Sunday, June 23, 2019

Paris, 1904 & 2019: The Last Resting Place of Beryl Grabois


My father's father's father's father was named Beryl Grabois (Bernard, in French and English; last name in Cyrillic was ГРАБОИС, which would have been pronounced GRAH-BOYCE). He came from a town about 50 miles northwest of what is now Kishinev, Moldova, called Faleshti (in various languages or transliterations Фэлешть/Făleşti [Romanian], פֿאַלעשט/Faleshti [Yiddish], Фолешты/Foleshty [Russian], Falesht', Feleshti, Faleshty [English]) but back then was part of greater Bessarabia, and he and his family decided that with the pogroms in Kishinev and in greater Russia against the Jews, it was time to leave. This would have been circa 1900 but maybe even as late as 1903, which was the first Kishinev pogrom. So he left with his two brothers, Morris and Abraham (aka Avram or Avroum) - but not a sister, whose name we don't know - and made their way west. They stopped in Paris for a few years.

Thursday, January 17, 2019

New York City, 1979

The United Nations, Rockerfeller Plaza, and the view from Top of The Rock, summer 1979

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Pittsburgh, 1977 & 2016

The Pittsburgh skyline, 1977 and 2016, from atop Mount Washington. 



Rockies and Great Plains roadtrip, 2015 part 6: Mt Rushmore to Denver

THURSDAY JULY 30, 2015

TL;DR - See Mt Rushmore and then drive south through Nebraska to catch a flight in Denver.

Theme songs:
  • "Mountain Town" (South Park)
  • "Get Out of Denver" (Bob Seger)
Weather: sunny all day

Wednesday, January 16, 2019

Rockies and Great Plains roadtrip, 2015 part 5: Deadwood to Mt Rushmore

WEDNESDAY JULY 29, 2015

TL;DR - South Dakota all day. Deadwood in the daytime, then drive through the Black Hills out to Badlands National Park in late afternoon and sunset, spend the night in Keystone, near Mt Rushmore.

Theme songs:
  • "Rocky Raccoon" (The Beatles)
  • "Badlands" (Bruce Springsteen)
Weather: high 79, low 54

Tuesday, January 8, 2019

Rockies and Great Plains roadtrip, 2015 part 4: Yellowstone to Deadwood

TUESDAY JULY 28, 2015

TL;DR - Drive out of Yellowstone into Wyoming and Montana, drive across Montana to the North Dakota border and then cut south as soon as I can into South Dakota, detour a bit to see Devil's Tower in Wyoming, then stop for the night in Deadwood, SD.

Theme songs:
  • "Life Is a Highway" (Tom Cochrane) for my drive
  • "Theme from Close Encounters of the Third Kind"
Weather: sunny leaving Yellowstone, windy and high of 75 in Billings, low of 52 in Deadwood

Monday, January 7, 2019

Rockies and Great Plains roadtrip, 2015 part 3: Yellowstone (day 2)

Monday, July 27, 2015

TL;DR version: Second of two days at Yellowstone National Park, taking a morning photography tour and a wildlife excursion in the afternoon.

Today's theme songs:
  • "Photograph" (Ringo Starr) for the photo safari
  • "Wild Mountain Honey" (Steve Miller Band) for the evening trip
Weather report: 30-60% chance of storms, high 61, low 30 (brrrr!)

How to find someone in the 1940 Census

I posted this on Facebook in April 2012, not long after the 1940 Census was released. I rediscovered this post in November 2020 and figured ...