Wordless Wednesday - Watermelon Fun

White and Lam family enjoying watermelon in Missouri.

Tuesday's Tune - "I Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations

Tuesday's Tune is a new blog prompt I created to talk about my ancestry playlist. Music has always played an important role in my life and there are countless songs that remind me of my family. I often wonder if those that are gone loved the same music I love today. This prompt will give me an opportunity to share my playlist.

Today's song is "I Can't Get Next to You" by the Temptations. This song, and any other Motown hit, always makes me think of my father, Warren Kuhn. Dad was raised in Kansas City, Missouri on the south side and he attended Paseo High School. At the time, both Dad's neighborhood and the high school had a large black population. Dad has always said he learned his love for Motown music from his neighbors and fellow students.

Paseo High School, Kansas City, Missouri. The school was built in 1926 and demolished in 1990 to make way for a fine arts magnet school.

As I was growing up we used to listen to a lot of records, with Motown music played more than most. The Four Tops, Marvin Gaye, and especially the Temptations would fill our house with music. My favorite Temptations song is "I Can't Get Next to You." The song was a number-one hit for the Temptations in October 1969.

Italian naming patterns

I recently checked out The Family Tree Guide Book to Europe, by Erin Nevius and the editors of the Family Tree Magazine, from my local library. The book looks at 14 different countries across Europe and gives tips and ideas for researching your ancestors from those countries.

One thing that grabbed my attention is the naming patterns followed by southern Italian families. The pattern is one that I believe my husband's ancestors followed and I am hoping to follow the pattern to further trace back the maternal lines. Here is how it goes:

- First son named after father's father
- Second son named after mother's father
- Third son named after the father
- First daughter named after father's mother
- Second daughter named after mother's mother
- Third daughter named after mother

Names were also used again if a child were to die in order to maintain the naming pattern. In the case of the Pagano family the family names are as follows:

Salvatore and Mary Pagano deviated from the convention with their third son, named Guiseppe rather than Salvatore. It is possible that the Paganos had other children that I have yet to discover. In the case of my Pagano family, they did not continue the naming pattern once they arrived in America in the 1890s. I wonder if this was one way to seal their Americanism and separate from the old ways. I now plan to apply this naming pattern to other Italian lines and see if that can open up some new leads.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Paseo High School yearbooks

Well once again I am happy for my Ancestry.com subscription. They have recently added more yearbooks to their U.S. School Yearbooks collection and I was able to find the following from my father's yearbooks:

The young pup at the far right is my papa, Warren Kuhn. These are the Army Junior ROTC officers from Paseo High School, Kansas City, Missouri in 1964. My father was listed as the Range and Ordnance NCO. Just a few years later he was living in Germany guarding real ordnance.

Luckily, the high school yearbooks for the years I was in school are not online...that would make me old, wouldn't it?

Wedding Wednesday - Warren and Cathy Kuhn

Warren Kuhn and Catherine Happy Hope

married August 24, 1974 in Kansas City, Missouri

Happy 37th anniversary!

Tombstone Tuesday - Frank E. Kuhn

Photo taken by FindAGrave.com volunteer Luella Hinrichsen

Frank E. Kuhn's life was rather short, but eventful. He was born in 1861, married to Cora Bell Ozias in 1882, had two sons (Maurice Elmer and Frank Earl) and then died in 1887 of typhoid fever. Below is an article from the Centralia Journal, describing Frank's eventful final end.

Centralia Journal (Centralia, Kan.) October 21, 1887

What I wouldn't give for a...

I often wonder what new advances would most shock our ancestors. Obviously, airplanes would really freak them out...but I tend to wonder more about the little things that would be amazing to them. Last week I was reading through a probate packet from the 1840s for my ancestor, Charles Webb. My hand felt sympathy cramps when I saw how many times the poor clerk had to write out the same phrases. And this was only one of countless records. It led me to wonder about what that clerk would have given up to only have an eraser. Or a typewriter with a correction ribbon. Or a word processing program on a computer. I can't help but wonder what our ancestors would give for the little things we forget about...