52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks 2025: Week 7 – Letters and Diaries

NOTE: I accepted the 52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks challenge headed by fellow genealogy blogger Amy Johnson Crow. The idea behind this challenge is that you will receive email prompts, a word or phrase, every week, and you find something about your research or family history to write about.  Click HERE to read my first 52 Ancestors blog post in 2019.

I was fortunate enough to have been given several boxes of family ‘stuff’ when my Granny’s, Gladys Denson Mays, house was cleaned out a few years ago. Sifting through old papers and photos was like going down memory lane. One of the things I learned about my Granny is that she would often use personal calendars as a diary of sorts. I have found a few from different years where she would write down what she was doing that day, how she was feeling, who she had seen, or if she was traveling or had out of town guests.

This is a ‘calendar’ from 1987. This was what she wrote for the first few days of our family vacation from Arkansas to Flint, Michigan to visit family. I remember that trip. It was just before my 10th birthday and was a very big deal for us to be traveling as a family that far. If I remember correctly there were 12 of us traveling in three cars. We even went to Canada for a day while we were there, which I thought was the coolest thing ever.

With all the memories I have from that vacation, it was so wonderful to be able to see some of my Granny’s thoughts on the trip and some of the plans that she and her sister’s had made once they were together. To see it and it is in her handwriting makes this even more special.