In this second episode of our 10-part series, Ellen Mortensen discusses starting her education in a one-room schoolhouse before attending a centralized elementary school, as well as the importance of music in her family.

Born in 1934 and raised on a farm in Central New York, Ellen Mortensen (nee Koennecke) lived a life that, in many ways, presents the changes of 20th-century America in microcosm. But it's best if you hear it from the woman herself from the beginning.

In this last episode of this series, we’ll finish our journey through the funeral speeches for my late father, Patrick Lamb, with my own eulogy for him. Never having delivered a eulogy before, I worked for days and days to try to encapsulate the character that my father was and the character he possessed. I hope you all enjoy my speech.

For more information on our show or to pitch us a family story that you’d like to see on the podcast, please email us at familybitespod@pm.me, visit familybitespod.com or follow us on X at familybitespod or Instagram at family.bites.pod.

In this second episode of our series, we’ll continue our journey through the funeral speeches for my late father, Patrick Lamb. This time, we’ll hear from my Uncle Ward Lamb, who was the fifth brother in my Dad’s group of seven siblings, all of whom grew up in an old schoolhouse near Oneida Lake in Upstate NY in the 1950s and 60s.

For more information on our show or to pitch us a family story that you’d like to see on the podcast, please email us at familybitespod@pm.me, visit familybitespod.com or follow us on X at familybitespod or Instagram at family.bites.pod.

In our second series, we’ll be going in a different stylistic direction, because I never got around to interviewing the subject in the same comprehensive manner that I did the subject of our first series, Gertrud Braun. A lot of that is down to the fact that some people always seem like they are invincible and that no matter what trials they might face, there will always be more time to sit down and have that interview.

The subject of our second series, my father Patrick Lamb, was one of those people. As you’ll hear in the next few episodes, he had cheated death so many times that when he finally succumbed to complications from a heart attack on June 10, 2023, at the age of 72, it was shocking to any number of friends and acquaintances.

Since we never did get to have that formal interview, I have had to settle for the second best option, which is to share the four speeches from his funeral with all of you. While the audio on these recordings might be a little unpolished, as it was pulled from a video shot by my mom’s best friend who was sitting in the audience, I hope you will still listen and enjoy just some of the stories about the almost invincible man that was my father, Patrick Lamb.

We start the series with two remembrances offered by my sister Rachel Lamb and my wife Jennifer Lamb.

For more information on our show or to pitch us a family story that you’d like to see on the podcast, please email us at familybitespod@pm.me, visit familybitespod.com or follow us on X at familybitespod or Instagram at family.bites.pod.

Up to this point in the series, I’ve tried to let Gertrud tell her story in her voice and only include my voice where it was needed to help frame the story. In this last episode, you’ll be hearing my voice a lot more, as there was no practical way to remove it while keeping the story intact. So here is my conversation with Gertrud Braun about becoming a US citizen and why she waited so long to do so.

In this episode, Gertrud tells us about meeting her husband Otto Braun, his family background, and how they eventually came to own their farm.

At the end of our previous episode, Gertrud had just arrived from Germany to her uncle’s farm in Cazenovia, NY. There would be little time to rest, however, as she would soon join the American working world.