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It's a Holiday! Today is the birthday of footnoteMaven, editor/publisher of the award-winning Shades of the Departed Online Magazine. The Shadettes and Shades-dudes Staff Writers are pleased to present this Special Birthday Edition of the magazine as a tribute to their dear friend. Long may your tiara sparkle, fM! Visit the blogs linked below following this post to read more and feel free to join the party by posting a tribute on your blog and adding the link in the comments.  I stumbled upon the most fascinating ephemera cache yesterday in the antique mall. It was behind glass, as all the best things are, and her eyes from her photo sparkled at me, but not as much as the jewels in her tiara did. I had to know who she was. Why was she behind glass? What was so special about her? I asked the vendor if I could please have a look at the ephemera of the beautiful and intriguing woman behind the glass. “Which one?” “The one with the tiara, please.” “Ah, yes. She’s a favorite of mine. footnoteMaven is her name.” “footnoteMaven? That’s a unique name.” As he handed me footnoteMaven’s ephemera he replied, ”She’s a unique lady.”  And as I sifted through footnoteMaven’s life, I knew I had to have her. I knew I had to look her up…to find out who she was. I had to own her. “How much?” “Thirty dollars.” “Sold.” I usually dicker on the price a little, but it didn’t seem right to try to talk down the price of the woman with a tiara in one photo and a crown in another. To do so seemed, I don’t know, common. I rushed home, and began to look her up online. Who was footnoteMaven?  I began to dig online with meager success. She was like a whisper of smoke. I could see her, but not catch her. Then, I found it. In a newspaper article I found a bit about her. She was of royal descent which definitely explained all the sparkly head gear. I mean, who walks around with a tiara or crown without being an actual royal. Right? According to this online tree and family website I found ~ all of which had been completely sourced ~ the Royal Line of Mavens to which she belongs was long and distinguished. One of her great-uncles, Prince citationMaven, had overseen all the citations for the royalMavens until his passing, and because he passed without issue, all of his responsibilities were handed down to footnoteMaven. While she is responsible for all of the Royal Maven family’s footnotes, her specialty, if you will, is photos and their stories.  In yet another newspaper article, I read how she had once dated Mark Twain, which I thought quite odd considering various quotes on royalty made by him over the years. However, this tantalizing bit I was able to find certainly explained this photo having been in her ephemera stash.  Oh! And look! This photo of a man looking quite dapper from the ephemera cache I bought is identified online as being robberBaron. It seems he was her escort to the iGene Awards ceremony in 2007. Not sure how smart it is to let someone named robber to escort you anywhere, but he sure was a looker.  Anywho, I dug a little deeper and found this Vogue cover of footnoteMaven. Wow. She had been on the cover of Vogue! How absolutely stunning! Then I happened upon a recent article about her, and how her mansion [Who are we kidding? It's a castle.] had been broken into, and many valuable items had been stolen. While they had recovered some pieces, the authorities stated that most of her belongings ~ some of which were only valuable to the owner ~ would never be recovered. Was it possible that these pieces of ephemera that I had found and bought were those that had been stolen? [And I wonder if robberBaron has been questioned in the case of footnoteMaven’s stolen ephemera? I definitely would have questioned him.] However, one thing was for sure. I had to find where she was today. It didn’t take me long to find where she was living. [Oh, the joys of the internet.] I’m conflicted by my finds, though. I’m saddened by the fact that she lost her precious items, but I’m selfish as well. I’m actually more saddened by the fact that I know that I’m going to have to do the right thing, and try, at the very least, to contact her and return her items. Perhaps, I’ll gaze a little more at her ephemera. Perhaps I’ll research her a little more. Perhaps I’ll contact her tomorrow. There is one thing I’ve learned by all of this. No one can ever own footnoteMaven. She owns me. And she owns you. She holds us all in captivity, and we are none the wiser as we are entranced by her youthful beauty and sage advice. And her handy dandy footnotes. And the jewels on her crown and tiara. I’m definitely enthralled with those. ~Caroline Credits and Sources: Please note that these photos were used without footnoteMaven's permission. That's right. I borrowed them without asking. [Perhaps robberBaron is in my family tree. Oooh! Does a family member of a Baron get a bejeweled tiara?] Anywho, while I borrowed the images without asking, I'm not common enough to not cite them for goodness sakes.
Please follow the links below for more of this birthday tribute to footnoteMaven: CreativeGene, by Jasia
The Educated Genealogist, by Sheri Fenley The Family Curator, by Denise Levinick Geneablogie, by Craig Manson Healing Brush, by Janine Smith A Sense of Face, by Rebecca Fenning Shades: Birthday Edition -- A Teacup Throne at Moultrie Creek, by Denise Olson What's Past is Prologue, by Donna Pointkouski
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