First Gifts

As I have mentioned over and over, I remember starting into genealogy as a boy and looking at lists of Hagenbuch names, dates, and places from various sources. Back then, one could buy a “family history” book which really had nothing to do with the history of a family. It was a compilation of people living in the United States and their addresses associated with a certain surname. At least our Hagenbuch family had folks who connected the dots to show how different family groups were related. We had Enoch Hagenbuch’s history, William Hagenbaugh’s research, and mentions of our family in county history books and other publications.

Andrew and I pride ourselves on pushing the limits to let everyone know through our articles that material history, photographs, and family stories have an important place in our family’s genealogy. Once again this was brought to mind a few weeks ago when my wife, Linda, found the first gift that Homer Hagenbuch (b. 1916) gave to Irene Faus (b. 1920) back in 1937. These are my parents. Linda had been getting ready to have a yard sale. While looking through a box of items, she came across two, small beaded purses. Inside the one was a silk scarf of red, white, and blue with a tiny note in my mother’s handwriting: “1937 My first gift from Homer.”

Scarf given by Homer Hagenbuch to Irene Faus as a gift on Christmas in 1937

I cannot remember ever seeing this before. I can truly say that the scarf is a treasure and just as important as the scrap of paper so we can identify the importance of the scarf. How often I have stated that we Hagenbuchs are very fortunate to have so many material items that give substance to our family history. Along with the many items Andrew and I have written about during the last nine and a half years—Anna Elizabeth Hagenbuch’s fraktur, a beam from William Hagenbuch’s Montour County home, and Henry Hagenbuch’s Sunday school book—we now have 17-year-old Irene Faus’ scarf given to her by her beau, Homer. This item is important not so much because it’s a piece of material history from my immediate family, but because it brings out so many other “first gift” stories that should put the icing on each family’s genealogical cake.

When was the last time you thought about the first gifts that you and your now-spouse exchanged when you were dating? Or as in the story of Homer and Irene, when did you consider the gifts that your parents or grandparents lovingly gave to each other? Linda has a better memory than I do about this. She reminded me that within the first few months of our dating experience during the summer of 1972 I had given her a jewelry box. We both remembered the piece of jewelry that I gave her at about the same time.

Jewelry box given by Mark Hagenbuch to Linda Gutshall as a gift in 1972

I was a newly inducted member of a national fraternity at that time, Sigma Pi. I was attending Lock Haven State College, and I was proud of becoming a member of the fraternity, forging friendships and memories with fellows, some of whom I am still in contact with. I wanted to “go steady” with my newfound girl, now my wife, Linda. So, I bought a lavalier—a necklace with the Greek letters Sigma and Pi. This meant Linda was my steady, and it stuck as we have been steady together since then, celebrating 50 years of marriage this December. Of course, Linda still has the jewelry box and the lavalier, and we have the little story from 1972 that goes with those first gifts.

I asked Andrew about his first gift to his wife, Sara. He had made her a beautiful journal that he had bound using a coptic stitch. She, in turn, filled the pages with thoughts during their first years of dating. Sara also saved the card that Andrew made to go with the gift, which was given for Christmas in 2005 about a month after they started dating.

Journal and card made by Andrew Hagenbuch and given to Sara Mowery as a gift in 2005

Those first gifts that I gave Linda and the first gift that Andrew gave Sara are the icing on the cake of family history. So, the question is asked again, when was the last time you thought about first gifts? And, to go one step further, have you left a written record for your family and your descendants to enjoy these stories that can bring your romance to life for them? Granted, some gifts and stories are private. But, we should share a few with our family to help make us more than a name and a date.

The discovery of my mother’s first gift from my father—two people who were just beginning their love life together—led me to research another family treasure that my sister, Barb, protects. We are fortunate to have my mother’s five-year-long diary beginning on January 1, 1937. She was 16 years old at the time. The diary is a treasure for our immediate family, just like the Anna Elizabeth Hagenbuch (b. 1754) fraktur is a treasure for all Hagenbuchs descended from the patriarch Andreas (b. 1715).

In the diary, Mom is cautious with sharing some of the details in the events she writes about, using initials for some of her early heartthrobs and not revealing details about her nights out. As a young girl during the Great Depression, my mother was the oldest of six children. She was literally “farmed out” to friends and relatives, first living with her grandmother, Louisa Amelia (Miller) Hilner (b. 1863), in the early 1930s. Then she held odd jobs with neighboring families, staying with those families to do work in the house and barn.

Cover of Irene (Faus) Hagenbuch’s five year diary

During 1937, she worked and boarded with a local family, the Keefers, and at a general store in Turbotville, Pennsylvania. In her diary, she writes of the work she did but also the fun activities she experienced with the different families and friends. Thanks to my daughter, Julie, who scanned the full diary; and sister Barb going through the diary with a fine tooth comb, we have a window into my mother’s life for five years when she was a young woman.

There are too many interesting entries in the diary to share in this article; and, anyway, this article is about gifts. Homer Hagenbuch’s romantic interest in Irene Faus began in February of 1937, when he asked her out and she turned him down. However, by late March, Irene decided that Homer was “the one” and the relationship started. The scarf was his first gift that he gave to Irene. Was the beaded purse, which Linda found holding the scarf, another gift? It seems like it may have been because in March of 1938 Irene wrote that she received a purse from Homer. Was the second purse a later gift? It appears that the first purse was given in celebration of Homer and Irene dating for a year.

On November 19, 1938, Homer and Irene were engaged. No engagement gift was mentioned. However, one other gift was noted, based upon what Barb found in diary entries between 1937 and 1938. On Christmas of 1938, Irene received a watch from Homer.

Small, beaded purses found with the “first gift” scarf that Homer Hagenbuch gave to Irene Faus in 1937. The top purse held the scarf in it.

In summary, from March of 1937 until Christmas Day of 1938 the romance between my parents blossomed, and Dad gave three gifts to his girl, my mother-to-be: a scarf, a purse, and a watch. My family is in possession of the scarf and the purse(s). The watch may be among some of my mother’s possessions which we still have. But, most important of all would be the upcoming gift they gave each other—their undying love—when they were married on March 22, 1939. My mother died in 2011 and Dad died in 2012. They had more than 74 years together romantically, 72 of those years in marriage.

My father would never believe that a gift he gave his girlfriend in 1937 would produce these written memories. The details of this story are important, heart warming, and a keepsake. But, just as important is what we can learn from my father’s first gifts to my mother, along with the diary entries that support their giving.

Please record details of your life for future generations. Save material items which support those details. Begin with “first gifts” and add more details and items (either the real items or photos of them). The tangible first gifts we have given to loved ones mirror the intangible gifts of love, dedication, and caring that we shower upon those loved ones. First gifts and their memories help us to renew those initial emotions of a lasting romance. They are all part of our family history!