D.L. MacLaughlan Dumes

@dmacdumes.bsky.social

2328 Followers 849 Following

Retired web developer, focusing on genealogy, historical photography, books, gardens, cats. - Genealogy: https://sakionline.net/family-folio/ - Gardening: https://sakionline.net/garden/garden-journal.html - Sixties music: https://krlabeat.sakionline.net

Floribunda 'Tawny Tiger' has opened fully. It's listed as a semi-double rose but it looks like a single to me. You can see some faint stripes on some of the petals.
My Milwaukee Petersen cousins had quite a presence on camera. This is Myrtle Petersen, twin sister of Marge, my dad's first cousin, in a glamor shot from about 1934.
A colorful and curious house finch came by for breakfast.
First bud for 'Tawny Tiger,' a floribunda rose I planted just this year.
So far she's unidentified but what a stunning portrait from about 1927-1930. This bride is related to the Petersen/Lehrmann family of Milwaukee somehow. The bridal bouquets are amazing and the silver embossed decoration on the cardboard frame is a beautiful touch.
My cousins brought us some lovely conversations and photos this past weekend but also this stunning Phalaenopsis (moth orchid). Looks lovely on the screened-in porch.
She looks so happy! Marge (Margaret) Petersen, just nineteen years old, married Arthur Lehrmann on August 2, 1930 in Milwaukee. Marge was a daughter of Peter Heinrich Petersen and Martha Krohn, granddaughter of Catherine Petersen Mikkelsen.
A Petersen cousin shared some new photos from his archive, and this one from about 1930 in Milwaukee is stunning. My father's twin cousins, Marge and Myrtle Petersen, are at left, dressed identically with wreaths and bouquets, clearly bridesmaids. There are even flower girls and a a ring bearer.
We don't have many four-generations photos but this one comes from our Petersen clan in Milwaukee. Great-grandmother Augusta Brotzmann Krohn (left), Martha Krohn Petersen Allen (daughter, right), Germaine Petersen Zube (granddaughter, standing), and Germaine's daughter Lorraine Myrtle Zube.
On the front porch where it gets almost full sun this container of verbena and petunias has been doing a great job, but I decided to add a pink calla lily (Zantedeschia rehmannii) for fun and it really perks up the arrangement.
It's a house sparrow either taking off or landing, hard to tell which.
DNA matches show that Hermine Caroline Gohr Dombrowsky is our cousin. Gohrs loved Chicago for some reason. She was a daughter of Wilhelm Gohr and Caroline Jaffke, born in 1853 in Prebendow, Kreis Stolp, Pommern. She's with her granddaughter Eleanor Johnson. The teddy bear is not related to us.
White, pink, and red hypoestes.
A handsome engagement portrait from 1900: Louis Peter Petersen (my grandfather's oldest brother) and his bride Anna Majoros, probably taken in Chicago.
Baptism, Minna Wilhelmine Gohr, 1879, Gross Gansen, Pomerania.
Tomatoes, first harvest of 2026: Sungold, Black Cherry, Gardener's Delight.
My great-aunt Elizabeth Bruns married Joseph Dowling in Chicago in 1916, who was witness to his brother James' passport application in 1921, which gives their birthplace: Wigan, Lancashire, England as well as their parents' names, Peter and Esther. James' photo here is from his passport application.
House Sparrow 1
Phil says: cleanliness is next to catliness.
July is a nice month for a marriage. July 11 1690: this is our earliest known Bruns ancestor, Johan Brunes (as it was then spelled) with bride Geiske Henrichs in Visbek, St. Vitus parish, OLdenburg. Herm[ann] Griss and Henrich Thöle were witnesses. Nice ink, nice calligraphy!
Paul heard the fireworks and was not amused!
Alva MacLaughlan (right), wife Marie in front, and his family Al, Tom, and Marie Jr., enjoy a beach visit near Chicago with his mother Catherine Mikkelsen (in the blue dress), Alva's half-sister Florence Mikkelsen Breetzke, and little Cathie Breetzke with her cousin (my aunt) Dolores, July 4, 1935.
July 2nd is Kitten Acquisition Day for us. Six years ago we went to the Bloomington City Animal Shelter to view these two orange and white brothers. As I walked near their cage, Phil's arm shot out and he snagged my sleeve. That's how you get picked out by a cat.
The more it opens, the more I'm amazed. The purple veining on this hosta blossom is a great attribute. This is its fourth year and it's really showing great style. Wish I could remember the variety name.
These Petersen siblings were Marie (seated), Margaret, Peter (seated), and Alfred (my grandfather), about 1901 in Chicago. Their parents were immigrants from Nordfriesland (Schleswig). They were all born in the USA, and thus citizens automatically as the Constitution, then and now, guarantees.
Plants can be very intrepid. Last year I had some lavender petunias in this wooden planter. Somehow they dropped seeds, which overwintered throughout the snow, germinated, and situated themselves between the wooden slats, accompanied by this year's white pelargoniums and white and pink Bacopa sutera.
The west patio includes a fountain and benches for restful viewing of the garden, but the hostas this year have really done well. In past years the bunnies have treated this area as a salad bar but this year they must be dining elsewhere.
Irish Indepdndent 14 Feb 1940 page 5.
Could this be him? If he was born in 1903 it's about the right age for the degree: Irish Independent 9 Mar 1931 page 7.
We have a new visitor in our Indiana garden.
Does your cat give you a tail kiss? My great-grandmother Catherine Petersen Mikkelsen's cat did! With her granddaughter Louise Schmidt, Catherine's cat (name unknown) wraps its tail around her leg in an affectionate embrace. Our cat Paul does the same thing to me. Must be a Petersen thing.
Plants in the south patio garden: coleus, impatiens, hypoestes, begonias.
A very pretty engagement photo in Chicago from 1898: Mary Ann Murphy (part of our Irish Murphy clan who married into out Hasse/Gohr families) and her fiancé William Hurley. They were married in 1899 in Chicago, but as the Everly Brothers once sang, "You're happy now but that won't last." They separated about 1906 after having two children and went their separate ways.
A happy dad in 1908: Thomas Mikkelsen, sporting a clean-shaven look, with his baby daughter Florence. Thomas married my widowed great-grandmother Catherine Petersen in 1906 and Florence was born a year later. This home snapshot was taken outside their home on Loomis Street in Chicago.
In the early 1900s there was a photo style where the toddler subject held a whip. Not sure what this was meant to indicate. At left: Edgar Courtney Gadpaille, brother of Adelaide Gadpaille Jatho, New Orleans, 1900. At right: Marie Petersen, daughter of Hans and Catharina Petersen, Chicago, 1901.
My great-grandmother's older sister, Helena Müller Melchers, at right, born in New York City 1843. She married Theodore Melchers in 1860 in Charleston. The young lady (left) could be any of her daughters: Julia Virginia (born in 1861), Agnes Wilhelmine (born in 1863), or Kate Jenny (born in 1868).
My grandmother Marie Jatho MacLaughlan wasn't big into smiling for photos but here she looks so happy. She's with her grandson David Brewer, age two, about 1954 in Azusa, California where she and my grandfather owned and managed a trailer court.
I've seen bright gold, orange, red, and purple daylilies but 'Lullaby Baby' daylily buds into a mild orange and opens into a subtle ivory with overtones of light mango and pink. I'm going to plant more of these next year.
The Tiedeman siblings of Charleston c. 1902. Edith Elizabeth Tiedeman (1876-1922) studied music and literature, married and had two children. Robert Samuel Tiedeman (1885-1959) was a wholesale grocer with his father and married our cousin Maryliese Jatho in 1942 after being widowed twice.
A pretty portrait from c. 1884 in Charleston SC: Edith Elizabeth and Alice Emily Tiedeman, older sisters of Robert Samuel Tiedeman who married our cousin Maryliese Jatho. The photographer was a Mr. F. Shiffley who rented out a studio in the jeweler's shop of Carrington, Thomas & Co. on King Street.
Louisa Toombs DuBose (later Loulie, and even later Betty Lou) was my cousin Louis DuBose Quin's grandmother. She waas born in 1857 and lived her whole life in Georgia. She married Hugh Pharr Quin in 1879. They had twelve children. A striking portrait from about 1877 in Georgia.
Charleston connection: This lovely portrait shows the family of Hugh Pharr Quin and Loulia Toombs DuBose Quin about 1900. The boy at left, Louis DuBose Quin, grew up in South Carolina, started the publishing firm The Quin Press, and married Olga von Oven Jatho, one of our Jatho cousins.
In the 1950s my dad converted our garage into a wood shop where he liked to wind down from his everyday job and create whatever he wanted. He made furniture and household items, well-crafted and useful. I had a table and chair set, a small wardrobe, and a dresser.
It's time for June replanting on the south patio garden: added begonias, hypoestes (polka-dot-plant), and lobelia. All set for a summer of reading and afternoon tea.
A tufted titmouse shows us what having a tuft is all about.
Tamukeyama Japanese Maple (Acer palmatum var. dissectum 'Tamukeyama').
The cardinal family comes for lunch!
We have Gohr relatives in Kimball, Jackson County, Minnesota but because records are missing in Pomerania, where their ancestors came from, we don't know how we're related, just that DNA confirms the connection. Nevertheless we have this old-fashioned wedding photo to enjoy from 1915, Louisa Otilla Wilhelmina Gohr, born in 1894 in Kimball, and her groom, Hans Gottfried "Fred" Erikson.
Friedrich Kruschke and Elisabetha Wienand, immigrants from Germany, were married in Eau Claire, Wisconsin Thanksgiving Day 1885 and were the parents-in-law of our ancestor Louis Jatho, who married Martha Kruschke. The elder Kruschkes celebrated their 50th anniversary in 1935 with all their children.
Next to the west patio is a sunken flower bed with hostas, daylilies, ajoga, species geraniums, nasturtiums, embraced by magenta 'Regatta' Lobelia.
A rare visitor: an American goldfinch visited us today.
22 years ago I sought help in an online forum, looking in Chicago for Mikkelsen, Petersen, and MacLaughlan, grandad Alva about age 16. A nice lady found this 1910 census entry: my great-grandmother, her second husband, her Petersen children (misspelled) from her first marriage and her new daughter.
I think this blue jay hears the thunder. Better get breakfast before the next storm arrives!
A very glamorous bride in our extended family: this is Dorothy Elizabeth Kruschke of Eau Claire, Wisconsin and her bridegroom Adolph Barney Olson in 1924. Dorothy, twenty-two years old here, was the youngest sister of Martha Kruschke, who was married to my great-uncle Louis Jatho.
A petite tufted titmouse visited the bird feeder today, having a good meal before our evening thunderstorms arrive.
This was probably a staged studio photo with musical props provided by the photographer circa 1892 in Atlanta, Georgia. They're from our Müller family: Phillip, George, and Emile Breitenbucher, whose mother was Elisabetha Charlotta Müller, niece of Rev. Ludwig Müller of Charleston, South Carolina.
Census records missing? Try obits! My DNA matches a Richard (Dick) Müller of Atlanta but he doesn't appear in census records prior to 1910 with his birth family. Why not? Because he was T.E. (Theodore) Müller first (father's 1920 obit) and Dick (Richard E.) Müller (mother's 1927 obit). Name change!
Cats, books, secateurs, tea, and the Giro d'Italia stage five.
Phil owns my sweater and hat now.