52 Ancestors – Week 3 – Longevity

Enos, Laura, Maude Emma and Kenneth Hardenbrook abt 1910

Laura Alice (Wortman) Hardenbrook was born 14 April 1886 in the Town of Ulysses, Tompkins County, New York to Menzo and Mary (Taylor) Wortman.

On the evening of June 8, 1905, at the Methodist Episcopal Church in Jacksonville, New York Laura married Enos Hardenbrook. She and Enos had two children, Maude Emma (Hardenbrook) Agard (my grandmother) and Kenneth Hardenbrook.

Enos and Laura lived in a small farmhouse near Jacksonville on Swamp College Road.  The house had two bedrooms; a very small bedroom that they occupied and a small living room and a medium sized kitchen.

The Hardenbrooks moved to Ithaca, New York in the early 1930s. In 1936 they lived at 108 West State Street; in 1937 they lived at 708 N.Aurora Street; in 1938 they moved to 115 Prospect Street where they lived until moving back to Jacksonville some time in the early 1940s.

 

Kenneth and Laura (Wortman) Hardenbrook

I remember great-grandma Hardenbrook as a tall, slim, and serious woman. I don’t know if she ever had formal training, but in her later years she worked as a type of visiting nurse.

Laura (Wortman) Hardenbrook died 28 February 1978 at Ithacacare on Quarry Street, Ithaca, New York at the age of 92. This challenge has brought to my attention that although I knew great-grandma for many years, I didn’t really know her. That will be my next challenge.

Family Cookbook with a Dash of Genealogy

Ten years ago I decided to develop a family cookbook. I typed recipes from index cards and scraps of paper of my mother and grandmother's recipes. I then added my own favorites and those shared by my husband’s family and our friends. Along the way, I put these recipes into categories, developed a table of contents for each category, and then made an index. This compilation was put into a pretty 3-ring binder. Over the years, I have clipped more recipes that I thought looked interesting at the time, and popped them into the divider sleeves.

I’ve decided it is time to pull all the categories together and have the cookbook permanently bound. I’m lucky that most of the recipes have been typed, and the index developed. I went through the sleeves and threw out most of my clippings. I do have a small pile sitting next to my keyboard that need to be included. Typing recipes is not fun!

Since many of the recipes came from loved ones, I decided to give this book a genealogy flavor. I will have a contributor page in the front matter that will have the name of the person, a photo when I have one, and a short bio/genealogy of that person. The sample below is what I will include for my grandmother’s brother, Kenneth Hardenbrook. I’m sure as I work on this I will come up with more ideas to make this publication even more personal and fun.

Kenneth Hardenbrook (shown above with his mother Laura Hardenbrook) was the son of Enos and Laura (Wortman) Hardenbrook. He was born 10 May 1909. He and his sister, Maude Emma were raised in Jacksonville, New York. In 1936 Kenneth was proprietor of Ken’s Lunch located at 212 South Cayuga Street in Ithaca, New York and then in 1941 Kenneth co-owed R&H Diners with L. Gerald Rich. They were proprietors of the Cayuga Diner located at 235 South Cayuga Street, and the Sterling Diner located at 333 East State Street, in Ithaca. Kenneth’s father, Enos, worked as assistant chef at the Sterling Diner. Kenneth married Mildred Elston. Kenneth was a born chef, and his Ken’s Meatballs recipe can be found on page ___.