This site presents an exercise in autobiography inspired by the Greek vase and Greek vase painting.The experiment assumes a tipping point of accumulated autobiographical pieces, at which a sense of the whole person may be revealed to the astute reader.

Each of us is a continuum of family. I have three such heritages, those of my adoptive family and paternal and maternal birth families. Adverse circumstances at the beginning of life initiated a mild but affective psychological dissociative state that lasted for forty-seven years. Throughout those years and in the years since, the challenge, beyond survival, has been to discover the facts of the life that bears my name. To give substance to my discoveries and the processes they engendered I placed faith in the written word. A lifetime of observation of self and others has taught me the values of shared experience. Acknowledging this I commit myself to the public record, trusting that some part or parts of my experiences may be of use to another.

It is an imperfect world. The parts of it that concerned myself were revealed in frequently baffling fragments, such as an archeological dig presents. Each fragment, suggesting a larger picture and often leading to further fragments, possessed a uniquely compelling attraction. Though they came to hang together in a more or less conventional manner, my fondness remains for these individual shards over which I often stumbled in my quest and which served to maintain my sanity in moments of doubt. This was a life-affirming process. To honor it I can do no other than to publish my discoveries through presentation of these shards.

I have divided the theme of family into Personal History and Family History. A third category, Writings, gathers fiction and essays reflecting generalized observation not necessarily related to family. Inclusion is ongoing and titles of all entries are listed under Additions with an entry date. A main page (Personal History, Family History, Writings and Additions are hot-linked) provides a list of hot-linked titles, each accompanied by a brief description.

The lives of family-related historical figures presented at this site include William Walter Phelps (1839-1894), corporate lawyer, Republican congressman, diplomat and jurist, Joseph Earl Sheffield (1793-1882), cotton broker, railroad financier and philanthropist, and the Polish portrait painter Raymond Kanelba (1897-1960).