What I tried so hard to develop in you was the inner power of perseverance which gives one the moral will-power to continue and complete a job, no matter how bored or tired one may be with it.

Katherine Dreier, co-founder with Marcel Duchamp of the Société Anonyme, knew my great-grandmother Ruth Seely Preston and Ruth’s mother, Charlotte Seely. I inherited a letter from Katherine Dreier to Ruth Seely in which Dreier writes to the census bureau because Ruth had no birth certificate:

This is to certify that I was one of the workers at the Girls Friendly Society at the time that Charlotte Seely, the mother of Ruth Seely Preston belonged to the Girls Friendly Society of Trinity Protestant Episcopal Church of Brooklyn: Dr. S. McConnell, being the rector and Miss Rodman the deaconess, at that time.

I was very fond of Charlotte Seely and therefore recall perfectly when she gave birth to her daughter Ruth Seely in the spring of 1901 in Jersey City.

I recall it very clearly because I had hoped to take charge of little Ruth, when her mother found it impossible to support herself and take care of her child. This turned out not to be feasible.

I can therefore certify that Ruth Seely Preston was born in this country.

In the section of the letter written to Ruth, she writes:

What I tried so hard to develop in you was the inner power of perseverance which gives one the moral will-power to continue and complete a job, no matter how bored or tired one may be with it. Maybe I tried too hard!! Perseverance and endurance are twins! If one develops perseverance one has endurance. But it must be developed in each of us — very few are born with it — and the best way to develop it is through loving what we are doing — not always easy!

It is a great quality to know that we do not know it all — but it is best to keep it to oneself — for few have reached that wisdom and do not understand. As I have grown older I realized more and more that there is not — good and evil — only understanding or no understanding.

If we understood — we would not do many things — for every action has it re-action — and we often wonder why life is so hard. This also teaches us great tolerance — which is very needed in the world today.

Something to grown on and something to chew on. Legacies like this letter are just as valuable, if not more so, than material heirlooms.

We adopted a new dog into our lives. Her names is Zoey, and she’s a small Chihuahua. If a picture tells a thousand words, then eighteen photos of Zoey tells a nice story. And if a picture tells a thousand words, then a movie tells a million. Here’s a million reasons why we love our new girl:

My grandmother, Helene Greene, died in 1999, and my grandfather, Ernest Charles Greene, died in 2004. I inherited these photos of theirs six years ago, and it took me this long to scan them. Now that I’ve scanned them, I can’t wait to share them! This photos–especially when viewed larger in these high-resolution scans–show amazing detail, history, personality, and style. I would be thrilled if the descendants–children, grandchildren, or even great-grandchildren, see their mothers, grandmothers, or great-grandmothers in these photos. If I love them, I’m sure these ladies’ progeny will love them even more. If by some chance you recognize one of the young women in these photos, please let me know!

Julie Zeckendorf

Gladys Lubin

Janet Lewis

Janet Lewis school photo

Helen Ovrsler

Harriet Johnson

Clara Ray with Jack Dempsey

Jean Kahn & Myra Bresky

Muriel Sugarman & Peggy Wolf

Natalie Pincus (does anyone know where this is?)

Dorothy Friedlander

Helene on Chief

Granny’s 12th birthday party, 1922

Ruth Eckstien
Uploaded by Daniel Greene

Again, if you know any of the people in these photos, I would love to hear from you. Larger resolution copies are available if you click on the photos to view them on Flickr. I know that these photos could use restoration, but that is not my area of expertise. I simply scanned them, straightened them as much as I could, cropped them, adjusted exposure and contrast a bit, and notated them with the names my grandmother wrote in her photo album. If anyone is interested in restoring these photos, I would be happy to see the finished version.

Take a look around! You might like what you see.

Now that we got the Wii Fit Plus that allows you to create Miis for your pets and weigh them (and track changes), I set up Buxley and Lady. Now we have our whole family represented in Miis. When I saw the screen this morning, it reminded me of those people who have the cutout sticky people on the rear windows of their vehicles. Those people always have straight families: Mother, Father, Daughter, Son, with maybe some cats and dogs. I’ve always thought it would be funny to have stickers of two men and two dogs on the back of my car. Well, this is the closest I’ve come to that yet: my family in Wii Miis.

And yes, I did mean “Our Wii Family” to be a pun of “Our Wee Family.”

Oh, and by the way, Lady’s already lost 2.5 pounds in the past month since we’ve been feeding her less. Yay, Lady!

Um, do I need to say that Wii Fit Plus is a registered trademark of Nintendo, Inc.? =)

Yuletide Plates. Originally uploaded by danielgreene. I am a Jew who loves Christmas. To me, Chrismastime is a season, not a celebration of Christ. I do not believe that Jesus was the messiah. Personally, I do not believe that there will ever be one Messiah; instead, I believe that each baby born brings with him or her a great hope that he or she may help, in his or her own way, to heal the world (tikkun olam). The Nativity story, while I do not … Read More

via Just Singin’ & Signin’ in the Sun

Lady says, "Hats are not the fashion for canines such as me; nevertheless, noblesse oblige!"

Sir Buxley Smithers-Greene also deigned to pose in a holiday costume.

A noble hound indeed!

I’m posting this on the one-week anniversary of our legal same-sex marriage in California. Since I took it with my Sidekick and uploaded it to Flickr right after our civil ceremony, it’s been viewed (as of this writing) 199 times, had received 53 comments, and 6 people call it a favorite.

A million thanks to all who made it possible for us to get married legally!