Great Artist, Great Person

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Calvin Maglinger

05 Dec 1924 - 20 Jan 2010

The above photo of Calvin is a perfect capture of how he looked, but also his personality. He had a wonderful sly, witty sense of humor that he shared freely with everyone! Becky & I enjoyed visiting with Ruth & Calvin to hear Ruth set him up for a story or joke. He was a great local artist with one of his paintings "Water Street" of the Evansville downtown warf of the past used for the cover of the book "Around the Bend" by Donald Baker, former Director of Willard Library. We have a copy of this print along with "Doe Run" and "Foggy Morn" for three great works of art. Two are proudly hung in our living room along with Evelyn Steinkuhl's print of Willard Library. Calvin's parents were Fred Maglinger & Bertha Long. One of Bertha's brothers was Byron Long, my grandfather, which made my mother Bernadine Long and Calvin first cousins. Byron & Bertha along with Melvin, John Logan, Dave, Froni Hodge, Alice Woodward, Ellen Dickens & Nora Abrams were the children of James Tobias Long, Jr. & Nancy Francis Gardner. They had come from Horse Cave, Hart Co., KY to Owensboro, KY where most called home. Calvin & Ruth with sons Paul & Stan made their Evansville home in the area near Sunset Memorial Cemetery just north of St. George Road. Coincidently, when my younger brother, Don, was born, we lived on St. George Rd. near Atlas Van Lines to the west of the same cemetery and further east of the cemetery on St. George Rd. lived a distant cousin of Mom's maternal line (not related to the Long's), Joseph Fabian Mattingly.

Here is Calvin's Obituary from the Evansville Courier & Press:

Calvin C. Maglinger, 85, of Evansville passed away on January 20, 2010. He was born on December 5, 1924, in Owensboro, Kentucky, to Fred and Bertha Maglinger. Calvin was a U.S. Army veteran. In 1947, he married Ruth Lionberger and together they enjoyed 62 years of marriage. After WWII, under the GI Bill, Calvin entered the Kansas City Art Institute. He received a diploma in Graphic Arts and a Bachelor of Fine Arts degree. He also received a diploma in Commercial Art from the Famous Artist's School in Westport, Connecticut. Calvin worked for 12 years as manager of creative services for Texas Gas Transmission Corporation. He retired from The Evansville Courier & Press, a E.W. Scripps Co. newspaper, after 21 years as art director. More than twenty of Calvin's paintings have had prints sold nationally. His Regional Art Series, popularized in the 1980s, has been well received and has won wide acclaim. A recipient of numerous awards, the artist has been honored with one-man shows and his originals are in the collections of a number of Midwest art patrons. Calvin was given a special medallion from the Indiana State Museum for the painting, Foggy Morn. His painting, Quiet Time, appeared on the Artists of America calendar in 1995 and he completed historical paintings of the Ohio River for the Casino Aztar Evansville riverboat in 1999. He was also admired by and inspired many local Indiana artists, including Evelyn Steinkuhl.

Calvin was preceded in death by his infant son, Phillip Irwin Maglinger; and by siblings, J.W., Woodrow, Hoover, Homer, William and Odelia.

Survivors include his wife, Ruth; sons, Stan (Cathy) Maglinger and Paul (Jenny) Maglinger; grandchildren, Brad (Meredith) Maglinger, Jennifer (Kevin) Banning, Jessica Maglinger and Andrea Maglinger; great-grandchildren, Alexis, Isaac and Isabella; and by siblings, Fred Maglinger Jr., Ozzie Maglinger and Hazel Miller.

Funeral services will be held 11 a.m. Saturday, January 23, 2010, at Sunset Funeral Home. Burial will follow in Sunset Memorial Park. Visitation 4 to 8 p.m. Friday and 10 a.m. until service time on Saturday. Memorial contributions may be made on behalf of Calvin Maglinger to the Alzheimer's Association .

Published in Courier Press on January 21, 2010

- Compiled by JGWest

STAYING AFLOAT in the GENE POOL -Genetic DNA News

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Adoption Search: DNA Finds Birth Parents...

At our last TSGS meeting (12 Jan 2010), Becky West led a discussion group concerning adoptions. Becky was put up for adoption at the time of birth and officially adopted when she was about 1.5 years old. With my research help, she found her birth family right here in Evansville.

I just found this article about using DNA for Adoptees to use for birth parent searches! I am passing it on to our bloggers. http://www.dna-testing-adviser.com/AdoptionSearch.html by Dick Hill.

There is a lot of other information available with the links on the left column of the above article involving a variety of DNA testing on this web site of DNA Testing Advisor.

- Compiled by JGWest

From the FIRST MATE's PHOTO ALBUM...

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THE NEW BARN!

You all have been hearing about my huge garage demolition project...
this is the end of the project. That is - to build a large 12 foot by 24 foot barn that is 13 feet high to provide a loft for (additional) storage.



Inside showing the 12'x16' loft. In the middle of the loft, it is about 5'6" tall.

- Photos taken & submitted by JGWest

"Brick Walls"

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What's this all about?

Have we reduced genealogy to building walls? Well sometimes we have built our own walls that we can not get past. What I mean by that is how we do research. We sometimes get excited about new leads or the volume of new information. When this happens, we sometimes do not begin to build a solid foundation for our research... making sure of our sources and evaluating the evidence before we continue. Now, you would think that building a poor foundation would make tumbling a brick wall easier! This fact would be valid except that we have piled a lot of garbage & other waste products around the wall to fortify it. Like the old joke about college degrees: "BS, MS & PHD" - the last being "piled higher & deeper." You might ask about making a solid foundation, wouldn't that make it harder to knock down a brick wall? No, because your documentation and sources provide lots of doors and windows to the previous generations.

However, sometimes we have been doing quality work building our family history, but records are missing or there seem to be few clues to where to look for our ancestors. Much has been written on this subject. Cyndi's List has a whole category devoted to this subject with 38 links to sites that attempt to help us tear down brick walls stopping us from going back in time. The category is called: "Hit a Brick Wall?" http://www.cyndislist.com/hitbrick.htm The first link is for buying a copy of the book "500 Brick Wall Solutions to Genealogical Problems"... we have a copy of this book at Willard Library. I reviewed it for the Tri-State Packet several years ago.

Good luck & keep digging and knocking down brick walls!

- Written by JGWest

STAYING AFLOAT in the GENE POOL -Genetic DNA News

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Perspective

At our TSGS monthly meeting last Tuesday night, Larry Goss made a report about having all put the last 2 issues of the Tri-State Packet on a CD. I asked a somewhat dumb question as to how many issues he had on that CD with his reply: “all of them!” After the laughter subsided, I mentioned that the day had been unlucky for me and jokingly stated that Larry was just adding to it. I told everyone about my fall on my back as I stepped on a sheet of ice... I did not injure myself. Former TSGS President Karin Kirsch stated that it was not an unlucky day, because I was actually lucky not to get hurt. I thought she was right! - I had the wrong perspective of the incident.

Perspective comes into play when we consider a glass with a substance at the half-way mark... is it half full or half empty? If you dislike buttermilk, but have to drink a glass of it, the glass being half empty sounds best. However, if you love buttermilk, the glass being still half full is best. Simple perspective!

Perspective of how we view things changes the meaning of the results and is true with our genealogical research. We often get very disappointed when we get a “hot new lead” only ending up proving that that person or family is not ours. However, with the right perspective, it should be good news, since you just eliminated one family to be confused with your correct line... you are narrowing the search. That is an important discovery concerning your ancestry.

This happens all of the time with genealogical DNA testing. You seem to wait forever for the results only to discover that you did not match with anyone. Very disappointing! Sometimes this is a result of not having very many with your surname taking the test, yet. But if there are larger numbers testing in your group with no matches... you can eliminate the (documented) families from further research by you. I put "documented," since some may think they are descended from someone, but has not proven it. That might mean they are not descended from that line.

Other reasons you may not match is that back in time your surname was different than it is today. Anglicized names occurred often in America, especially with German names in Colonial times and both World Wars. Adoptions & illegitimate births ended with name changes from the original father. Sometimes people changed their names to escape the law or their past. This is always a perspective that you must look for when doing your genealogical research. It would be important to find any name changes as it will affect your family history and might just make it an interesting story!

Remember to always keep your genealogy in perspective!

- Written by JGWest