Ella Hough, full of promise
My great-aunt, Ella Hough, was an amazing artist. I know because I have her sketchbook. She was born in 1868 […]
heirlooms
My mother, mom and opera singer
Jane Ruth Elder, my mother, grew up in Tacoma, Washington, during the Depression in the family of a teacher. In
My father, engineer
This slide rule belonged to my dad, the engineer. Eldred W. Hough, although he was the oldest son, wasn’t named
heirlooms
Thomas Hough, immigrant and entrepreneur
Thomas Hough, an enterprising young man, was born in 1844 into a lower-class family in Yorkshire, England, and didn’t like
Granny Jennie’s mother, stuck on the prairie
This is about Granny Jennie’s mother Mary Jane, who dominated the Illinois prairie around her in the late 1800s but
heirlooms
Granny Jennie, a genteel lady
My Granny Jennie, born in 1885, hand-painted this pitcher in an art class in college. She had a college degree,
heirlooms
My grandfather, a surveyor
I am sorting stuff from the attic and basement. I ran across my grandfather’s precision surveying instrument. Later on I
The tale of Granny’s punch bowl: where next?
When I was a kid, Granny had a punch bowl in the middle of her dining room table. She was