You might think you know what genealogy is like–boring, stuffy, and has no application to our modern world. How could your fourth great-grandfather possibly affect your life today? Join amateur genealogist, Karyn Harding, as she tells one story each episode from her family tree to friend and cohost, Kim McMasters, who does actually happen to think that genealogy is boring and stuffy. Together, we’ll uncover how ordinary people with ordinary lives have extraordinary stories to tell. New episo ...
…
continue reading
Storyteller Caitlin Hicks, (playwright, performer, author, actor) describes the stories in these podcasts that explore the grief of life as well as the meaning, the humour, the redemption. The series features a variety of first-person character stories in a number of episodes from her international theatrical touring shows: Mother Love, Next of Kin, The Trouble of Christmas, The Life We Lived. Hicks will also share chapters from her novel," A Theory of Expanded Love". But here, she shares a ...
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
[BITE SIZE] Angeline: Third-Great-Grandmother
36:30
36:30
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
36:30
In this episode, we dive into the enigmatic life of Angeline, my third-great-grandmother. Angeline's story, largely overshadowed by the men around her, begins in 1863 when her young husband, Elisha, leaves to fight in the Civil War. Left behind with their unborn child, Angeline's life unfolds in the margins of historical records, filled with gaps a…
…
continue reading
In this episode, we dive into the challenging history of Bartley Corbin, whose story is deeply entwined with the darker chapters of America’s history of racism, genocide, and slavery. We’ll grapple with the harsh realities of American expansion and the removal of indigenous people and discuss the role that genealogy can play in confronting uncomfor…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Auguste and Josephine Dhyne: Third-Great-Grandparents
55:40
55:40
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
55:40
In this episode, we delve into the riveting journey of the Dhyne family from Belgium to America. As the story unfolds, we explore not just a coming-to-America tale but also a tale of complicated family dynamics and the challenges they faced. Along the way, we will reveal some surprising twists and turns throughout their lives and find out how easy …
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
[BITE SIZE] John Connis: Third-Great-Grandfather
29:12
29:12
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
29:12
This episode we delve into the challenges and uncertainties of the childhood of John Connis (my 3rd-great-grandfather). After being admitted to a 19th century New York City orphanage, John’s life becomes a story about resilience and new beginnings, and through John, we see how love passes down from generation to generation. The bibliography and add…
…
continue reading
The bibliography and additional resources from the episode can be found at: www.lowancestry.com Support the show! Connect with us on Instagram and don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Support the show! Connect with us on Instagram and TikTok and don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts.…
…
continue reading
![Artwork](/static/images/128pixel.png)
1
Willem Hoffmeyer: Ninth-Great-Grandfather
55:39
55:39
Play later
Play later
Lists
Like
Liked
55:39
The bibliography from the episode can be found at: www.lowancestry.com Support the show! Connect with us on Instagram and don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. Support the show! Connect with us on Instagram and TikTok and don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. You can also find us at …
…
continue reading
Join us on June 11th for the premiere of Low Ancestry. Subscribe now and never miss an episode. Support the show! Connect with us on Instagram and TikTok and don’t forget to rate, review, and subscribe wherever you get podcasts. You can also find us at our website www.lowancestry.com. If you like what you hear, please vote for us as 2024 Women in P…
…
continue reading
"Maybe my story can be a tiny beam of light in a large, dark cave," says Anneke Lucas in the podcast that begins to tell her story, from her book QUEST FOR LOVE. "Elite pedophilia is the world’s best protected secret.By Anneke Lucas as voiced by Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
Your eyes cannot help but see what is here: the sight of someone like yourself And then you think: How can this be? Is that really all the time there is left? A chance encounter in the dark winter days of December 2022. A benevolent energy in a hospital room with snaking tubes and mystery signs, the face of a newborn and a lifetime of important peo…
…
continue reading
Naïve but adventurous, twenty-two years young and fresh out of university, Public Health Nurse Marion McKinnon accepts an assignment for a four day, multi stop, two-hundred mile trip from Williams Lake to Anahim Lake into the vast Cariboo-Chilcotin country of British Columbia. It’s December and the first snow has fallen across the land. The year is…
…
continue reading
A flight attendant with 25 years seniority works through the early pandemic. An essential worker with close family ties and lots of friends. Suddenly, her life is upended.By Caitlin Hicks (for Erin Em)
…
continue reading
BC author Claudia Cornwall’s discovered almost 30 years ago that she was descended from family murdered in the Holocaust by a Waffen SS Sargent named Arlt. The remaining details were shrouded in the mystery of her grandparents’ last moments, one historical May day in a forest in Minsk. 80 years after their death, Cornwall received their executioner…
…
continue reading
What happens to a robust 49-year old with Omicron in a BC hospital in 31 days? A Mother's account of her son's care in a British Columbia hospital between November 2021, and a few days before Christmas.By Lena's story narrated by Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
At 19 weeks pregnant, a young Indigenous woman must make an excruciating decision - within hours - to save the lives of her unborn twins. "I remember being so afraid." This story has it all: fear, love, pain and alienation. Courage, community, and resilience. A generous, joyful storyteller.By Nievelina Carmona, presented by Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
Forever changed by her two pregnancies, Amanda Snelson tells of the unpredictable and complicated process of 2 births. As part of the discussion around Women's Choice and Roe v Wade, Amanda's story introduces new considerations to the complex picture of individual soverignty over our bodies.
…
continue reading
My Mother's Story is a project that encourages everyone to write the facts of their mothers’ lives. It's a series of anthologies begun by Marilyn Norry. This is the story of DORIS, told by her daughter, Colleen Winton. My Mother's Story: Gone Too Soon is the latest anthology in the series and is now available.…
…
continue reading
How would your life be different if you couldn't drive a car? If once a week, a steamship arrived at the dock with supplies to keep you going for the next week? If your husband and the father of your children came home on "The Daddy Boat" once a week? Cynthia Jones Meets The Union Steamship at 1 AM tells of a much simpler time on the Sunshine Coast…
…
continue reading
It’s 1980, two days from the summer solstice in the wild landscape of Northwestern British Columbia. Deanna and her husband, Jay Kawatski, tend their food garden carved out of the wilderness in the Ningunsaw Valley when Deanna realizes that their first child will be born very soon. The couple must hike difficult mountain & bog terrain through cloud…
…
continue reading
We Got One! celebrates moments that, whatever else happens in life afterwards, we have, as artists, in those moments, all the meaning we will ever need. It marks the Cinderella achievement of having been chosen, of having hit the bulls-eye on the dartboard of current social and artistic reality. We can now stand on the world stage and beam our happ…
…
continue reading
Six Palm Trees is the journey of a family through the emotional landscape of their shared past. Annie Shea, the family clown, provides stand-up entertainment.Annie Shea, the family clown, provides stand-up entertainment. Annie Shea, the family clown, provides stand-up entertainment at a family reunion, where everyone has gathered to celebrate 24 ye…
…
continue reading
High school graduate Teresa Feeney becomes pregnant from one encounter with a trusted priest Father Sully, who is leading a choir of students in a showcase of songs from the radical hippie production of HAIR. Annie Shea, herself from an enormous Catholic family where abortion is unthinkable, reluctantly becomes Teresa’s confidante. When Annie reali…
…
continue reading
What if you suddenly discovered that you had a twin? A person who grew beside you in your mother’s womb, whose heart beat right next to your own for nine months. A person identical to yourself, born on the same day to the same mother. Suddenly, your questions are endless: Who are you? Where is she?By Deanna Barnhart Kawatski with Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
Your father - a threat to national security? Imagine when men in heavy boots came to your home, your garden, to claim him. An introduction to the story of a family, during World War II, living with the abrupt loss and the mystery of their father.By Amanda Hale with Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
"This morning, Lisa gave way to an anxiety she'd been stifling the past several weeks. She was afraid if she got behind the wheel of her red Toyota Tercel wagon, and drove onto the highway, she was going to give into the temptation she'd had lately to steer herself into a telephone pole."By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
Gramma Ester flies from Wisconsin to California to help with a big family wedding in 1976. Flowers, frozen turkey, chocolate groom's cake. Guests fill the church with summer: pastels and hats, ties and shiny shoes. The congregation murmuring, waits. And waits. If the music would just start to play, if the bride would just walk up the aisle on Daddy…
…
continue reading
A THEORY OF EXPANDED LOVE = a big Catholic family 1963 in Pasadena. Chapter 7 is set on a warm California night at an enormous event: dinner. Clashing are the noisy and urgent desires of each child in a sprawling group of sixteen. Everyone is famished. And then, there’s the guest. Who represents everything. God, Church, Community, Family. Everyone …
…
continue reading
Before Gramma Ester was Gramma, when she was just a little six- year-old girl, in first grade, she had a crush on a family friend named Walter Gaulke (who was 13 years older). She carried this secret hope in her heart for almost two decades before she could have the moment with her sweetheart that she wished for all her life. And yet that moment qu…
…
continue reading
I ached for them, and for the nearby ultimate loss I anticipated feeling when they died. But I brushed it aside, because it wasn’t my issue right then. Far from it: we were on opposite trajectories and I was so excited about mine: getting ready to go into the world!By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
What is it about this story? The benign nature of the tanning salon? The casual event of some man walking in the front door? The front-desk training, Be friendly, smile at the customers? What was so haunting?The kindness on her beautiful face? Or was it the closeness of his face right up against the cash machine? It was 1995. It happened in our sub…
…
continue reading
Sharky died on the same day the pope died, and two days after Terri Schaivo was finally allowed to. Even though, as the Dalai Lama says, we all suffer and are going to die someday, there never seems to be a good day to die. As we slid him out of a shoe box into a hastily-dug hole out in the daisy garden under a dark sky and a pelting spring rain, I…
…
continue reading
And out of his comfortable life. It happens in an instant. A deafening clap assaults his ears. It takes a second, but George rallies. He can see he's the only one who has stepped into the intersection, so he must be the one. He puts his other foot forward.By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
In 1983, I left my husband, my home, my friends, my family and my country to live with my lover, an artist from Toronto. In the months while waiting for his divorce to come through, we produced a show there, the first Canadian production of LETTERS HOME, by Rose Leiman Goldemberg. It was the story of Sylvia Plath's life from 1950 to 1963, when she …
…
continue reading
This story features Zoe, a 'spark plug' who works with her father at a used car dealership near Niagara Falls. On this fateful day, Lenny comes to the lot to buy a jalopy. Lenny and Zoe are on the same hockey team -- both dream of following in the wake of other daredevils, who made history trying to outwit the roaring strength of Niagara Falls. Who…
…
continue reading
It's June 15th, 1963 in Pasadena, California. Yesterday, school let out for the summer. Two weeks ago Pope John XXIII died; today, a Soviet astronaut was launched into space. But for the enormous Shea family, it's the Grand Opening of SHEA FAMILY MOTORS and everyone is there. From pimply John-the-Blimp to Baby Jude to a statue of the Blessed Mother…
…
continue reading
"Can you imagine how many kids get left behind at Disneyland every year? There have to be a few of them. Among all those hundreds of cars in the parking lot, there's probably enough to form a club. Maybe the club could be called "The Left Behinds" or "Disney Orphans". How many of the stories could possibly have a happy ending? "The weird part is, w…
…
continue reading
Once we understand the astounding lottery of our own existence, how can we acknowledge our infinite disappearance? A story of two lives lived, the music between, and the sound of a mother's voice.By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
An everyday interaction with profound reverberations. An almost-missed opportunity. Life, circumstance, death. How do we find our meaning?By Sharon McInnes
…
continue reading
Annie Shea, 12 yrs old trapped in an enormous Catholic family in Pasadena, California in 1963. In this excerpt, Annie & her sisters Madcap & Clara visit Bee Bee. Just yesterday, Bee Bee gave birth to a baby girl, and was pressured to sign adoption papers. Now she desperately wants to see her newborn. Annie is sent to scout the nursery and meets a c…
…
continue reading
Chapter One of A THEORY OF EXPANDED LOVE, the award-winning debut novel written by Caitlin Hicks. Reviews here: https://www.caitlinhicks.com/wordpress/reviews-for-a-theory-of-expanded-love/By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
A parent disinherits his beloved child. Or so the child believes she is beloved. Where does it begin, the decision to punish someone irrevocably? How forms this secret betrayal of forever with lasting, public consequences? Where does it begin, the chain of events that bring about a reversal of fortune? A denial of love? In this podcast, "Exit, Stag…
…
continue reading
How can you capture the life of a man? Especially the patriarch of a family with 14 children and 42 grandchildren. It's in the DNA, it in the details!By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
What a relief, my father is still alive! Of course, I forgive him everything.By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
My enormous family. My ailing father. In the midst of a trip to France & Italy and an opportunity of a lifetime for my artist husband — with news coming in via email daily from my siblings — "he’s going to die" "he’s better!" "he’s had a setback" — I struggle to decide: Should I cut our trip short to be present for my father’s final moments? Or fol…
…
continue reading
The patriarch of an enormous Catholic family turns 88 with children & grandchildren celebrating him. Details of a family still intact just prior to the family's demise are captured through the lens of one child, returning after years of absence. "Here, as long as the rules were obeyed, the world was kept at bay. 'Say grace, stack the dishes, don't …
…
continue reading
In 1961, an enormous family crowds into their VW bus to go to Disneyland. In the midst of the magic and chaos, the sixth child attracts a moment of attention from her mother, a moment that lasts the distance of galaxies. SEASON#5: A THEORY OF EXPANDED LOVEBy CAITLIN HICKS
…
continue reading
Meet Karissa Williams, a resilient woman who loses a baby at 13, and gives birth at 15 while trapped in an abusive relationship with an addict & drug dealer. When she tries to escape through suicide she is literally saved by her child. She marries a ‘great guy - he doesn’t beat me’ - and gains more than a hundred pounds. Soon she loses her self-res…
…
continue reading
A journey towards an awareness of racism in 1968: On the night of the assassination of RFK, and through the eyes of 17-year-old Annie Shea, a Catholic high school white girl from a conservative family, (a volunteer for Robert Kennedy's campaign for presidency), she awakens to the racism all around her, invisible to her until this fateful trip in th…
…
continue reading
On the day Martin Luther King, Jr. is murdered, at the Wilshire Blvd. offices of KENNEDY FOR PRESIDENT, white, Catholic high school senior Annie Shea, and volunteer for Robert Kennedy for President, begins her awakening to the powerful racist forces that drive white society in 1968.By Caitlin Hicks
…
continue reading
The year is 1983. Meet Karen, a successful commodities trader at The Chicago Mercantile Exchange and the mistress of Sam, a high-stakes market maker and billionaire trader in the S & P 500 pit. Meet Dorothy, Sam's wife, and the mother of their twin daughters. These two women are the last guests at a lavish, decadent party at Dorothy and Sam's home.…
…
continue reading
Here is Gertie!, the the most 'outrageous' character I have written and performed, other than the pivotal moment in Six Palm Trees, when Annie Shea accuses her father in front of the entire family. Gertie is outrageous because she speaks the unspeakable. And she's good with it. Gertie! is not for everyone. Listen at your own risk. You may choose to…
…
continue reading