The Pub & Goldbug Review

OkieLegacy

The Okie Legacy

Inspiration... Light the Fire Within! Learn the Past! Live the Present!
The Power of Learning, Living & Evolving in Harmony with the Universe

More About Us...

If you take a look back to where we've began -- where we've been -- where we are now… AND... where we are headed. We will let you (the audience) and our Grandmother's (Great-Grandmother's) treasure box of memories guide us into the Future with ParisTimes.com | OkieLegacy.org | OkieLegacy.net.

In the Beginning... We would have to step back to 1987 (or was it 1988) when the first New Paris Times family newsletter made it's debute in hard copy form and was snail-mailed to most of the PARIS cousins and their families during the Winter holidays as a Christmas newsletter for approximately the next four years (1987-1990).

The New Paris Times was published with the help, use of my sister's computer, word processor, printer, copier and a collection of PARIS family photos, stories.

This was also about the time we started gathering PARIS family genealogy information. we put together what information we had with other Paris families old photos, stories. We even started gathering old recipes -- That is where the Paris Times Pioneers Cookbook got it's start. Although... We don't have all the recipes in the online database version of our Cookbook database.

You don't have to be a PARIS cousin or descendant to submit your old family recipes. Anyone can submit their old family recipes in our database cookbook.

If you read our About Us web page, you will see that during the Fall/Winter of 1995 was one of the first attempts at designing a webpage and using the electronic medium with Geocities.com (which merged a few years ago into Yahoo!, Inc). This writer remembers her first URL -- geocities.com/Heartland/1800 -- that was before we invested in my first domain name -- ParisTimes.com -- this was all done through the Geocities.com service for a small monthly fee.

Besides working on the family genealogy... We were doing some research on a northwest Oklahoma ghost town - Fairvalley, Oklahoma. That's when the Fairvalley Eagle came on the scene. It began over at paristimes.com, but web space was running low with the other interests, genealogy, web design, sagas and journals that we found ourselves taking on. That is when we invested in yet another domain -- wwwpubco.com -- to keep track of other websites we were designing for others.

It was around the first part of April, 1999 that Oakie's Heart to Heart (free weekly online newsletter) made the scene with encouragement from a few special online friends who encouraged this writer to put her uplifting, life observations & stories (written from the heart) into a weekly newsletter. From 1995 to 1999 we had accumulated over a hundred or so connections (email addresses) of friends, family and it has steadily grown today with the help of The Okie Legacy eZine.

This was also about the time this writer also began writing a syndicated column for a northwest Oklahoma local community paper. We were looking at the world -- learning from our readers -- learning the past -- moving towards the future. Wherever that was leading us. It all kind of took on a life of its own and giving this writer a vehicle to use to improve her writing skills -- learning about Oklahoma -- bringing the outside world a little closer to our neck of the woods... And the other way around.

During That Time... a southern Oklahoma writer handed this writer a webpage to design for a notable Oklahoman, Ernest D. Martin, called -- A Fathers Legacy -- recently through his webpage and readers of The Okie Legacy (Vol. 4, Iss. 17) it has enabled the Honorable Ernest Martin to located a WWII buddy that he had lost contact with. It was shortly after designing A Father's Legacy webpage that another domain was created for the collection of histories, legacies and ghost towns of Oklahoma with some family legacies thrown in. That third domain was... OkieLegacy.org.

Effort To Get It Rolling... As to the effort to get it all rolling, looking back it doesn't seem like it took that much effort because it gradually, slowly grew over the last six years or so as the author grew -- venturing into different areas. We have to say that we never really had a plan at the beginning. We just started with the family information that we found in our grandmother's treasure boxes. Things just began growing and taking on a life of their own.

The Coolest Benefits... That has to be the little rewards, emails, encouragements from all our readers where someone has contacted them and helped them find a long lost friend, relative -- all because of something they read in Oakie's Journal - The Okie Legacy. Also, the coolest benefit is hearing the responses, inquiries, suggestion, etc... from The Okie Legacy readers.

Troubles & Problems... That has to be finding enough hours in the day -- days in the week -- weeks in the year to do and write about all the things, travels and treasures that we found out there -- AND... those items our readers send in to share with us all. Some days the Mail bag is a bit slow and it is a challenge sometimes to find just the right story that trickers the readers' memories... BUT... Sometimes the Mailbag overflows with mail and interesting ideas and legacies to share all at once.

Purpose & Future Vision... The purpose is to share the treasures from our grandmother's memory boxes -- keepsakes that she stored away during her youthful days. Hoping that someone reading something on these pages will find a name, link to discovering more about their ancestors. - AND -- To leave a legacy of our journey with you all -- Hoping it encourages you to write, keep a journal of your own family histories -- Written from the Heart!

~~ Linda "NW Okie" Wagner ~~

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