Googled myself...

I was curious to see what would turn up if I googled myself. (Would my blog turn out to be findable? Are pictures from my wedding still up online?)

It turns out there are quite a few things floating around out there with my name on them. One of them was kind of a nice, if wistful, surprise. My paternal grandmother passed away in 2001, and my father wrote a wonderful, lengthy obituary about her life. It's not San Francisco-related, but I've pasted it here in case you have any interest -- kind of a neat history.

MARTHA [last name ]GRANBY, Conn. / WILLIMANTIC, Conn. / [my hometown] –Martha [LAST NAME], 91, of Granby, Conn., died July 7, 2001, at the homeof her son, [MY DAD] and his wife, [MY MOM], in [MY HOMETOWN]. She was born in Glasgow, Scotland, on April 11, 1910, the daughter of William John andCatherine (Shannon) Moran, whose families had fled Ireland to escape the potato famine and partisan strife. The family immigrated to Quebec in April 1912 amidst the furor immediately following the sinking of the Titanic. Not long after their arrival in Canada, the family settled in Barnston West, a rural Eastern Townships community within a mile of the Vermont border. Having never farmed or experienced the rigors of a Canadian winter, they scrambled to eke out a living. Born to a gifted mother, Martha learned earlythe value of proper diet and balanced nutrition. She had great knowledge ofwild edibles and looked forward every spring to a feast of dandelions, milkweed shoots and cowslips. On the farm, during the hard years, she learned all the ways to prepare snared rabbit and young woodchuck for the table. Years later, when her squeamish children expressed disbelief at the idea of woodchuck edibility, she said, “”There isn’t much that can beat woodchuck stew.” Her recipes consisted of basic steps and direct guidance. “First kill, skin, and gut a woodchuck. Then cut it into two pieces,slicing it through just behind the shoulder blades. Discard the front part and boil the rest,” and so on. Contemplating woodchucks, she said, “They are best early in the season. If you’ve ever had woodchuck pie you’d know it was good. Why wouldn’t it be? They eat fresh green grass all the time. And woodchucks are plentiful. Hell, every decent hayfield has ten of them. How anyone around these parts can suffer from malnourishment is beyond me. All it takes is a little work to make a meal you’d be proud to feed to company.” At age 10, Martha was given a Sharpe’s .57 caliber Civil War rifle by an aged veteran of that war. She and her brothers learned to pour their own lead bullets in drilled hardwood blocks, split the blocks and shave the lead slugs to fit both their weapon barrels and the cartridge casings, which they then loaded. At the age of 16, she and her 10-year-old brother, Frank, ran the family farm when her older brothers chose to follow the Canadian wheat harvest west. Martha grew to be an accomplished teamster, log skidder and woodlot estimator, out-finagling Yankee males at their own game. She was also an expert horsewoman. Her children remember the pride and fear they felt at seeing her, years later, standing atop the bare back of a cantering horse. As a young woman, Martha played the violin with the Stanstead College/Community Orchestra and then, years later, with the Manchester, (Conn.) Symphony. She became an accomplished watercolorist despite a late start, beginning art lessons at age 60. Her work has been displayed in the Emily LeBaron Gallery of North Hatley, Quebec, the Chaffee Gallery of Rutland, Vt., and the Ellsworth Gallery of Simsbury, Conn. Martha’s paintings are presently held in private collections in the United States, Canada and France. She produced several hundred landscapes in her 25 years as a watercolorist. Her other interests included hiking, skiing Mount Mansfield in the pre-lift days, raising Dobermans, gardening and berry cultivation, driftwood lamp making, sewing and quilt making. She always looked forward to the annual expedition north to the family farm in Canada. Steeped from birth in Irish wit, humor and fatalism, and gifted at observation and brevity, she had a consummate ability to drive home a verbal nail. Martha always was a keen observer of nature and a lover of animals. As a young child, she had the responsibility for several hundred baby chicks which, grown into egg producers, were a major source of family income. “I learned not to help chicks escape the shell no matter how hard they struggled,” she said. “”Those I helped died anyway. I left them alone after I figured that out. They developed the strength they needed for life from the struggle to be born. I guess having it easy isn’t all that it’s cracked up to be.” Never having had it all that easy herself, Martha believed in persistence, frugality and compound interest, values she imparted to her offspring with varying degrees of success. Her love of art, music and literature they all absorbed at an early age. Martha was predeceased by her parents, her husband, Frank, and all of her siblings: a sister, Cecelia Ellis, and four brothers, John, William, Daniel, and Frank Moran. Survivors include her three children, [names removed], Nine grandchildren, [names, including mine, removed];14 great-grandchildren, [names removed]; and several nieces and nephews. The family wishes to thank the staff of the Hospice Program of the Franklin County Home Health Agency, 3 Home Health Circle, Suite 1, St. Albans, Vt. 05478, for their incomparable support during Martha’s last days. Those so inclined may make a donation to Franklin County Hospice in Martha’s memory. A memorial celebration of Martha’s life will be held in Connecticut in the fall at the convenience of the family.