Things Molly says

Handing Jack pretend food, "you're gonna love it - it's perfect"

At the natural history museum grabbing the map, "mom, I got a nap. "

"Mom, the piscetti string!" When driving towards the spaghetti bowl at 2100 south and I-15.

"Dad, I love planets!" After a quick trip to the planetarium.

Banging on the door frantically while I was in the shower, molly yelled, "moooooooooom, Jesse on the radio!!" Jesse's girl was on the radio.

Holding her broom in the air, "look at my Olympic porch."

Driving behind the Rings of an audi, "an Olympic car!"

And he's gone . . .

"Barking up the wrong tree"

So back to family history . . .

My grandpa called me last night to ask me what I new about Mary Dwyer.  I said, "not much" and promised I wasn't hiding any kind of secret information from him.  My aunt Lori has done lots of research on Mary Dwyer and I have read some of what she's found, but that's it.

I spent an hour or more last night and then some time today seeing what I could find (even though he did call Lori and got copies of what he was looking for).  I showed him what I found and, honestly, it did bring up a few new thoughts that I need to run by Lori (about Mary Dwyer and some other Huber ancestors).  I took notes while we talked.  I will follow up.

During our conversation, though, Grandpa stopped and said, "maybe we are just barking up the wrong tree."  Huh?  From the look on my face, he sort of laughed and said, "you know, maybe we're looking in the wrong place or looking for the wrong things."  He then recalled one time when he went to visit his aunt Helen and asked her about Mary Dwyer (who would have been the mother to her half brothers) and she got a little upset and said she wanted nothing to with Mary Dwyer.  Without Mary Dwyer, my great grandpa Huber and therefore my Grandpa Huber would not exist.  He agreed that we need to keep looking and wasn't implying that we're doing something wrong.  I don't really know what he meant, though.  At least I have a new phrase to use . . . "barking up the wrong tree."

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So, for the record, what do we know about Mary and Clara Dwyer?

• Mary is of Irish descent and lived in Chicago.  She came to Utah shortly after Clara was born.  Conflicting sources say that Clara was her niece or her daughter.
• Mary met and married my great-great-grandpa Albert Huber around 1900 and they had 3 sons - Albert, Edward and Harvey Dwyer (Dee)
• Mary died in 1906 and shortly thereafter Albert married Lenora (Nora) Peterson and they had 2 daughters - Gladys and Helen.
• Mary is buried at Salt Lake City Cemetery.  Albert and Nora are buried in Bluffdale.  Clara is buried at Mount Olivet.  
• There are no records of Mary Dwyer anywhere.  The only way we know her parent's names are because my Grandma Ethel Huber had an old Bible that she had written a sort of pedigree in and on that chart had written the names of Mary's parents.
• What we do have is a couple of newspaper clippings (that Lori found) which stated that a wealthy doctor in Salt Lake had hired Mary as his housekeeper and had made her neice, Clara, his ward.  Upon his death, Clara recieved $2000.  Mary married Albert shortly after this doctor died.  His funeral was a big to do at the Masonic Temple on South Temple.
• No one knows who Clara's father was.  No one knows if Mary was her mother or not, though we think she probably was.  Mine and my grandpa's theory is that she told the doctor that Clara was her niece because having an illegitimate child may have been unmentionable and could have compromised her job.  Clara referred to Mary as her mother.
• Once before she died (in 1962), my Grandpa took Clara home from something and remembers her saying that Mary had red hair the color of my Aunt Cindy's.
• Albert was a bartender, a miner, prospector, gambler.  He was such a small man that he always carried a pistol on his belt for protection.  There were stories that he would chase guys out of the bar by shooting at their feet all the way out and up the street.
• Clara was married twice - first to Frank Leonard and then to Ilet B. (I.B.) Powell.  She's buried next to I.B. at Mount Olivet.  There is a census record as well as a newspaper article) that indicates a third man - Fred Hoffer - was also living with Clara (while she was married to Frank and to I.B.).  Who is this guy?  No one knows.  He's listed on the census as a brother-in-law, but there is about a 40 year age gap that debunks that story as well as not ideas about who the sister or sister-in-law may have been.

So, the biggest mysteries are that we have absolutely no information about Mary's line.  Though we have what we think are her parent's names, it stops there.  Second of all, who was Clara?  Was she really a niece or was she a daughter and who was her father and who in the world is Fred Hoffer (this guy, my grandpa does vaguely remember as a white-haired guy who lived with Clara and I.B.  He also remembers Ethel searching for his grave at City Cemetery and not being able to find it.  Lori and my grandpa did find it on this last Memorial Day.

Valentines Day

Single or attached, I am not a super fan of Valentines Day. I do have three pretty cute valentines at my house, though, and tonight we had a fun family holiday adventure.

We drove in town to the Rio Grande Cafe. We haven't been there forever and it was delicious as usual. The kids were very well behaved and ate their dinner.

Next, we walked over to the trax train and rode it to city Creek. We visited the Disney store, crossed the bridge, looked atthe fountains, said hello to cousin Travis at Deseret book (and used the Deseret book bathrooms) then headed back to the train.   

Molly said she wanted to see the planets so we decided to also walk through the planetarium.  We had fun playing with everything there.

As we finally walked back to the car the kids started to melt down but then one out of two fell asleep on the way home.

Some days are challenging. My work is challenging. James' work is overwhelmingly time consuming and last night he was covering for someone on call and ended up in Ogden until about 2 in the morning. Jack never wants to hold still and Molly is often a ticking time bomb of emotions. Days like today are blessings and very much appreciated. We still came home to a messy house and have a lot to do this weekend, but I have a good family.

January Flew By

January just pretty much flew by.  I can't believe it is already February.  Here are a few tidbits of what's going on in our world.

I don't like these stupid carts.  I found this picture on the internet. The one at the Reams where we usually shop is green.  We can't seem to avoid it.  My kids always find it despite my attempts to direct them elsewhere.  It doesn't steer correctly.  It doesn't hold all my groceries.  Plus, inevitably, I end up pushing the stupid thing without kids even in it anymore.  Grrr . . . Oh well.  I think I will survive.

Jack needed some new socks, so I ran in to Kohls.  Molly found the manaquins while I was checking out.  Sometimes this girl is a little bit strange.  When I asked her what she was doing, she just described the clothes they were wearing.  "Mom, this one has flowers and this one has a pink shirt."  I don't know if she even noticed that they didn't have heads.  

Jack has been sleeping better.  He finally got through his most recent stage of non-sleeping-screaming-bloody-murder.  Unforuntely, his and Molly's room is a bit extra cluttered because he is only sleeping in his pack-n-play next to his bed.  Something in his bed has upset him for life.  Oh well.  It works, so that's what we're doing.  The two of them did find a use for the crib the other day (it was cute even if it only lasted for a few minutes).  Mother Hen Molly loves to read books to Jack, but he usually doesn't hold still for very long.

They both love to play outside.  We have a couple of different "mountains" in our cul-de-sac that are pretty fun to climb.

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On Martin Luther King Day we ventured to the zoo and lunch with this gang.  We had a fun time! 

During January, this big kid even celebrated his 7th birthday and we had some delicious eats at his house.

Molly went to the dentist.  She got a cape and a load of other prizes.  Our dentist is totally over the top with dress-up, prizes, and overall happiness.  It's really obnoxious for this mom, but it works and this girl has been an angel both times we've gone.  

And finally, our January has been full of talk and excitement about this kid leaving for Lithuania in a few short weeks.  He's a goof ball and we're going to miss him, but I'm glad he's going on a mission.