This weekend is Mother’s Day. What began as one woman’s public expression of love for the woman that gave her life in 1905, it became an official national holiday in 1914 when President Woodrow Wilson made the second Sunday of May the official day to honor Mothers. There are traditions that go on during the coarse of that day. Corsages worn to church and to brunch, lunch or dinner speak a...

      We are entering the colder months of the year and with that, monthly rituals of light that gives us something to look forward to every 30 days or so. Somehow I think our Ancestors planned it that way – Thanksgiving, Christmas, New Year’s, Valentines Day – to get us through the 29 other dark and dreary days. One of my daughters has the Christmas tree and all the lights up inside and outside of the...

  When I wrote my Newsletter for May, as well as an accompanying blog post and yet another article for another newsletter for a group to which I belong, how would I have known that one’s ancestry and genealogical composition would take center stage in the World. I have seen various Persons of Color of all ethnicities (there is a difference) stand in unison in protest for the recent deaths of those in police custody. This is the...

          “What a difference a day makes Twenty-four little hours Brought the sun and the flowers Where there used to be rain My yesterday was blue, dear Today I’m part of you, dear My lonely nights are through, dear Since you said you were mine” Dinah Washington – “What a Difference a Day Makes” 1959   Today is sunny and windy, nice considering a thunderstorm blew through...

  Grandma and Grandpa Graves had passed some time ago. They weren’t really my grandparents; they were friends of my Mom and my then stepfather at the time, and they became my babysitters when I was growing up. They lived across the street from the house we rented on Vermont Avenue, and theirs was the best manicured lawn on the block. Grandpa had been employed in the carpentry trade and Grandma was a homemaker, He was a tall,...

  It is Thanksgiving morning and the Sun has not even thought about getting out of bed. I am up and answering e-mails with a cup of tea, as this is a mellow day for me and I do not have to go straight to Cafe Bustelo to face the World. The early morning chill can be felt from the windowpane but not so much that it is alarming, but more like the breath of a child that just ate a peppermint patty candy. Later, I will be making a nice...