Inspiring Books
While doing research into various family members I found three books that inspired me. The first was Grace Hooper’s Pioneer Notes: By Trek and Sail to Grand Traverse Bay, by Beulah Hooper-King (Fen’s Rim Publications, Inc., 1993). It depicts life in northern Michigan’s lower peninsula and mentions several of my family members. 

The next book was Tales from the Great Lakes: Based on C.H.J. Snider’s “Schooner Days,” by Cindy Hollenberg Snider (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1995), which covers the early Schooner Days on the Great Lakes.

The final book was Booze, Boats, and Billions, by C.W. Hunt (McClelland and Stewart, 1989), which is about rum running during the prohibition era on the lakes. Several family members were mentioned in both of those books; they also gave me a lead on the book Whiskey and Ice: The Saga of Ben Kerr, Canada’s Most Daring Rumrunner, by C.W. Hunt (Toronto: Dundurn Press, 1995), which may contain additional family information.

Basil Moore

Reverend Not Necessarily Pastor
In many places there were “reverends” who were licensed or self-proclaimed, and although not pastors of a church, they administered weddings and funerals, besides preaching in many places. If you know the name of the person who performed a wedding or funeral, and he/she was not the pastor of the church, he/she might have been a member of the church. The courthouse or the funeral home might have information about the person.

Roy L. Howard
Retired United Methodist Minister
Chattanooga, Tennessee  

Sharing Family Photos
My mom passed away this March and we had to find photos for the CD that plays during the visitation, as well as for the photo boards. Everyone kept coming up and saying they would like copies of some of the photos. In addition to these photos, my stepfather gave me our mother’s photos. So, of course we wanted copies of those too.

That got us to thinking. We decided to scan all of them and put them on a CD. We made copies of the CD to distribute so everyone could make and pay for their own print copies, and they could have as many of them as they wanted.

It is fun to look at all the different pictures and to see how everyone has changed. My niece also gave me a great idea: in a few years during our summer family picnic we’re going to ask people to bring in any photos that have been taken since this year. We’ll create a second CD so everyone will get to see new babies and happenings in the family. We have a very large family and it is continuously growing. Everyone is so spread out we don’t all make it to gatherings, so this will help us keep in touch.

Cathy Fryman

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