Evelyn's Out of the Closet. Again!

Sometimes it's the simplest thing that'll make me feel more connected to my ancestors.

This morning I pulled out my 4-generation Pedigree/Family Group Worksheet, and file #4/5 from my File System. That's the folder for my father's parents. I felt the urge to find a story to share with you. I keep getting drawn to my Grandpa Ken, my dad's dad!

 So I start looking at his documents again, and before I knew what was happening I was deeply immersed in his first wife's story.

She's my dad's mother, Evelyn Michaele Earles. I wrote a bit about her in "Forgive Me If I Slip Away". That post seemed so sad.
 This one makes me laugh. But I do have a strange sense of humor.

How did that happen? Honestly, I can't tell you! I wanted to fill in some gaps on his timeline and got sidetracked I guess when it came to figuring out ages and circumstances surrounding his marriage to Evelyn.

On the one hand this woman must be very shy or full of guilt or shame. On the other she won't leave me alone. She's SO indecisive! My computer crashed twice, the scanner stalled about three times and I could never get the Ancestry.com 1930 census record to download properly!

So guess what I found? I'm looking at the 1930 census for Evelyn and she shows up in two places, First at home with her parents in Seattle and also at a boarding school in Tacoma, Washington.


She's a 17-yr.-old "pupil" at The Annie Wright Seminary in 1930. She was living about 45 minute from home.

I get the chills! No. I didn't go there.

The Annie Wright Seminary opened its doors in the Fall of 1884 to daughters of the pioneers of the territory. It was an all-girls' school "that would make possible Christian education for the rising generation of daughters of pioneers."

I was 17 when I boarded at Walnut Hill School in Natick, Mass. It was founded in 1893, just 9 years after my grandmother's school.

I went there on scholarship to study and to dance. I'd started ballet as a freshman in high school and somehow ended up in an all-girls school, about 1 1/2 hours from home. I knew we didn't have the money for that school! Maybe the scholarship covered it? My mother was a genius when it came to meeting our passion's needs.

Okay, maybe this is a bit strange to you, but I got a huge chuckle about what I'd talk to Evelyn about. Wow! We had something in common. We both went away to school. The schools were both all-girls' schools. Maybe we'd talk about how crazy it was having no boys around? Or how I never got to go to the prom because WE had to ask the boys and none of us knew any in town?

Or maybe she'd just stare at me like a "deer in the headlights".

You see, I liked boys. Turns out, after a brief marriage to my dad's dad, she decided she liked girls more.

There Evelyn. We've added a bit more of your story. Own it! I love you!