My genealogy doesn’t begin with my grandmother but my interest and dedication to preserving my family history certainly does begin with her. She was Margaret Mary Atckison. She was born in March 1899 in Melrose, Minnesota. She had four sisters and one brother. Unfortunately, I never met her brother John but I met her sisters. They’re shown below this 1963 photograph taken in Hayward, California.
They are from left to right, Genevieve, Bertha, Agnes, Evelyn, and Margaret. My grandmother was the shortest in stature at 4’10” but in my world she had the largest heart. However, I dearly loved Bertha who was like a second grandmother to me and Evelyn. I never knew Genevieve and Agnes well since they lived in Los Angeles, California while we lived in Fremont, California. Unfortunately, I don’t have a photograph of John Ervin Atckison. For reference, his middle name is one of the possibilities for the name of his maternal grandfather Oscar E. Johnson.
Bertha was the oldest and the first married. She married Charles Nelson, who died in August 1936. She was a widow for a number of years and remarried a Mr. Hanson, who later left her a widow again. Bertha had only one child with her first husband. The child is a daughter named Virgina Rose Nelson. Bertha’s middle name was Magdelena. It was chosen to honor her maternal grandmother. My grandmother and all her sisters had wonderful memories of their grandmother Magdelena Philippe. The four generation picture of the maternal line shortly after the birth of Virginia Rose in the summer of 1917. It has Magdelena Philippe, Virginia Rose Nelson, Bertha Atckison, and Elizabeth Johnson from left to right, and they’re listed with their birth surnames.
My grandmother was a unique woman for many reasons. Foremost in my mind and heart is her testimony of the divinity of Jesus Christ. While a traditional Catholic in her day, we might call her an Evangelic Catholic today. She taught me that Jesus Christ is my Savior, and she instilled in me a love for reading the scriptures (at that time the scriptures meant the Bible). She also taught me that it is important to be kind to others, and important for each of us to achieve as much as God allows. That we should leave the footprints of our lives in good works. In her way, this was how she interpreted Jesus’ parable of the talents (Matthew 24:14-30; Luke 19:12-28).
A moment frozen in time with my grandmother is July 20th 1969. That’s when we watched Apollo 11‘s Neil Armstrong walk on the moon. My grandmother said, “I never thought that in my lifetime man would fly, let alone walk on the moon.” In her lifetime, we went from the horse and buggy days to automobiles, airplanes, and space ships traveling to the moon. These were truly amazing events that we now take for granted.
This blog is dedicated to my family, which includes the Atckison, McLaughlin, Carlson, and Mattisson families (the four corners) and their ancestors. It hopes to tell the story of almost forty years of research into my family history, and all the stories I’ve been told. The hope is that they’re not lost to my children or posterity. I also hope to flesh out the genealogy records with content that transcends mere names in a pedigree.