Irene Jeglum’s 1928 photo album

Irene (Jeglum) Rinaudo (1912–1993) was my grandmother Dorothy Ruth (McMurry) Black’s first cousin, the middle daughter of Dorothy’s father’s younger sister Maud “May” Belle (McMurry) Jeglum. Her full name at birth was Lucy Irene Jeglum, but she went by her middle name Irene throughout her life. Irene was born on July 24, 1912, in Irma, Alberta, Canada. She was the middle child of three daughters born to Melvin Elmer Jeglum (1884–1965) and May Belle (McMurry) Jeglum (1888–1931). Her older sister was Ella May (Jeglum) Moore (1911–1986), who I was lucky enough to correspond with in the 1980s, as she was an active family historian. Her younger sister was Verna Mabel (Jeglum) Arthur (1914–1990).

My cousin Linda sent me a few of her mother Irene’s albums and photos to digitize and research. This post is on the first album I’ve digitized—a photo album of Irene’s life from about 1924 to 1928. This album covers Irene’s life from when she was 12 years old and living in Nampa, Idaho, until she was 16 years old and living in Porterville, California. During these four years, she also visited several sites in central and southern California.

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Voices from the past

What if you had an unexpected chance to hear your long-deceased grandmother’s voice again? That hypothetical question became very real for me in the last couple of weeks. I chose to do what I could to hear her voice, and the voices of several other deceased relatives and to do my best to share them with you.

My grandmother, Dorothy R. (McMurry) Black has been gone for over 23 years, and I haven’t heard her voice in that entire time. As far as I knew, there were no surviving home movies of her, and no surviving recorded interviews of her voice that I could watch or listen to. Her family films were silent vacation reels that appear to have focused on recording beautiful panoramas for the folks who weren’t there. The audio recordings were merely note-taking aids that were reused once they were transcribed. Or so I thought until this week.

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James McMurry’s letter to the “grands”

Today’s post is about a letter that James Miller McMurry wrote to his “Grands”—presumably his grandnephew Arthur (Art) and Art’s wife Ezelpha. I received a photocopy of this letter from my grandmother, Dorothy Ruth McMurry Black—Arthur’s first cousin. I saw the original letter in 1990 when visiting Art, and I’m hoping someone in the family still has this letter.

I hadn’t read this letter in over 25 years, and upon re-reading it I discovered a bounty of new information: I learned of another two relatives who fought in the Civil War, including one who possibly died at Shiloh. I realized that the recipient was my cousin Arthur Edgar McMurry, not my great-great-grandfather Arthur Webster McMurry. I learned a bit about James McMurry’s wife Grace Aitken and her life before she and James met. I learned a bit more about the timing of the McMurry’s move to Arkansas, and the location of their land there. I got a bit of description of the area around James’ last home, in Sutter County, California. I also learned a bit more about James’ adopted son and his latest sailing voyage. Continue reading