Another Mystery

This morning on my way to coffee, I saw this on the ground:

As if it was so long ago. It reminded me of when I started noticing these sidewalks stamps during my morning pandemic walks and wondering what they were about because I almost flunked history class.

Will children born after the pandemic see the “6 Feet Apart” sign as an old relic from yesteryear and wonder what “6 Feet Apart” meant?

My Grandma Gerry wrote about the flu epidemic. She was three years old at the time, but she remembers.

“I remember the Armistice. We had a yellow locomobile-it was draped in flags and we drove around tooting horns and yelling. After that, the flu epidemic. We all wore masks. We were in quarantine for what seemed like forever. Signs were posted all over. Only the doctor could come and go.“

Tonight during my research I continued to focus on my Grandma Gerry’s father’s side of the family. Although her father, uncle, and one aunt came to San Francisco in the early 1900s, not all of the siblings did. Some went to Washington State.

“Brainard went by covered wagon to the Territory of Washington with Aunt Kay and Francis. He disappeared. The man leading the search party, O’Leary, later married Francis.“

He disappeared via covered wagon? Whaatt? Did they ever find him again? According to Ancestry.com, it looks like he didn’t die until 1951, but that doesn’t seem right to me. Wouldn’t my Grandma have said he was found? There is alot of misinformation on these genealogy websites because so many people are guessing. Another mystery I plan to solve.

Thursday, February 27, 2025:

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Day 174 – Use My Imagination

Labor Day weekend is this weekend and it will be the first time, in a long time, that I will not be attending my family’s Annual Donahoe Domino Tournament. Yes, that’s right. Every Labor Day weekend a bunch of folks from the Irish side of my family get together (normally in Sonoma, although last year was Grass Valley) and play some chips.

When I was a little girl the tournament used to be in Nevada, where my grandparents lived. I went when I was young because, well, I had no choice. I learned to play dominos but I never learned how to get up early. My mother would get up and the crack of dawn and want us out of house by 6am so we could be in Nevada by 10am.

Somewhere in my teens I stopped going for awhile. After my grandparents died, my uncle in Sonoma became the host and we’ve been meeting at his house for years. But he just sold his house and now the Donahoe Domino Tournament is temporarily homeless and put on hold because of the pandemic. Ugh. When will we all be able to safely see each other again?

And it’s supposed to heat up this weekend, which is no me gusta for me in my second story studio apartment with no a/c that faces the afternoon sun. And I have a Zoom performance on Monday. I’m gonna have to close my windows and make sure my fans aren’t loud because the mic will pick up everything! I guess I can just pretend that I am in a proper theater sweating under all those stage lights. Yeah, that’s it. I will use my imagination….

Thursday, September 3, 2020:

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