A Day at the Fair

Dear Diary,

A lovely day for the fair!  But honestly, the traffic and crowds were a bit much for me.  Still, I wandered around and spent a great deal of time with the animals.  They were all looking their very best and their proud owners were brushing and washing and getting them ready for judging.  I especially liked the 4-H exhibits and that little pig pile was too precious for words.  It is a beautiful fair and everything was so well kept and clean.  It began in 1851, the same year my house was built!

I visited the museum and the old school house and there I found something that actually related to my family research amazingly.  On the wall was a 1911 map of Europe and it showed Vilnius, the city my father's parents immigrated from, as being part of Russia.  I have their marriage certificate and it does say they were from Russia and I was always puzzled by that but at that time it was a part of Russia.  They were ethnic Poles but a large part of Poland was under Russian control.

So, in a very unlikely place I found another element of my family story.  I photographed the old map and will include it in the family chronicle.  I've included it as an extra photograph for those who like old maps.