Trying To Find The Artist...

Last week I saw a Facebook post from a college friend who now lives in Teton Valley, Idaho. She liked a post in the Teton Valley History Facebook site. If you're not familiar with these Facebook sites (and if you spend any time on Facebook, I'm sure that you know of them...), a site will be created by people from a specific geographic location mostly to reminisce about "the old days." I'm a member of the "If You Grew Up In Farmington" site. I'm also a member similar sites for Kaysville and Tremonton. I sort of grew up in Kaysville and I definitely didn't grow up in Tremonton, but it's a way to learn about those who did.

I decided to see if I could become a part of the Teton Valley History site.

I asked to join.

I was accepted.

It's been fascinating. Most of the photos are from long ago, and I by "long" I mean, early to mid-1900s...some even earlier. I am waiting to see if there's anyone I might know (mostly from last names...), and I'm sure my mom and her family knew them all. 

I have several photos that match the time period of my mom, her brothers, parents, aunts, and uncles. I might post some one of these days. I do have something I know is from the valley--artwork from my mom's uncle Claude.

Last night I did some ancestry digging to get details of Uncle Claude. I've blogged about him and the painting before. One HUGE problem...

I blogged about the wrong ancestor.

My mother's mother's name is Dalley. Back when I blogged about the painting in 2020, I assumed (incorrectly...) that Claude was my mom's uncle from her mother's side--I'm sure a most interesting man who I would love to know more about, but it's not him. My mother's father's name is Knight. As you can see on the artwork, it was a Knight who did the painting. It took me several hours of searching on Ancestry.com and FamilySearch.com last night and I never found him.

My parents adopted us later in their lives so I had a lot of cousins who were older. I met so many as a child and by the time I reached adulthood and could remember people and make the connections, many had passed away. If my mom were alive, I could just call her up and ask how she was related to Uncle Claude. It would be so much easier.

Death has a way of making simple tasks difficult.

I'll keep looking. Maybe one day I'll figure it out.

Give Thanks...We've Got Family History Hanging On Our Wall

 One things we have avoided after being in the new house for just over five months is hanging things on the walls. In our old house--since we were going to live there forever--I didn't care about putting holes in the walls, which was evident by the way the walls looked after we cleared out.

We're a little gun-shy about recreating that look here.

But, yesterday, I felt I needed to hang a picture that was passed down from my mother to me, a painting of Mt. Moran, one of the picturesque beautiful mountains in the Grand Teton National Park, a painting created by a family member.

Today, I'm thankful for several things. I'm thankful that my Uncle Claude (actually, he was my mother's uncle, so my great-uncle...) made the decision to take up painting and put the time and effort into the craft so that we--along with others, I'm sure---can have beautiful art to enrich their lives.

I don't know the date of the painting I put up yesterday. I imagine it was done in the 1950s or 1960s. I also believe it was done while Charles Claudius Dalley sat next to the lake and painted what he saw. I could be wrong--he could have taken a picture and painted it from that, or from memory, but when I consider how the painting came to be, I can see a man, born in the nineteenth century and having survived two world wars, the Spanish Flu, and the Great Depression, sitting humbly with paint and brushes creating art.

I think I only met Uncle Claude once. I was young so I don't remember much. There was an art studio, or a place with art supplies. Maybe that's when we got the picture. I don't know for sure. I do know I can't remember my childhood home without the painting of Mt. Moran. We took it from that house when my mother died, and we took it with us when we moved last year. Yesterday, I hammered a nail into the pristine, hole-less wall and hung the picture.

I wish I could have known him better--I read some of his history online this afternoon. Because I hung up his painting, the house is a better place because of my decision, and we are better for having a relative work so hard to create something so lovely.