My Portfolio

I am an expert crocheter, thanks to my grandma’s teaching, yet an equally-inept knitter and seamstress, despite my grandma’s teaching.  From a very young age, my grandma was a gifted seamstress, knitter, and crocheter.  (Her dad had been a tailor.  She figured she must have “inherited” her talent from him.)  When...

It is a chilly summer evening in San Francisco, California. It is the evening of my husband's birthday. We had just returned from dinner and are sitting on our back porch, talking. "Do you think your birth mother is thinking about you today?" My husband, Paul, was adopted, back in Pittsburgh,...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   We Built It…..We The People It’s regrettable that politics has to be so partisan. On the one hand, the concept of partisanship is the engine that drives the development of political platforms by which voters can...

On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia C hronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   Mesa Verde, Colorado From among the hundreds of pictures of Pueblo Indian culture discovered at Mesa Verde in Colorado that one finds on the Internet, almost all focus on relatively up-close snapshots of dwellings, tools, utensils...

Hermannus Thiessens aka Herman Thiessens was born December 12, 1876, the third son of Antoon Thiessens and Willemke de Jong in Groningen city, Groningen province, The Netherlands.  He was, by profession, a furniture maker. He married (1) Hendrikje (Reka) Mulder on November 1, 1900 in Groningen, Groningen, Netherlands who was the...

  On the road…again! Afghanistan to Zambia Chronicles of a Footloose Forester By Dick Pellek   C is for Cambodia Cambodia was on the list of places to see before the Footloose Forester had to decide whether his sojourn out of Pakistan would turn south toward Australia, or continue east into...

Yesterday was my son Ken's 38th birthday (yes, I can't believe it either!) and as well as the Spanish paella pan John and I bought him and the Jewish Cheesecake I baked for him, I wanted to give him something of family significance. I have had, tucked away in my jewellery...

The AIF Project Home | Search | About | Disclaimer   John Birmingham SPELLS Regimental number 508 Religion Roman Catholic Occupation Agent Address Burra Street, Port Wakefield, South Australia Marital status Single Age at embarkation 21 Next of kin Mother, Mrs. Capt. Spells, Burra Street, Port Watkefield, South Australia Enlistment date...

My mother, Lorna May WALLACE (nee SPELLS) was an only child and the apple of her father's eye. She had often accompanied her parents on overseas voyages, usually to Europe, as Grandpa worked for Philips, the Dutch electrical company. She didn't, however, travel with them in 1934 when they bought her...