Last week, in the latest Rundbrief packet, second cousin Ralph (grandson of Cornelius Krause, half-brother to my grandmother Mary Dirks), retired library scientist and French literature scholar of Ottawa, Ontario, enclosed the third draft of his extremely ambitious work, Krause/Dirks Descendants, in a partial sense a new edition of The Dueck Family Genealogy by Jacob P. Dick, 1979, Waterloo, ON, self-published.
The earlier Dueck book sought family photos where possible. Here is our 1970s family portrait for that.
If it weren’t for Ralph’s new work, for which he invited us to supply our own version of our immortalizing paragraph, I’d be forever frozen in time as my high school self. In that instance, I believe my parents wrote the blurb; I can’t recall whether I was consulted.
“Mary likes to read, swim, and play the piano. She is the best Dutch Blitz player in the house.” LOL! I could still beat any of youse at Dutch Blitz (form of speed solitaire for 2-4 players with Amish overtones). Just try and challenge me! None of the blurb has been negated by the 30-year interval–it’s just, well, as an adult, I would have hoped I’d go down in history as accomplishing a little more.
So, here is the version of my life in one paragraph in Ralph’s current draft. Would anyone think I’d left out anything crucial for an audience of fellow relatives present and future?
“Mary Elizabeth Janzen was born on June 6, 1962 in Peoria, Illinois. She received a B.A. in English from Bethel College in 1984. Mary also received an M.A. in linguistics from the University of Kansas in 1992. She lived in Newton, Kansas, Lawrence, Kansas, and Kansas City, Missouri. She married…so on and so on in 1988 and they were divorced in 2003. Mary moved to State College, Pennsylvania where she worked as a teacher of English as a second language to adults and as a writer/editor.”
Honestly? I think the earlier blurb had more character. Maybe I should ask Mom and Dad to write it again?
family janzen 