When Uncle Sam Was Ready, Things Moved Fast
My great-grandfather, Francis Fielding (Frank) Longley, was a civil engineer who specialized in water treatment systems. Clean and readily available water is one of those things that it’s easy to take for granted, and learning about his work has really opened my eyes to what it takes to provide water to those who need it. He had a long and varied career and wrote a number of interesting accounts of his experiences, but this blog post will focus on only his work with the American Expeditionary Forces (AEF) during World War I.
Airship Dreams
It seems like many of my ideas for blog posts come from finding mysterious family photos that, once researched, yield insight into things I knew very little about. Today’s post originated with a photo of my grandmother’s family standing in front of a large pile of debris. I had no idea what to make of this image, but I was certainly curious about it.
Nettie’s Story
My family was surprised when I told them that my great-grandmother, Florence Roberts, had three siblings. They only knew of one, her older brother Walter. The explanation for one of these missing siblings is easy to understand. Florence’s younger brother Schuyler was born in 1895 and died as a child between 1900 and 1905. In that era, the fact that his family didn’t talk about his death is unremarkable. The mystery of what happened to Florence’s older sister, however, is a much more complicated story.
Why Reindeer?
A few years ago while going through a scrapbook put together by my great-grandmother, I found an odd photo. It showed people dressed in fur, some sleds, and what appeared to be a large herd of reindeer.