Sentimental Sunday - The New Year (and Me) Begins

I am a lazy procrastinator. Yup. It's true. These are my worst qualities, the ones it's taken me many years to acknowledge, embrace and try to overcome. As an extremely independent person, I'm the queen of doling out *great* advice, but of course, the worst at taking it. And so it was that as I watched everyone posting their updates on their 2011 goals, and new goals for 2012, I started to twitch.

In all honesty, I've never made a New Years' Resolution. Heck, again, I didn't set goals for myself, outside of my work life. And I've been joking lately that I picked vocations where things never end, where you're never truly finished: Archives and Genealogy. 

There are two amazing things I learned in 2011: I'm frighteningly competitive. Seriously, if you dare me to do something (not in a grammar-school I-bet-you-won't-eat-that-worm kinda way), or say I can't do something, guess what? I will go to Herculean effort to make that thing happen, to learn the skill I need, to research something, anything to get that thing done. The other thing I learned? That when I put some effort into finding people to help me be the very best me I can be, there are some fabulous people out in the world. In the genealogy world in particular, but in my business and personal life as well. 

By the way, if you don't have a genealogy buddy or two, find them! Talking about what we do is one of the best ways to uncover things you didn't realize were there, to see the error in your logic, to see the successes you didn't realize you had, and to generally feel awesomeness. And if you don't think you can find one, or you're shy, send me an email. I'LL be your buddy. 

Here goes: I am going to research and attempt to prove the connection between Estella Wersel (1874-1954) and her long-time companion Stella Piper (unkn-1965).

Estella Wersel c 1890

Estella Wersel c 1910

I am putting my money where my mouth is with regard to those of us who are Last Leaves; Stella and Pipa lived together in California, and when Stella died her very large estate was held in Trust to provide support for Pipa until she died in 1965. They are buried in the same space in a Mausoleum in a cemetery in California. I have no proof of the nature of their relationship, only conjecture based on their ending. I want to know much more about their story and am going to do what I can to uncover it. 

Woo Hoo! I set a goal! Now let's see how I do.