The Pan . . . Christmas 2012

Well, I can't let a Christmas go by without showing "The Pan" in its most recent finery.  My brother has always been an extremely talented woodworker, but this past year, he purchsed a new CNC router.  Somehow, I knew that "the pan" would be decorated in  splendid wood, and I was right.  He used our family tree and created a billboard of our grandparents back through 20 generations.  And no, before you ask - we don't have documentation for all of them.  There are many in the latest generations that have been attached to our tree by another family member, but as of now, we consider them family.

I am glad I have a year to plot plan what I will transform it in to next, because right now my mind is blank!  It still has the wood office/desk divider glued to the inside.  I think that might be a problem to remove . . . .hmmmmmm.

If you are new to my blog, you can read about the origin of "The Pan" and its reincarnation in subsequent years: 2009, 2010, 2011

A Repost from Christmas Past . . . The Pan

With no time on my hands, and a feeling of guilt over my lack of posts, I am recycling some of my Christmas posts from past seasons.  Since many readers do not read past posts, I am hoping you will enjoy these.  Today I will share one infamous post from December 2010 about a Christmas tradition I share with my brother and a kitchen pan that once belonged to our mother.  Lisa Louise Cooke read it on her Episode 61 podcast for premium members.  

And now. . .  

"Holiday Fun for Genealogists". 

Posted here originally on 28 Nov 2010

Well, I have always known that I would write this blog post.  It has taken all of my willpower to save it for the holiday season where it rightly belongs.

Please note that the photo below is from left to right:  Gloria Kennelly (my mother), Mary McDonnell Kennelly (her grandmother), Berenice Moldt Kennelly (my grandmother).  I am including it because it is a wonderful photo, and I don't have any good Christmas photos of my mother later in her life.  Those that I could find, I can't bring myself to post for she would surely haunt me if I did.

During the holidays it is not unusual for families to laugh, reminisce, and share stories about past family times.  It usually starts "Remember when . . ." and ends with a smile and a warm family feeling in your heart.  Occasionally, accompanied by a smile or chuckle.  At our house, we usually began the litany of memories with "Remember that d*&#  pan of mother's?"  Except for sweets, our mother did not particularly enjoy cooking. While she loved new sheets and towels and had a whole room for her sewing equipment and crap craft supplies,  her pots and pans were gathered together from who knows where and never replaced.  We had knives that were dull, mismatched plates, rubber spatulas with handles that fell out, and cake pans that must have been passed down from gr-grandma.  Then there was THE PAN.  It was cast aluminum with an exterior darkened from centuries years of burnt oil, but the standout feature was the handle.  It had a wood handle with a long screw through the center.  The screw was fastened securely to the pan, but the wood handle had long ago worn larger in the middle.  This meant that the pan would swing and spin as you held the handle.  We begged our mother to throw it out every time we had to use it, and the contents would spill as the pan would sway and swing when we lifted it.  Mother was particularly fond of boiling macaroni  in this pan.  Pouring off the water was an exercise in frustration accompanied by loud swearing.  I told her that if she didn't throw it out, I would put it in the casket with her. . . . . and I tried to.  Little did I know that my brother retrieved it, sandblasted the oil off and wrapped it in Christmas paper for the following holiday.  Years have passed, and I don't remember what was in the pan that first Christmas. Since then it has been a planter, a clock, etc. Each year we pass it back and forth and talk about that D*&# pan and about our mother.

Last year it was my turn.  I never had any really inventive ideas.  Dahl, my brother, was the more creative one.  But last year was different.  He will have a hard time topping this. As I have said in an earlier post, my brother is the original genealogist in the family, but since I have joined him in this wonderful adventure, I have dragged him with me to various cemeteries in Chicago and Iowa.  I teased him about needing a "gravedigger" tee shirt since our adventure at Calvary cemetery pictured at right.  Privately, I had a brainstorm for THE PAN.  I filled it with dirt, covered the top with moss from Hobby Lobby, and painted small wood shapes to resemble tombstones.  A package of dollhouse scale flowerpots completed the look.  I decided to make him a "portable cemetery"!   It would be a representation of our past adventures searching for our ancestors.

And now to share it with you.

Click to enlarge and see detail

I included a tombstone for our g-g grandfather James Bush Allen because I was sure we would find it when we went to the cemetery - we didn't.  So I guess this is the only one he will ever have.  There is also a tombstone for g-g-g grandmother Anna Lyman, mother of James B. Allen who is buried in Canada, g-g-grandparents, Owen &; Bridget McDonnell, and our gr. grandparents Edward P. and Mary Kennelly.  Lastly, I put a headstone for Margel Kennelly and partially covered it with moss since we had dug up the original.  It was beautiful!!

My brother loved it ,and it has decorated the shelf above his computer for the past year.  It will be sad to see it go.  But, I wonder what he has in store for me??

Maybe you have a special object from a loved one who is no longer here.  I challenge you to think about the possibility of starting a similar tradition of your own. What wonderful fun to pass it around the family and laugh about times past and the family who came before us.

My Mother's Pan - Christmas 2011 . . . the saga continues.

Okay, so the title of this blog post looks like it has been floating around in cyberspace for the last month when, in reality, this was another item on my "to do" list that has been languishing until today.

This is the latest reincarnation of THE PAN than belonged to my mother, and that I wrote about first in my post "Holiday Fun for Genealogists".  This holiday tradition has been going on since my mother's death many years ago, however we had started to run out of ideas and loose enthusiasm a bit as the years went by.  But then I became a family historian fascinated by cemeteries and headstones.  I was inspired and my blogging about it was taken as a challenge by my brother. Last Christmas, when THE PAN came back to me, it was a desktop organizer decorated with "family photos".  Read about his creation here.  For the past year, I have thought and thought about what I could do.  Then, last summer, I had an inspiration and very smugly sat on my idea until December.  Suddenly the time was flying by and, in true Scarlett O'Hara fashion, I vowed to work on it "tomorrow".  But as my daughter use to ask when she was little, "When is tomorrow, today?".


It seems that, in this case "tomorrow" is one month after Christmas.

So here is the 2012 version of THE PAN.

 As I have mentioned before, I come from a line of strong women - all of whom could work magic with a needle and thread. The photo of the quilt section that is the background for the title of this blog is scanned from a quilt done by my gr. grandmother, Mae Allen Moldt.   It would seem that my passion for sewing and quilting is inherited. So, it is only fitting that I should gather them together at a quilting bee.  Here are a few photos.  My brother will not get the actual pan for another two weeks but I couldn't wait to post after finishing it today.

The infamous pan handle can be seen at the back.

From left to right, Mae Allen Moldt holding baby Harold Moldt, Mary McDonnell Kennelly, Elanor Gilshannon Allen, and Elizabeth Burnett Allen McDonnell (Nettie) holding baby Florence McDonnell.  Now for the relationships.  Mae and Nettie are the daughters of Elanor.  Mary is the sister-in-law of Nettie and the mother-in-law of Mae's daughter, Berenice, who is my grandmother.

The quilt is poorly done (by anyone's standards). Nonetheless it is a true quilt with the fabric cut into pieces, stitched back together, and layered with a back and batting.  The layers are stitched together and the edges are all bound. The photograph people are simply taped to the pan, but I have still spent quite a bit of time pulling it all together.  Each photo was fiddled with in my photo program, printed, reversed, printed again, cut out, and glued back to back.  It didn't go together as easily as I envisioned so don't look closely. The oversize scissors that are laying on the top of the quilt were used in the construction and were scanned and then cut out.  Their actual length is 12 inches so they are oversize in real life as well.  According to my mother, these were sewing scissors that belonged to DaDa Mae (Mae Moldt) so it seemed fitting that they should be included in this vignette. 

When I saw him a few weeks ago, my brother mentioned that I had not posted anything on my blog for quite a while.  He checked.  Since he has not seen this yet, we'll see how long it takes for him to notice it.

The saga continues . . . and I have two years before I have to come up with another idea. 

Mother's Pan is Mine for the Coming Year

My brother with THE PAN

Yesterday I received an email from my brother asking why I had not posted about THE PAN yet.  My response was T. I. M. E.   Since returning to school after the holiday, I have been drowning in work.  Most evenings I didn't leave school until after 5:00 so when I arrived home I would quickly sink into a comfy chair and enjoy my dinner in front of the television. 

But today is the day to report on  the new decoration for THE PAN.  I introduced this pan and our Christmas tradition several weeks ago in a previous post titled Holiday Fun for Genealogists.  As we were all working in the kitchen preparing our traditional prime rib dinner, my brother started telling me that he had discovered some new photos from when we were young.  He would show them to me later, he said.  Later, as we sat around opening our gifts, his words came back to me when I opened a box that was so large it had to be THE PAN.  I carefully lifted it out.  The first thing I noticed was that it had been shined up and had something tall protruding from the pan. I followed it down into the pan and then noticed that it had an electrical cord coming out from a hole in the pan.  Oh, it was a light!  At this point I heard my brother say that now I would be keeping it on my desk for the coming year.  He made a fitted wooden insert to hold my pen,  pencils, markers and calculators.  The only thing missing is a place for family photos . . . . wait. . . a few photos are tucked into a slot at the back and afixed to the outside. The photos are familiar, but . . . something is not right.  I protest, "These have been Photoshopped I claim".  "I don't know what you mean, he replies in a syrupy voice.  Now I ask you, do you think these are original or has some 21st century digital sleight of hand been employed?

My mother sitting in an oversized chair soaking her feet in THE PAN

A terrible photo of my grandmother and me with THE PAN

My mother and Merle wearing THE PAN

I now have a year to plan.  Any suggestions, but remember my brother reads this blog??

Holiday Fun for Genealogists

Well, I have always known that I would write this blog post.  It has taken all of my willpower to save it for the holiday season where it rightly belongs.

Please note that the photo below is from left to right:  Gloria Kennelly (my mother), Mary McDonnell Kennelly (her grandmother), Berenice Moldt Kennelly (my grandmother).  I am including it because it is a wonderful photo, and I don't have any good Christmas photos of my mother later in her life.  Those that I could find, I can't bring myself to post for she would surely haunt me if I did.

During the holidays it is not unusual for families to laugh, reminisce, and share stories about past family times.  It usually starts "Remember when . . ." and ends with a smile and a warm family feeling in your heart.  Occasionally, accompanied by a smile or chuckle.  At our house, we usually began the litany of memories with "Remember that d*&#  pan of mother's?"  Except for sweets, our mother did not particularly enjoy cooking. While she loved new sheets and towels and had a whole room for her sewing equipment and crap craft supplies,  her pots and pans were gathered together from who knows where and never replaced.  We had knives that were dull, mismatched plates, rubber spatulas with handles that fell out, and cake pans that must have been passed down from gr-grandma.  Then there was THE PAN.  It was cast aluminum with an exterior darkened from centuries years of burnt oil, but the standout feature was the handle.  It had a wood handle with a long screw through the center.  The screw was fastened securely to the pan, but the wood handle had long ago worn larger in the middle.  This meant that the pan would swing and spin as you held the handle.  We begged our mother to throw it out every time we had to use it, and the contents would spill as the pan would sway and swing when we lifted it.  Mother was particularly fond of boiling macaroni  in this pan.  Pouring off the water was an exercise in frustration accompanied by loud swearing.  I told her that if she didn't throw it out, I would put it in the casket with her. . . . . and I tried to.  Little did I know that my brother retrieved it, sandblasted the oil off and wrapped it in Christmas paper for the following holiday.  Years have passed, and I don't remember what was in the pan that first Christmas. Since then it has been a planter, a clock, etc. Each year we pass it back and forth and talk about that D*&# pan and about our mother.

Last year it was my turn.  I never had any really inventive ideas.  Dahl, my brother, was the more creative one.  But last year was different.  He will have a hard time topping this. As I have said in an earlier post, my brother is the original genealogist in the family, but since I have joined him in this wonderful adventure, I have dragged him with me to various cemeteries in Chicago and Iowa.  I teased him about needing a "gravedigger" tee shirt since our adventure at Calvary cemetery pictured at right.  Privately, I had a brainstorm for THE PAN.  I filled it with dirt, covered the top with moss from Hobby Lobby, and painted small wood shapes to resemble tombstones.  A package of dollhouse scale flowerpots completed the look.  I decided to make him a "portable cemetery"!   It would be a representation of our past adventures searching for our ancestors.

And now to share it with you.

Click to enlarge and see detail

I included a tombstone for our g-g grandfather James Bush Allen because I was sure we would find it when we went to the cemetery - we didn't.  So I guess this is the only one he will ever have.  There is also a tombstone for g-g-g grandmother Anna Lyman, mother of James B. Allen who is buried in Canada, g-g-grandparents, Owen &; Bridget McDonnell, and our gr. grandparents Edward P. and Mary Kennelly.  Lastly, I put a headstone for Margel Kennelly and partially covered it with moss since we had dug up the original.  It was beautiful!!

My brother loved it ,and it has decorated the shelf above his computer for the past year.  It will be sad to see it go.  But, I wonder what he has in store for me??

Maybe you have a special object from a loved one who is no longer here.  I challenge you to think about the possibility of starting a similar tradition of your own. What wonderful fun to pass it around the family and laugh about times past and the family who came before us.