Daddy Dearest

Click To Play

My father, who died in 1987, was not the best person in the world. During her convalescence, my mother (who divorced him long before he died) talked with one of my cousins about what he was like at the time of his death. It's a good thing the TV stations didn't get wind of it, or we would have made the news.

Searching for Josiah

Click To Play

My mother, my cousin and I went on a search for the schoolhouse where my great-grandfather taught. We visited the tiny "museum" in Inverness (California), the compound where my grandparents and several of my aunts lived, and my mother reminisces.

Nannie and the Piano

Click To Play

My mother talks about my grandmother and why she never played the piano.

Nannie and the Earthquake

Click To Play

My father's mother was a child when the 1906 San Francisco earthquake and fire struck. Here, my mother talks a little bit about how it had been for my grandmother as a child.

Josiah Milton Kirkpatrick

Click To Play

My great-grandfather (who died when my mother was a baby) was apparently quite an interesting man. A one-legged man who had walked across the country, taught school, married 3 times, was a reporter and later editor of the Santa Rosa newspaper. I sat down with my mother over Thanksgiving and talked to her a bit about my great-grandfather, who died in 1920.