Anonaunt's World

Me, Dave and Jasper.

Jasper is the oldest Deaf, Dave is the middle and OHCODA, and alas, me the baby Deaf. OHCODA means Only Hearing Child of Deaf Adults. This pic was taken last September in front of our grandparents' farm. I will miss that farm, as it was sold recently to another person. I have had many memories, also I'm sure my brothers have, too.

Ive talked about Cameron in my September post.. now I have to talk about 3 of my other nephews/neice. Ethan is Cameron's brother (my brother Jasper and Christee's sons)...Ethan is soo dramatic and so creative! He can get one object and make it useful for many purposes.
He is also a BIG flirter, yet loyal to one girl. Ha ha, a 4 years old boy, already has a girl. :) Her name is Sarah :). Here are a few picz of them...

Halee, Lindsay, Mike, Rita and Blair Zirnheld

WHOA! I just came home from the Zirnheld visitation... I have known that the Hester and the Zirnheld familes has been popular, but not THAT popular...the church was PACKED, i mean PACKED, with families, friends, acquanitices and whatnot. It was PACKED double the church size, which means about 2000 people came to show their respects to Rita and her girls - Blair, Lindsey and Halee- and Rita's Deaf parents, James and Beulah Hester, and Mike's family. One person even flied in from Seattle, Washington, giving up his christmas vacation just to be with the family. That shows how much friends value their relationship with each other. I saw several friends from out of town, out of state, etc that you wouldnt see at an event other than that. Mike was such a gentleman. He and Rita had one of the BESTEST and strongest marriages I've seen ever. They would be married 30 years this August, Rita being 20 and Mike being 19 when they got married.

It tears me away when i see a widow giving up his/her spouse for eternity.

Friday December 24, 2004
Boyle man dies in Woodford crash
A Boyle County man was killed early this morning when his vehicle crashed into a garbage truck on U.S. 60 in Woodford County.
Michael Zirnheld, 49, of 1374 Quirks Run Road, died in the crash, which occurred about 6:30 a.m., said Woodford County Coroner Steve Ward.
Zirnheld was returning home from work at Kentucky Utilities in Lexington when his vehicle slammed into the back of a garbage truck stopped at the intersection of U.S. 60 and Pisgah Lane, near the landmark castle, Ward said.
"He did not brake, he did not slow down," Ward said.
Zirnheld's survivors include his wife, Rita, and three daughters.
Copyright The Advocate-Messenger 2004

.::thunderous echoes of deafness::.

My parents, Jasper, me and Dave at Grandparents Williams circa 1980's.


My mommmmieee and me circa 1985?
Christmas always brings me so much memories. Of course we cannot stay small anymore :(. but we are able to watch our next generation enjoy it so much more.
One memory I have is after the first UL - UK basketball game, Dad and Pappy would use us naive kids as scapegoats. One christmas Pappy gave me a UK Dream Game t-shirt... and the next christmas we gave him UL ashtray, etc. It contunited until we were older enough to know the drill, lol. In a way, i miss that tradition. This saturday, the 18th, there will be a UK-UL game...may the best team win :)

Monday December 13, 2004
Deaf and nearly blind, Strauss is an 'inspiration'
By HERB BROCK Staff Writer
Abigail Strauss has excelled at almost every stage of her young life.
The former Danvillian performed well in elementary, middle and high schools. She earned bachelor's and master's degrees in college with a record of good grades. She has held two highly responsible positions in social work and counseling, the current post being at a prestigious school in New York City, where she lives by herself and gets around as well as a veteran cabbie. She has traveled alone around the country and the world.
All of this and Strauss is only 29, deaf and nearly blind.
"I (recently) taught a class for a group of hearing parents from around the world who had just found out that their children were deaf. I was teaching them how to work with their children," she said Strauss through interpretation provided by her mother, Carolyn Strauss.
"Some of the parents told me after the class that I was an inspiration. They were impressed that I am deaf-blind (but) am able to live a normal life," she said.
"Normal"? A proud mother begged to expand on her daughter's word, if not differ with it.
"Abby has led as normal and ordinary a life as any of our other (three) children, but she truly is an extraordinary young woman," said Carolyn Strauss.
"We always knew Abby was very smart. She picked up sign language and comprehension very quickly," she said. "My husband (Dr. Howard Strauss) and I were committed to providing her as normal a childhood as possible and assign to her and provide her the same expectations, challenges and opportunities as we did our other children.
"She has worked hard to be as well educated as possible, to pursue a good career, to lead an active live and do it on her own."
Speaks at KSD
Abigail Strauss was in Danville last week to give a speech at the Kentucky School for the Deaf before a group of Gallaudet University alumni, as well as KSD staff and students. The speech was, in part, a lesson in history about famous deaf educators, Laurent Clerc and Thomas Gallaudet, and how Clerc not only established teaching methods for deaf students but also developed ways to educate deaf children who also are blind. The speech also was Abigail Strauss' personal story - the story of a deaf-blind youngster with courage who now is an adult on a crusade.
The crusader was born deaf. Carolyn Strauss said she and her husband, a Louisville dentist, wanted the best possible education and home life for their second child, so they decided to enroll her at KSD and to move from Louisville to Danville so she could be a day student and grow up in her own home. She later was diagnosed with Usher's Syndrome, a progressive disease of the eyes that affects about 5 percent of deaf people.
"We had no deafness, or blindness, for that matter, on either side of our families, and none of our other children is deaf or blind," said Carolyn Strauss, whose other children are Ted, who is a resident oral surgeon; Peter, who is in law school; and Joanna, a fourth-grade teacher.
"But other than learning sign language - Abby was my teacher, by the way - we did not do anything differently or treat her any differently from the other children," she said.
Abigail Strauss was a student at KSD from ages 2 to 14. She then transferred from KSD to the Model Secondary School for the Deaf in Washington, D.C., and, after graduating from MSSD, went to Gallaudet University in D.C., where she earned her bachelor's and master's degrees in guidance counseling. She landed a job as a case manager for the New York Society for the Deaf, where she accessed various services for developmentally-delayed deaf people. She then was hired for her current position as guidance counselor at the Lexington School for the Deaf in New York City.
Her avocation as an advocate
As much as Strauss loves her vocation as a guidance counselor, it's her avocation as an advocate that is driving her. "I have hopes for both deaf children and deaf-blind children," she said. "A lot of deaf and deaf-blind children do not have strong academic backgrounds or skills. My hope is that they are given access to the best possible education and support systems so they can succeed in life."
But success depends not only on continuing to break down barriers between the deaf and deaf-blind cultures and the hearing world, but also on eliminating barriers that separate the deaf and the deaf-blind cultures.
"Many deaf people are put off by deaf-blind people," Strauss said. "The deaf feel uncomfortable around the deaf-blind. They put down the deaf-blind."
The discomfort and even contempt has to do with communication, she said.
"Deaf people rely on their sight, they're dependent on the visual to communicate. They don't like the tactile form of communication that the deaf-blind use. They don't like that much touching," she said. "The deaf-blind sign by holding each other's hands. That method takes longer than normal deaf signing and it involves more details, like having to explain where everyone is sitting and other details."
Another part of the negative feelings the deaf may have toward the deaf-blind has to do with fear, Strauss said.
"Losing your sight is scary," she said. "Deaf people rely so much on their sight to communicate, to exist, that the idea of losing theirs - an idea that becomes very real when they are around the deaf-blind - scares them."
Building a "bridge between the deaf and deaf-blind cultures"
Strauss's goal is to help build a "bridge between the deaf and deaf-blind cultures," to improve communication and understanding between them and to have them join together in mutually-beneficial efforts to improve education and job opportunities.
"The deaf and deaf-blind have too much in common to be so far apart," she said.
To reach her goal, Strauss said she is offering herself as a "role model," because she has experienced life as both a deaf person and a blind person and made it. She traces her success to her parents.
"My parents believed in me, always believed that I could accomplish any task regardless of the difficulty and believed I could achieve so much," she said.
Now a confident and independent young woman, Strauss is looking to the future. She wants to be involved in projects to establish more after-school programs at deaf schools. She also would like to spend more time as a motivational speaker for deaf and deaf-blind students. She also is considering writing a book about her life.
The idea for writing a book came from Strauss's younger brother, Peter, whose first word as an infant was the sign for "more" - and second, according to his sister, was the sign for "No, Abby!"
Her mother would be a good candidate to write a forward.
"Abby is living proof that anyone can excel at school and work and in life if they work really hard and don't ever give up," said Carolyn Strauss. "She has so much courage, so much strength.Copyright The Advocate-Messenger 2004

This is a good tool fro family search..it is owned by Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day saints. Larrys cousin Melanie gave me this url for family search. I use it for connecting my uncle Lee with my husband.

Sarita

What a shock!!!!!!!!! My family tree is getting complicated as of now! My uncle Leeland....IS my HUSBAND's 3rd COUSIN!!!!!!!!!!!!!! wow...I have to use his quote "IT LOOKS BAD!" Because he and my father knew each other since they were little and Leeland married my dad's sister Carolyn and all that...BUT never knew he had a deaf cousin of his own. I met and married Larry 4 and a half years ago and Lee and Larry has been pesters since then. Carolyn felt that Lee and Larry was related in some way cuz of the stories Larry had about his family and the stories Lee had about his. but never connected them together...UNTIL...Lee talked with his uncle Clayton Stevenson (which we later found out that Larry knew him only as a Cousin Clay) and somehow broguht up about us..Harkness.. and Clayton said he knew a cousin who was deaf...and his dad had mules and bought farm in Indiana , etc etc.. Larry said YES his grandfather Homer had a farm in Indiana and from there all hell broke loose, lol. As of today, Leeland is my uncle AND my 3rd cousin :) WOW its complicated, eh?
Me and my honey

Uncle Leeland