Posts Tagged ‘genealogy quote’

To forget one’s ancestors is to be a brook without a source, a tree without a root. 

Author: Chinese proverb

Our genealogy quote today is by magazine editor and writer Shirley Jean Abbott Tomkievicz (born November 16, 1934).

Shirley Abbott

To quote from The Encyclopedia of Arkansas History & Culture, “Shirley Jean Abbott Tomkievicz . . .  has achieved her greatest fame for her three volumes of memoirs, which detail the story of her family history and her own coming of age in Hot Springs (Garland County): Womenfolks: Growing Up Down South (1983), The Bookmaker’s Daughter: A Memory Unbound (1991), and Love’s Apprentice: The Education of a Modern Woman (1998), all written under the name Shirley Abbott. Critics have lauded her books as well-written examinations, not only of her own life, but of the South in an age of transition.

“Though now a resident of New York, Abbott continues to write about Arkansas for a wide audience in magazines and newspapers. She once commented, “I learned to respect and love history from being born a Southerner. To come from a definable place and to seek understanding of that place are incentives for the writer’s imagination . . . In 2005, Abbott received the Porter Prize, which is presented annually to an Arkansas writer of recognized literary excellence, for her nonfiction works, and, in 2008, she published her first novel, The Future of Love.”

Genealogy quote from Shirley Abbott

We all grow up with the weight of history on us. Our ancestors dwell in the attics of our brains as they do in the spiraling chains of knowledge hidden in every cell of our bodies.

Our genealogy quote today is by John A. Widtsoe, a member of the Quorum of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church) from 1921 until his death in November 1952.

John A. Widtsoe

John Andreas Widtsoe was a general authority in the LDS Church. He was also an educator who served as the director of the Department of Agriculture at Brigham Young University, president of the Utah Agricultural College (Utah State University), and became president of the University of Utah in 1916. He was also a noted author, scientist, and academician. His wife was Leah Dunford, a granddaughter of Brigham Young.

To quote from Wikipedia: “John A.Widtsoe was born on the island of Frøya in Sør-Trøndelag, Norway. At birth his hand was attached to the side of his head but he survived the operation to fix this problem. When Widtsoe was two his family moved to the Norwegian mainland city of Namsos. His father, also named John, died in February 1878. This left his mother Anna as a widow with two young sons to take care of: Widtsoe, who was then five, and his little brother Osborne Widtsoe. After this, the family moved to Trondheim. Here his mother was introduced to the LDS Church by a shoemaker.  In 1883, Widtsoe immigrated to the United States with his mother and brother. They made it to Utah Territory in mid-November.”

After graduating from Brigham Young College in Logan, Utah, John A. Widtsoe later also graduated from Harvard University with honors in 1894. He then became head of the Agricultural Experiment Station at Utah State Agricultural College where he taught farmers better farming skills. In 1898, Widtsoe was ordained to the office of a Seventy and set apart to do missionary work in connection with his studies in Europe. He attended the University of Göttingen, Germany, where he graduated with A. M. Ph.D. degrees in 1899. For two years in the 1920s John A. Widtsoe lived in Washington, D. C. where he supervised the reorganization of the Federal Bureau of Reclamation.

Genealogy quote from John A. Widtsoe

These are trying days, in which Satan rages, at home and abroad, hard days, evil and ugly days. We stand helpless as it seems before them. We need help. We need strength. We need guidance. Perhaps if we would do our work in behalf of those of the unseen world who hunger and pray for the work we can do for them, the unseen world would in return give us help in this day of our urgent need. There are more in the other world than there are here. There is more power and strength there than we have here upon this earth. We have but a trifle, and that trifle is taken from the immeasurable power of God. We shall make no mistake in becoming collaborators in the Lord’s mighty work for human redemption. (From Conference Report, Apr. 1943, 39).

Today’s genealogy quote comes from award-winning author and genealogist, G. G. Vandagriff, and is taken from the Introduction to True Miracles with Genealogy, Volume Two.

G. G. Vandagriff

G.G. is Gail Vandagriff’s pen name.  She is the author of twelve books. G.G. studied International Relations (Central/Eastern Europe), at both Stanford and George Washington Universities from 1965 to 1969.

Before becoming a writer, G.G. was employed in the following areas of expertise:
Hoover Institution as Research Associate and Editor
Harvard University as Assistant Treasurer
Fidelity Investments as Assistant Bond Analyst
Benjamin Franklin University as Instructor of Money and Banking
Continental Bank, Chicago and LA, as International Banker
Golden West College as Instructor of Economics
Southwest Missouri State University as Instructor of American Politics
University of Dayton as Assistant Director of International Programs

G.G.’s latest books are The Only Way to Paradise , and her Whitney Award winning volume, The Last Waltz. G. G. is also known for her genealogy mystery series featuring the intrepid Alex and Briggie. Her website is at www.ggvandagriff.com/.

Genealogy Quote from G.G. Vandagriff

I don’t believe in luck or coincidence where family history is concerned. I do believe in miracles.

This week’s genealogy quote by Pulitzer Prize-winning author Alice Walker is one of my favorites.  She used it in her description of a book by Dorothy Spruill Redford, titled Somerset Homecoming.

Alice Walker

Alice Walker

Alice Walker was born in Eatonton, Georgia, USA, in February 1944. Her most famous book, The Color Purple, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1982, and Steven Spielberg turned it into a movie starring Oprah Winfrey and Whoopi Goldberg.

Alice was the eighth child of a southern sharecropper and when only eight years old was accidentally blinded and scarred in the right eye by a BB gun. The resulting disfigurement profoundly affected her life and her writing. Determined to become educated, she graduated as valedictorian of her high school class, and went on to study at Sarah Lawrence College. She later taught African American women’s studies at Brandeis, the University of Massachusetts, Yale, and the University of California at Berkeley.

A renowned poet and essayist, Alice’s many poetry titles include Once (1968), Revolutionary Petunias and Other Poems (1973), Horses Make a Landscape Look More Beautiful (1984) and Absolute Trust in the Goodness of the Earth: New Poems (2003). Her other book titles include Now is the Time to Open Your Heart (2005) and Why War is Never a Good Idea (2007). Alice Walker‘s sixth novel, By the Light of My Father’s Smile, examines spiritual traditions in Mexico, and explores beyond-death experiences.

Genealogy Quote from Alice Walker

Love is the ladder that reaches through time.