Ghost Jamboree Honors Your Ancestors 
Emma Scholl 12/7/1875 – 1/3/1955
I am an only child whose parents were both raised by single mothers during the 1930’s Depression, so family history was seldom discussed. We lived in Los Angeles, and when I was about 3 years old, an older lady came to stay with us and shared my bedroom. She had fluffy white hair, wore dresses that looked like sweaters, and she arrived with lots of stuff. My Dad, Mom, and Mom’s only sibling all called her Aunt Emma. She and I ate oatmeal and a poached egg many mornings for breakfast, but she would never eat dessert after dinner. She would do puzzles with me or play jacks and card games. She eventually moved to a room in a big old house near Alvarado and Hoover Streets – the first v-shaped corner I had ever seen. My Mom and I went to see Aunt Emma once a week, and she always gave me a dime and a cookie. We continued our visits after she moved into a nursing home where she died, shortly after my eighth birthday.
Through the years I learned that Aunt Emma was born in Charleston, Indiana; she was the older sister and only sibling of my maternal grandfather. She liked music, never married, but had a career in New York as the secretary for the executive officer of the Shrine Organization. The brass bell I rang to call my Mom when I was homesick was originally purchased by Aunt Emma for the Shriner to summon her services. I learned to type on the 1917, Underwood typewriter which was left from Aunt Emma’s career. The ‘good’ dishes and silverware that we used for holidays, as well as the Queen’s Chair, were also part of Aunt Emma’s stuff that she brought to our house. Aunt Emma had been a slender, active, insulin dependent diabetic; so when I had my first job as a counselor at a camp for diabetic children, I learned much about her former eating habits. Eventually, I had a career in Dietetics and Health Education stemming from these early beginnings. Lastly, Aunt Emma kept the Scholl family history, as recorded in the family Bible. She was the only ‘Scholl’ I ever met. However, now I have the Scholl Family Bible, with tattered cover, broken bindings and faded entries of many ancestors.
Addendum - Any recommendations for a new home for the Bible are gladly accepted.
Thank you for inviting me to share my story.
Helen Yeo
Picture: Emma Scholl with Anna Jean Scholl
