The family’s stories: home movies from Planada, Laurel’s recollections of her parents, aunts and cousins, the keepsakes the family has kept, and the histories of the first Sharmers. Original documents (wills, notes, papers, obituaries and the 1954 tributes) are in Records; Joe’s letters to Ruby are in Letters.
Jump to: On film · Recollections · Keepsakes · Family history
Home movies
On film
-
The Sharmer Children in Planada
Home movies of Joe with the three children, Joe, Jay and Laurel, in Planada in the 1940s and early 1950s.
Shared by Joseph and Ruby’s daughter
Recollections
-
Dodie and Her Little Brother
As a baby he couldn’t pronounce “Josephine,” so his big sister became Dodie.
-
Gretchen and the Mail Boy
Hired by McCormick to get the allspice spots off pumpkin pies, she fell in love with the mail boy.
-
“We Treat, No Tricks!”
Halloween in Planada: costumed children, boxes of fruit, and a getaway Studebaker.
-
The Postmaster of Planada
How Ruby Wilson came home from Tombstone, took over the Planada post office, met Joe over a package, and built a $700 kit house in a week.
-
The Kaiser Comes Down
Reedley, the eve of the First World War: a portrait of the Kaiser, a midnight break-in, and a hayloft.
-
A Night Train to Denver
After Katie died in 1907, the family story goes, her children were spirited away to Denver before anyone could take them, or her money.
Treasured things
Keepsakes
-
A Souvenir from the Midwinter Fair, 1894
A little ruby glass pitcher engraved “K. Sharmer” and “Midwinter Fair 1894,” from San Francisco’s first world’s fair.
-
A Christmas Card from the Welshes
“You can TIE but you can’t BEAT a Merry Christmas” — a card from Jim, Michael and Gretchen Welsh.
-
From Our House to Your House
From our house to your house, with best wishes to you for happiness all through the year. Ruby and Joe, Joe III and Jay.
-
A Little Brownie
A little brownie & signature of your father made when he was a little boy in Nebraska.
Sidney, Nebraska, and Elmshorn
Family history
Joseph Sharmer I (1829–1898): from Elmshorn to Sidney
The full story of the first Joseph Sharmer — sailor’s son, gold miner, cattleman and banker — with church records, maps, newspapers and photographs.
-
Uncle Joe and Katie: The Sidney Obituaries
The 1898 and 1907 Sidney newspapers on the deaths of Joe’s father, “Uncle Joe” Sharmer, and his mother, Katie O’Connor Sharmer.
-
Jochim Scharmer of Elmshorn
How the first Joseph Sharmer was found: born Jochim Scharmer in Elmshorn, Holstein, on 25 May 1829.
