New Year, New Start

OK, so the New Year is not here quite yet.  I guess I just want to get a jump start on it.  I've tried to start blogs in the past..  I did post two or three times, but obviously never got the hang of it.  So here goes another try.  I think I was always trying to get it perfect.  Well that's not going to happen!  So I decided to just jump in and figure it out as I go.

I have enjoyed reading many genealogy blogs and that was why I originally started mine - to share my findings and get help to overcome some of those brick walls.  Never knowing where to start kept me from starting.  I guess as I get older it becomes more important to share the stories before they a forgotten.

I have the great good fortune to have the writings of my grandfather.  He wrote his life story in 1961.  Shortly after his death in 1974,  I spent many hours transcribing his hand written book.  He wrote on lined notebook paper and his script was very small as you can see in the photo.  It tells his story beginning with his birth in the big city of Indianapolis in 1894 and ending with his retirement and life in 1961.

So at least once a week a will share an excerpt from those writings. Following is his opening statement.

Alfred Moehlmann's original writing

As I Was - The first thought that one would think that his story would be of a person who would be confessing to something or to someone who at one time was a somebody and somewhere on Life’s Road had erred and went wrong.  Or the idea might occur that from a bad beginning the writer rose to greatness.  Neither of which is correct.  I have but one motive in mind – For future posterity that someone of a future generation might be interested in happenings and events that took place or happened to one individual years befor their time.  Maybe I should call it my Memories but since I lack education and am not possessed with the abilities of a writer; with a poor conception of Grammar and practically no English, naturally I have but a vague idea of these essentials of Rhetoric – namely – Unity, Mass and Coherence.  So my story of “As I Was” will be a rambling tale of an Old Man trying to remember things of his childhood, his teen years, his young manhood, his middle age and finally his old age.