Joy in the Journey

We will be departing a bit from the pattern of our last few posts to cover a different aspect of our unique family history. Specifically, we will be covering Dorothy Hollingsworth (aka Dorothy Beth Hollingsworth Lester Hollingsworth) and a journal she kept from 1997 to 2002. In keeping with our previous risk analysis, we will be redacting some personal information for various reasons. If you happen to be a family member and you want something redacted, let us know and we will research the issue before taking action. However, please do not expect us to leave everything unpublished. We want to publish this journal while staying as tasteful as possible.

So without further ado, here we go.

First, a little about the author. Dorothy Hollingsworth was born in 1919 in California. She was the daughter of Glenn Hollingsworth and Mary Ashton, both big names and big families in our country's history. She died in 2006 in Illinois after a long and productive life. She always struck me as a patient and wonderful woman who did her best to help those in need.

Her journal is a very personal thing to both her and our UFO Team. We rarely get a look inside the inner workings of a person, let alone one that has had such large impact on so many people. It is because of these strong emotions that we will attempt to limit ourselves to just one journal entry at a time. We struggled with tears last night as we read the first entry and, while it may not have had a lot of substance, the emotional weight was palpable.

The journal itself is just a simple composition notebook. Like many that you would in a local office supply store, it has that marbled black and white cover. The cover has been customized a bit with a label that has a nicely scripted title of Joy in the Journey. The pages are worn around the edges and one page has been torn out. We assume this acted as a bookmark as well as a prayer list. Upon closer inspection, the cover reveals a set of tiny footprints going across the cover.

The entries are all handwritten in ink and cover most of 1997. There are a few entries for 1998, 1999, and 2000. After September 11, 2001, the entries become almost daily until early 2002. This is were things end. The entries cover April 27, 1997 to January 10, 2002.

A few key events within that general time frame include:

- December 1996 - Dorothy's second husband dies.
- December 1996 - Dorothy's daughter dies.
- November 1997 - Dorothy's son gets remarried.
- July 1999 - Dorothy's son-in-law dies.
- April 2000 - Dorothy's mother-in-law dies.
- Several great-grandchildren were born.

So you can see that a lot happened during this time frame as well as a lot of things immediately before-hand. From here, we will be transcribing and discussing the entries.

References:
- Hollingsworth, D. B. (1997). Joy in the Journey. Private Collection.
- Numerous facts were gathered from the private Richard Family Estate collection. These facts span numerous sources of information and contain genealogical data, photos, and newspaper articles.