Category Archives: Family Connections

Posts that are relevant to my family.

Looking Forward

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Making these short music/picture videos has been an engaging project (at least for me).  For the past six months, I have been cautious and, I like to think, considerate as this pandemic has stymied my participating in so many of the activities I would usually enjoy.  And I expect to be making similar adjustments over the coming year as well.  I am thinking up some new projects to focus on, mostly because I know that having a project going is my way of staving off boredom and depression.  This is likely to be my last video for now as I turn to something else, so for this one I thought I would share some of my memories and images that help me look forward toward the future, something that I did pretty easily when I was younger but that requires some intentional choices on spending my time now that I have so much unstructured time to spend.  People, activities, books, and movies that have spurred me onward include my grandmother, my family, my daughter, my friends, teaching and the field of folklore studies, and of course my music and writing.  I hope the video sparks similar incentives for you from your own store of memories.

Hoping for better things ahead.

Father’s Day

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My father, Charles E. Dolby, was born and grew up in Huntington County, Lancaster Township, in northern Indiana.  His parents were Frank and Gertrude (Beghtel) Dolby.  For most of his adult life he lived on Vine Street.  He was trained as a barber and practiced barbering for a while but then joined the City Fire Department as well as working off days at Home Lumber Company.  He was an excellent carpenter and expanded our house to accommodate the family of seven and also built a lake cottage up in Noble County, Indiana.  He loved fishing and kept bee moths in the refrigerator (Ick).  He encouraged my singing and guitar playing as a teenager, and I think he was really proud to be driving me down to Bloomington to start my college education.  He died in 1999, just before the start of the new millennium.  I often wonder what he would make of things to day.  He was a natural engineer and could fix almost anything.  I miss him.  The song I sing in this video is a traditional ballad, Child 113, and it tells of the fate of a mythical father.

My father, Charles Dolby

Mother’s Day 2020

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My mother, Loretta Dolby

I miss my mother every day. She was a truly marvelous person. I wrote this song–“The First One”–shortly after she died eighteen years ago. Loretta Dolby was bright, creative, caring, gracious, loving, musical, patient, hard-working, always fair, insightful, nearly always smiling, and above all warmly and intensely engaged with everyone around her. At age sixteen, she lost her own mother and took over the role of mother to her toddler age sister, helped her father and brothers on the farm, and set aside her own plans for college for a while until she could work, borrow, and scrimp her way through Manchester College. She became a teacher and taught fourth graders for many years. She married and had five children. I was the fourth. My life has been immensely blessed by having her as my mother and guiding light.