a piece of home

with time to kill in indiana we found ourselves in fort wayne. visiting my friend who lived there had been postponed for at least a day. not sure what to do, i turned to the web in hopes of finding something interesting.

turns out that the Allen County Public Library has the second largest genealogy collection in the united states. that was enough to sell me.

upon arrival the one downside of the library became apparent. they were preparing to move into a new building and their temporary quarters while huge was not set up for wi/fi. this put it an immediate damper on my hopes of doing extensive research and entering it immediately into the computer.

other than that the library was a book lovers paradise. four stories worth of books with an entire floor dedicated to geneology.

for cristian there was an entire floor of childrens and teen books with tons of activities. i left him to his fun. and headed to family history heaven.

the entire floor was filled with books, microfiche, newspaper logs and computer terminals the few hours i had would not even make a dent in what was available.

so i did my best to brush the surface.

the brueckner side of the family is the one with the least amount of available data. all i knew was that at one point they came from cinncinati. i went to the ohio section and spent an hour or two looking for information on brueckner's. i found two possible connections through wedding announcements and death notices that bore further research. which will require the ordering of certificates from the state. not much but it was as a start.

without realizing hours had passed and my time was running short. so i decided to do a quick run through the california section.

there i found a treasure. a book published in 1927. History of Monrovia is the early history of my hometown. lots of cool information including the story of the great forest fire of 1924. i had never even heard of the fire. the author though presented the story in a matter of fact yet dramatic presentation. what struck me the most was that just like today the fire was caused by carelessness. a gentleman was walking with his family, paused to light a cigarette and tossed the match to the ground. he continued on his way for ten feet or so and woosh he looked behind him and fire was racing up the hillside.

i only had to travel 2000 miles to find a little piece of home.