Preserve Your Family History by Writing Your Family Stories

•13 Steps to Preserve Your Family History
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph Although the phrase, everybody has a story to tell may sound like a cliche, it's true. And after working as a newspaper reporter for nine years, I know that everyone does, indeed, have a story to tell, including your family members. Think about it. Do your grandmother and grandfather — mother and father — aunts and uncles — tell stories about the good old days? Do they talk about going to school? The fun they had with friends? Family celebrations and holidays?...

•News Release Give Me a Home Where the Dairy Cows Roam
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph COLFAX, WISCONSIN — Did you know that since 1969, the United States has lost 85 percent of its dairy farms. And did you know that since 1969, Wisconsin has lost nearly 70 percent of its dairy farms? I lived away from my hometown in west central Wisconsin for 15 years. When I returned in the mid 1990s, I expected to be living in a farming community again. Instead, I discovered that many of the small family dairy farms like the one where I grew up had disappeared said...

•Book Review Christmas in Dairyland
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph Author/Publisher Christmas in Dairyland by LeAnn R. Ralph Published by LeAnn R. Ralph E6689 970th Ave. Colfax, WI 54730 Printed by Booklocker.com ISBN 1-59113-366-1 $13.95, 2003, 153 pages Reviewer Boyd Sutton Siren, Wisconsin maxdude@centurytel.net Description of the Book Christmas in Dairyland is a collection of short, true stories about a little girl growing up on a small dairy farm in Wisconsin in the early 1960s. The book tells of life for a young girl...

•Whatever Happened to Christmas
?  by: LeAnn R. Ralph Remember when no one started Christmas shopping until after Thanksgiving? Wisconsin author LeAnn R. Ralph remembers it very well. When I was growing up on our dairy farm forty years ago, the stores didn't put up Christmas displays until the day after Thanksgiving. No one was really thinking about Christmas shopping before that, Ralph said. In fact, my mother felt so strongly about it that she didn't even like to hear the word 'Christmas' until after we had finished...

•Ghost Stories
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph When I started teaching English at Northwestern Military and Naval Academy near Lake Geneva, Wisconsin, nobody warned me about the ghosts. Northwestern — a beautiful, old granite building — was a boarding school. A hundred boys lived there, ranging in age from seventh grade through twelfth, although the building could have accommodated maybe twice as many. The school had been in existence for about a century. The hallway leading to the gymnasium was lined with...

•A New Way to Use Old Snapshots
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph If you're like me, you have hundreds of photographs sitting in envelopes. Pictures from birthday parties, weddings, family gatherings, anniversaries, the Fourth of July, Thanksgiving and Christmas. You have already put the best snapshots into albums and these are leftovers. You don't want to throw them away, but you also don't know what to do with them. Instead of letting your snapshots take up space and contribute to the clutter in your home, use them to make collages...

•How to Make Homemade Ice Cream Without an Ice Cream Maker
How to Make Homemade Ice Cream (Without an Ice Cream Maker!)  by: LeAnn R. Ralph COLFAX, WISCONSIN — June is Dairy Month and what better way to celebrate than with homemade ice cream? When I was growing up on our small family dairy farm in west central Wisconsin 40 years ago, my dad would make homemade ice cream using cream and milk from our very own cows and a hand-cranked ice cream freezer. But you don't need an ice cream freezer to make your own homemade ice cream. You can make ice cream...

•An Unexpected Letter
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph It was a couple of weeks after Christmas, and I was standing by my mailbox in the vestibule of the apartment building where I lived in Lexington, Kentucky, holding a letter I had just received. The handwriting was not familiar and neither was the return address, although it was postmarked Seattle, Washington, the same place where Hannah Paulson used to live. Many years ago when I was a little girl growing up on our dairy farm in west central Wisconsin, the Paulsons had...

•How to make Julekake
by LeAnn R. RalphFrom the book: Christmas In Dairyland (True Stories From a Wisconsin Farm)http://ruralroute2.comMy mother was the daughter of Norwegian immigrants who homesteaded our small Wisconsin dairy farm in the late 1800s. Julekake was one of the goodies my mother baked for Christmas.JulekakeThis recipe makes two large round loaves.• 2 cups milk• 1 cup sugar• 1/2 cup butter (or margarine)• 2 packages of yeast• 1/2 cup warm water• 1 teaspoon salt• 1 teaspoon cardamom (substitute...

•New Ways to Use Old Christmas Cards
 by: LeAnn R. Ralph Forty years ago when I was growing up on our dairy farm in Wisconsin, my mother always saved the Christmas cards she had received in the mail. In those days, people sent many more Christmas cards than they do now. Today, I still find myself saving the cards that I get each Christmas. When the holiday season is over, I take them down off the dining-room side of our kitchen cabinets. I look at each one and think about the person who sent it. Then I tuck the cards into...