Fearless Females ~ Day 3 [a little bit late]

Fearless Females: 31 Blogging prompts to celebrate National Women’s History Month is brought to us by Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist. Be sure to take a look at her post showing the whole month’s worth of prompts and then jump in and play along!

March 3 — Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

Hildegarde M Ritchie

My name, Diana, is not one that is anywhere in my family tree. My Dad used to tease me, however that they ALMOST named me after his Aunt Hildegard!! My Mom always said that they never even considered that, but to this day my Dad will sometime says, “We really should have named you after Hildegarde and maybe she would have left you some money” or variations on that theme.

I do something very similar with my nieces. I tell them from time to time that I wanted their Mom to name one of them Magdalena. That is a name that appears on the Swiss-German side of my Dad’s family.  I rather like it myself, but my sister wouldn’t go for it. Like my Dad, however, that doesn’t keep me from bringing it up to them in a variety of ways.

Fearless Females ~ Day 2

Fearless Females: 31 Blogging prompts to celebrate National Women’s History Month is brought to us by Lisa Alzo at The Accidental Genealogist. Be sure to take a look at her post showing the whole month’s worth of prompts and then jump in and play along!

March 2 — Post a photo of one of your female ancestors. Who is in the photo? When was it taken? Why did you select this photo?

This is an easy choice for me.  I've chosen Nelle EICKELBERG, my great-grandmother and the original "Random Relative" of my first post.

I'm not sure when this photo was taken but it's always been one of my favorites of Nelle.  Her son, my Grandfather, Jack H QUICK used to tell this story about his mother.

On his very first day of school the teacher asked his name and he replied, "Jack H Quick."  She promptly told him that "Jack" was just a nickname and his real name must be John.  She also quizzed him on what the "H" stood for and refused to believe him when he said he didn't have a middle name, it was just Jack H Quick.  Throughout the whole first day the teacher called him "John."

Upon arriving home from school little Jack told his mother about his first day.  He wanted to know if his real name was indeed John and why his mother had never told him that.  Nelle did not think much of this story and the next day marched down to school with her son.  She told the teacher in no uncertain terms that she had named her son JACK and JACK was what she expected him to be called.  [She also straightened her out on the middle name issue.]

While I believe the picture above was taken prior to that time*, somehow whenever my Grandfather would relate this story I always saw Nelle sailing into that school wearing this hat!  She was not someone to be trifled with ~ truly as "fearless female"!



 *My Grandfather was born on July 3, 1911 and so would have started school about 1916/1917 and the style of dress seems to predate that.

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