAA with splits. Melody mostly in top line.)
• "Dancing Queen", ABBA. (SSAA).
• "Fix You", Coldplay.  (SSAA with splits).
• "I Got Rhythm", Gershwin, in the style of the Swingle Singers (SSAA).
• "Mon coeur se recommende a vous", 16th century madrigal, in French. (SSSAAA).
• "Sing Me To Heaven", (SSAA).
  
• "Heart of Glass", Blondie.  (Solo line with SSAA accompaniment).
• "If", Beatles. (SSA).
• "Somewhere Over the Rainbow". (SSSAAA).
• "True Colors". (Solo line with SSAA accompaniment. Top line splits.)
• "Don't Get Around Much Anymore". (SSAA)
• "Blue Skies".  (SSAA. Top line splits.).

Wildflowers - The Wailin' Jennys

 Here are a couple of links to versions of the song.  They play it in the key of B (five sharps).

• original album version: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_87VZAXZAug 
• live version where you can see who does what, when:  https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7XhVILjWkNg 

Music, written out in PDF form.

• Chord chart and lyrics for the ukulele players, but changed to be in the key of C:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1dEd-Xsfh_0UHJ9G7BTSjO77F8KjvvlPd/view?usp=sharing 
• The three vocal lines, also in the key of C:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1akGITCT6bXNReq5Hpb4mWL4QSOAqESy6/view?usp=sharing
• A mashup of the banjo and violin parts, in the original key for playing along with the recording: https://drive.google.com/file/d/1g26f-pj8XxBR9s5A55p_OiRYAetdqtOv/view?usp=sharing
• The same mashup, transposed to be in C:  https://drive.google.com/file/d/1T3VplS5f8BYA3JwgWt3jNoQ4fJYYYGHM/view?usp=sharing

Marion Almassizadeh

 

They might be a slightly silly crew who don't see the point in being serious for the camera (or even looking at it), but Marion Almassizadeh is very proud of her seven adopted teenagers.  Through good investing she will even be able to start them out well in life, helping some of them to start businesses and getting others launched in their chosen careers.  The second-youngest, Bayleigh, has agreed to continue running the foster home as a condition of inheriting the tall house.

This is one of the first user-created homes I remember playing, created by someone with the username "plasticbox".  It's three stories with a lavishly-furnished apartment on the first floor, which I kept solely for Marion.  The upper two stories had four small bedrooms of varying sizes, suitable for single beds or a crib, a little office area with a computer and a third-floor sitting room with a TV.  Combined with Marion's want to have ten children, having her adopt children who were left alone in the early stages of the challenge seemed like a natural choice.  The oldest, Hollis, has just turned into an adult and will move out the next Monday at 9am.  There's a gap of a few days, but there will be a string of five birthdays in a row.  Perhaps I'll have some of them move out en masse into a 'new adult' home where they can continue to have fun together while they find mates and jobs!

Cindy and Uriah Newson

 

Cindy scolds the cat.  "Do I not have enough to deal with, without you destroying the furniture?".  Her partner Uriah is off at the new house with most of the older kids, fixing it up for the family.  This one-bedroom house has held the family for a long time, but with a teenager, five school-age kids, and a toddler (Clarance is asleep in the crib), it's bursting at the seams.  In fact, it has been in the family since Uriah's grandmother Una Underhill moved to town.  One of their ten children will inherit it and continue the tradition.

Apocalypse Challenge G: end of week 20

 

Wayland brushes her teeth three times after getting home from school, like the good girl she is.

Children getting minimal hygiene from the "wash hands" interaction mean that the children in my Apocalypse Challenge end up brushing their teeth about eight times a day.  In my head it's like this obscure religious imperative that has popped up after the Apocalypse.

Wayland aged up to a teen later the same day.  Her mother Garland is an elder now, but her father and uncle Christopher are still adults with some days to go.

I have Wayland and her eventual spouse earmarked for the Medical and Military careers.

Apocalypse Challenge G: end of week 18

 

Garland has had a busy couple of days; she gave birth to her daughter Wayland, and was promoted to Theorist. Her younger half-brother Christopher is an adult now, and will be caretaker to his little niece so that Garland can shoot for that final promotion to the top of the Science career.

Oddly, the thing that held up the next generation the most was the lack of a mate for Garland.  I didn't have many walkbys, and even when I did, there wasn't enough time in an evening for Garland to get to know them well enough to stay overnight or move in.  Finally Waylon Menon walked by, who she had known previously, and I quickly grabbed the opportunity to move him in. He's already in the Culinary career, so I'll have him lift that restriction.  If Wayland or her spouse can get into the Medical career, that will be good; and perhaps the other can do Military. Christy died before getting to the top of the career, and the restrictions about leaving the lot really hurt Garland.  I also have a cat ghost causing trouble, and unfortunately I didn't notice Christy getting old and her headstone is right outside the house, so I anticipate her causing trouble soon too!  But without the ability to go to college I can't lift the Paranormal restrictions and move their headstones.

Apocalypse Challenge G: end of week 16

 

Garland goes off to work while her little half-brother Christopher heads to the school bus.  Not sure why she looks unhappy here - her mood was good and I'm hoping she'll do well in her new Science career.

I've tried the Apocalypse challenge before, but this is the first time I've had any success with an adult that didn't start in college.  Garland's father Gary got to the top of the Politics career as an elder, managed to quickly meet, marry and move in Christy Stratton, and their daughter Garland was born the same day Gary died.  Fortunately Gary had socked away about 60,000 simoleons in savings, so Christy could stay home with Garland until she was a teenager.  

Christy is an elder now and has a decent shot at getting to the top of the Military career before she dies.

Important things I learned that have helped a lot in this go-round:

• Children don't get any significant hygiene benefit from washing their hands, but if I get one of the medicine cabinets and have them "brush teeth", they get by well enough.
• One of my attempts ended up with twin brothers who made it adulthood, but their mother's ghost keeps frightening them to death... I've killed the poor brothers a dozen times or more!  With Gary I made sure he was on the furthest corner of the lot when the Grim Reaper came, and he died happy, so that seems to have kept the terrible haunting at bay.

Three-Part Harmonies

• Alabama Song - Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
• Allons gai - Jacob Buus, first published 1543 
• American Tune - Paul Simon
• Barrett's Privateers - Stan Rogers
• Big Bang - Bare Naked Ladies
• Black Pearls and Diamonds - Trevor Mills
• Canon of the Bells (a three-part canon on the melody of the Carol of the Bells)
• The Carols of Gilligan's Isle - lyrics by G. Wyle and S. Schwartz, set to the tune of five different Christmas carols
• Claire - Rheostatics
• Come Again - John Dowland, first published 1597
• Come Together - Beatles
• Down to the River to Pray - inspired by the Alison Krauss version 
• End of Days - original
• Femmes Fatales - poetry by Nik Beat (?)
• Fever - written by Eddie Cooley and Otis Blackwell, popularized by Peggy Lee
• Free As a Bird - Beatles
• Fruitcake (parody to the tune of "Fever")
• Gaudete - traditional
• Gilligan's Corollary - music by G. Wyle and S. Schwartz, words traditional
• Guinea Pig - Moxy Fruvous
• Horrible Rock Ballad - original
• I Believe in Father Christmas - Sinfield, Lake
• Kiss - Prince, but based on the Tom Jones cover
• La, la, la, je ne l'ose dire - Pierre Certon c.1510-1572
• La bête et la belle - The Real Tuesday Weld
• The Lady is a Tramp - Rodgers and Hart
• A Leonard Cohen Christmas - original/parody
• The Man I Love - George and Ira Gershwin
• Moritat von Mackie Messer (Mack the Knife) - Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
• My Funny Valentine - Rodgers and Hart
• My Mannequin Makes Modern Music - poetry of Nik Beat set to music
• O occhi, manza mia - Orlando di Lasso, first published 1581
• Paperback Writer - Beatles
• Popsicle Toes - Michael Franks
• Reason for the Season - original
• Roadrunner Theme Song
• Still Alive - Jonathan Coulton
• Surabaya Johnny - Bertolt Brecht and Kurt Weill
• Throw a Shoe at Me - original 
• Touch Me - original
• Un Jambon, Jeanette, Isabelle - parody
• Wuthering Heights - Kate Bush
• You Sexy Thing - Errol Brown, Tony Wilson
• You're a Mean One, Mr. Grinch - Theodore Giesel and Albert Hague
• Your Body is a Wonderland - John Mayer
• Your Shining Eyes - Thomas Bateson, first published 1604

Ukulele Group Songs

Link to Spotify playlist

Link to Youtube Music playlist

The list below are the songs that happen to be in my binder after eight months of attending our group.  If the name of a song in the list looks like a link, then it is... most of them will take you directly to the PDF on the Bytown Ukulele Group webpage, where you can print your own copy. Links in brackets after the artist name are an experiment.

The 15 songs marked with * at the end are the ones that, in my unscientific opinion, are the ones that we 1) play the most and 2) are easiest for a beginning player.

Hole punching advice:  If a song is two pages, print it single-sided, then hole punch it so that it will lie open in your binder - that is, on the RIGHT side of the first page and the LEFT side of the second page.

• 1234 - Feist
• After the Gold Rush - Neil Young
• Anyone Else But You - The Moldy Peaches
• Auld Lang Syne - traditional Scottish
• The Big Rock Candy Mountains - Harry McClintock *
• Big Yellow Taxi - Joni Mitchell (warning - NOT the key we play it in!)
• Blue Moon of Kentucky - Patsy Cline (UG)
• (suggested by Linda) Breathless - William Prince
• Christmas in Prison - John Prine
• Christmas Must Be Tonight - The Band
• The Circle Game - Joni Mitchell (key of C)
• Closing Time - Semisonic
• Cotton Jenny - Gordon Lightfoot (UG)
• (suggested by Meg) Dear Abby - John Prine
• Don't Think Twice - Bob Dylan
• Early Morning Rain - Gordon Lightfoot
• Escarpment Blues - Sarah Harmer
• Everything is Free - Gillian Welch (link to illegal copy) *
• Fairytale of New York - The Pogues (link to Bytown, but I've been working on a version more like the Vance Joy interpretation than the original)
• Five Hundred Miles - Hedy West, as popularized by Peter, Paul and Mary
• Four Strong Winds - Ian Tyson
• The Fox - Traditional
• Friend of the Devil - Grateful Dead (UG) (link to bad photocopy) (link to clean copy in BUG style) *
• Hallelujah - Leonard Cohen
• Hard Times - Gillian Welch (UG) *
• Harvest Moon - Neil Young
• Heart of Gold - Neil Young
• Helpless - Neil Young 
• Here Comes the Sun - George Harrison
• He's Fine - The Secret Sisters
• Hotel Yorba - The White Stripes (UG)
• I'll Fly Away - apparently Alfred Brumley, but we're all thinking Alison Krauss *
• In Spite of Ourselves - John Prine and Iris Dement *
• Jolene - Dolly Parton
• (suggested by Kirsten) Kwe (Changing Into Thunderbird) - Ansley Simpson
• Leaving on a Jet Plane - John Denver
• Let the Mystery Be - Iris DeMent *
• Little Again - The Secret Sisters
• Make Me A Pallet - Gillian Welch
• Me and Julio Down By the Schoolyard - Paul Simon
• Must be Santa - Originally Mitch Miller, but we all love Raffi!
• (suggested by Kirsten) A New Name for Everything - The Weakerthans
• Ooh La La - Faces
• Orphan Girl - Gillian Welch *
• Ring of Fire - Johnny Cash (actually written by June Carter and Merle Kilgore)
• Riptide - Vance Joy *
• Shotgun Song - Gillian Welch
• Sisters of Mercy - Leonard Cohen
• Somewhere Over the Rainbow / What a Wonderful World - Israel Kamakawiwo'ole
• Song for a Winter's Night - Gordon Lightfoot
• Song for the Mira - Allister MacGillivray
• Spanish Pipedream - John Prine
• Superman's Song - Crash Test Dummies
• (The) Swimming Song - Loudon Wainwright
• Take Me Home Country Roads - John Denver *
• Teach Your Children - Graham Nash
• Three Little Birds - Bob Marley *
• Wagon Wheel - Old Crow Medicine Show *
• Wayfaring Stranger - Johnny Cash *
• (suggested by Kirsten) We Could Fly - Rhiannon Giddens
• We're going to be Friends - White Stripes
• Wheat Kings - the Tragically Hip
• Wildflowers - Dolly Parton *
• Wildflowers - Tom Petty / Wailin' Jennys  * 
• Wildwood Flower - June Carter Cash
• Winter's Come and Gone - Gillian Welch (UG)
• You Are My Sunshine - Traditional

 

Some news articles just grab my imagination immediately when I see them. This was from the News Herald in Perkasie, Pennsylvania, on June 15, 1994. If I was a writer, this would be the basis for my next novel.

With subscriptions to a couple of sites I use for genealogy research, I was able to find lots of information on the family.

Thanks to the USA's penchant for making records public, I can see Zarouhi's petition for naturalization online. When she petitioned, her residence was 2020 Blavis Street, Philadephia. This address no longer exists, but in the previous block there are stretches of two-storey brick townhouses that were probably quite pretty when they were new.

The petition even gives me her description; she is 5 foot 4 inches tall, 120 pounds, with a medium complexion, brown eyes, and gray hair. 

She married her husband, whose name is given as Onnig, on Feb 2, 1925 in Havana, Cuba. Onnig/John was born at Pazar Keuz, Turkey on March 15, 1882 and entered the US at New York on August 1, 1912. He was naturalized in 1921.

The three sons mentioned in the obituary are also listed on the petition. Minas and Neishan (Frank) were born in Philadephia, and Simon in Hatfield.

Zahouri petitioned earlier for naturalization, in 1927, but was denied because she could not speak English at the time.

The Wolfsonian Library even gives me a picture of the S. S. Cuba, the ship that Zahouri traveled on. And the ship's manifest lists all the "aliens", so of course I read all those names, and just above Zarouhi are a couple of Canadians, Arthur and Pauline Hill... and don't they turn out to be buried just across town from where I sit writing this. I like to imagine that some sort of friendly interactions happened between the women, so different in age, origin, and situation in life (Arthur was a major in the 

Henry Hagans

 Henry Hagans looks on with justified pride at three of his children, eldest son Galen and twins Gauthier and Henrietta, as he leaves for work on his last day as police chief.  All three have jobs and are assiduously keeping up with their homework.  By the end of the day he will have been promoted to Captain Hero, and will pass peacefully away, content in the knowledge that his children are taken care of in areas large (10000 Simoleons each from his life insurance) and small (the fridge well-stocked with Grandma's Comfort Soup).

When the first child reaches adulthood, I roll to see which one will inherit the house or apartment.  With this round, I'm instituting a new rule, where I roll the number of children + 1.  If I roll the last number, all the children move out, and the parents move to the old folk's home in the last day or two of death.  I changed my scheme because I realized the only time people moved to the old folk's home was when they had no children, but that's a very uncommon roll in the way I'm playing the challenge.

Tia and Tiffany Do

Twins Tia and Tiffany Do have just grown to adulthood, and are looking for their own place to live.  They'll leave their elder sister Tiana to take care of their aging parents and inherit the house.

 

Oops

 It seems I may have pressed the Sims 2 right up to the edge of what it can handle.  Normally when you start playing a new household, a few townies show up to say hi.  (It's a nice game mechanism that lets your Sim make a few friends right away).  However, when I added this most recently family, the game spawned five identical townies, all named Magnus Ryan. 

Sims2: End of Round Stats

 It has been about 8.5 months since I last finished a round; schoolwork has definitely cut into my playing time!  

• 178 households (148 still in play)
• 614 individual Sims
• 14122 effective Sims with my current multiplier of 23

This brings me to 28% of the way towards the 50000 population that ends the challenge, and more than half-way to earning a downtown.  I would be getting there faster, except that I barely put any community lots into play this past round.  I need to have some wealthier families have teens age up and move out with enough cash to buy a business!

I got to create 6 new Sims at this end of round.  I had a single Sim; I called him Ceaborn Cadwalader after two names I found in my family tree.  (Unfortunately they didn't occur in the same person - that would have been just too amazing.)  The next was a family of four, the elder Barbe Baillerjeon with her daughter Brenetta, and Brenetta's two children Bildad (a teen) and Baltser (a child).  The last Sim is an individual, Annatje Abelsen.  I've been rolling randomly for the amount of money they start with for a while (hm... maybe I should bump that up next round), but lately I also roll to find out their living situation (rent or own) and what neighbourhood and house or apartment to put them in.  So that keeps things more interesting.  I'm almost out of houses that I haven't played before, and I only have three that cost under 20000 Simoleons, so I'll have to expand into a new neighbourhood soon.

There are 62 houses in the amazing series of 1920s homes created by CatherineTJCD on the ModtheSims site, and I'm itching to get into playing them. 

The McAuley Boys

 Achilles, Adonis, and Adriel come home from the first day of school in their new house in Bluewater Village to find a note from their elder brother Abdullah saying he has moved in with someone they barely know back in their hometown of Strangetown.  The three teens take it in stride and start thinking about part-time jobs after school and how to afford some more furniture beyond the basics they brought with them.  Some kindly neighbours have already dropped off a gift and are waiting to say hello.  They haven't met Marion A. yet, but she is a nice old woman who lives nearby with her house full of seven foster children.  She keeps a sharp eye out for any kids like these who might need an adult's guidance.

None of them have any particular job in mind they'd like to have.  Their dreams revolve more around girls, dates, and marriage and children as soon as they're old enough.  They come up with the bright idea of writing and painting to try and sell their works; Adonis wants to write, Adriel wants to paint, and Achilles offers to set up the living room as an art gallery once they've got some works to display.  (Teens can't write, but Adonis will also paint to get creativity points until he's old enough.)

 

 

It's 3am on the day they moved in, and after a busy day the boys sit down with soup that Adonis made.  Adriel begged for a puppy, and since Achilles secretly wanted one too, he gave in, along with the chess table and bubble blower.  He figures if the people who stop by the art gallery have something to do, they won't mind if the art isn't yet top-notch. 

A trip to IKEA nets the boys some reasonably-priced furniture; a MALM bedframe, a HEMNES mirror, and an EKTORP easy chair.

The roll of the dice make strange things happen in the game that I would never voluntarily do, like wrenching these kids away from their family and moving them alone to a new town.  Fortunately Sims are pretty resilient and barely seem to notice.  

Sims will often roll to 'obtain a pet', or to get a puppy or kitten specifically.  It's a good way to get them some happy points.  Using a phone, you can have your Sim choose from a dozen or so options; either puppies/kittens or full-grown big or small dogs or cats; with different personalities, looks, and costs.  Once the pet has been delivered you also get to satisfy more wants; Adriel has already wanted to buy a pet food bowl, for instance.  

Rolling for careers;

3 - art gallery

1 - 3 other - write

1 - 3 other - paint

"What We Do In the Shadows"

 Watched two episodes.

"Feel Good"

 "Feel Good" stars comedian Mae Martin in a fictionalized autobiographical story.  Season 1 is just six episodes of about 25 minutes each, so it's a nice small chunk of media to consume.  

I'm a big fan of Mae Martin, so this was must-watch for me.

Kirkwood Kemp

 Kirkwood Kemp is the only boy in a family of women, and he is not used to being told 'no'.  He has already stayed up all night, arguing that it's Saturday and his homework is done, but he's pushing his luck now about something.  These are his aunts, Kunigunda and Ketura, and his mother Keziah is in the bath.  They have a fourth sister, Kerenhappuch, and the mother of all four is Kissiah, who also lives in the extended family home.  Kirkwood also has a sister, Kansas, so it's a busy household.  The Kemp sisters are hoping to be potters, digging clay out of their extensive backyard.  They have been practicing and hope to start selling their wares, as well as planting a garden, as soon as spring comes.

I love that my random generation created this family with a mother, her four daughters, and one daughter's two children.  All the unusual names come from my extensive family tree database, and none appear as top-1000 names in the Baby Name Voyager.