Google Thyself - Saturday Night Fun on Tuesday

http://www.geneamusings.com/2009/07/saturday-day-night-genealogy-fun-google.html

I always want to do Saturday Night Fun but then I forget as the weekends just seem to disappear. I realize I spend more time surfing and reading than I do actual research anymore. I spend way too much time admiring all the research other people are doing and blogging about!! And, I seem to be constantly working on this great "organization" project. I am getting organized but just not getting organized enough to get to what I want to be doing that I needed to be organized for! Phew.. that was an exhausting thought!

So, instead of researching, haha... I did the Saturday night fun from Randy Seavers blog, Genea-Musings.

I wanted to do this because I am not sure I ever remember Googling myself so I was excited and disappointed but relieved in a sense too.

The searches:

"sharon lighthouse" "Rochester, New York"
"sharon stevens" "rochester, new york"

Sadly.. I have no life. Google life that is... but I am almost thinking that is a good thing since I am not famous or a mover or shaker in any of my life's projects. By not showing up it really cuts down on crazed fans and stalkers too! So all is good in my Google-less life.

I did a few variations of the above searches and came up with ONE hit that is actually me. I showed up as a Facebook friend for one person. And it seems that there is another Sharon Stevens (my maiden name) in Rochester that is not me. There are a lot of Sharon Drives and of course.. every lighthouse of the known world showed up in my search and the images tab was completely lighthouses!

However, with this blog post I imagine now I will have a Google life!

And then a day when family historian is not fun..

In searching for each document and clue, we all know there is the thrill of the chase, that "Yes!" moment and that "Ahhh!" moment that we hear so much about. But usually those are for generations gone names on our family tree.

I forget sometimes that family history is the today and the now. Sometimes I remember like when my daughter and I are doing cemetery work and we use the voice recorder. Some day, generations away, our next generations will hear our voices and think we were insane or laugh at how silly would could be.

This week family history has not been fun but it has two stories for the future generations to get an up close and personal view simply by what I write here. Someday a grand child, or great grandchild can read this blog entry and know what their Grandfather, Grandmother, Great Grandfather or Great Grandmother, and so on, went though this year on July 13, 2009.

Kevin Vincent Lighthouse
b. February 8, 1960, Rochester, Monroe County, New York.
d. July 13, 2009, Norwich CT.
Son of: Ken Franke and June Baker

This is the father of my daughter. This was a man that I loved very much and who over time became my dearest friend while we were married. We were married for 10 years. We has so much in common and in the course of our marriage we had become mini homesteaders. Kevin was a man that worked three jobs at a time and always had people asking him to work for him. He never ran out of opportunities just because he was honest and had a good work ethic. He was an avid gardener and loved to do woodwork. He enjoyed milling around antique shops and big barns full of "stuff".. he could spend an hour picking through a jar of bits and pieces that I would categorize as trash. He took the role of father to my 9 year old son who struggled with his own loneliness of an absentee father. Kevin taught my son that "Dad" is a good word. Kevin was involved with boy scouts with him and had been as a child. My son has become a fantastic father to his two children.

Kevin played Rugby and the team teased him calling him Peter Purebread because he was a decent guy. That was how I met him. The first week he was rather inebriated and I thought him silly, the next week he collected me up at the game and we were together from that point onward. We had a wonderful wedding. We were very active with friends and family and a couple years after we were married our daughter was born.

Two years ago Kevin was diagnosed with cancer. He fought hard but he had already had it quite a while before it was found. He was just 49 and it seems such a waste of a good person. There is so much more I could say about him and perhaps I will someday. It is all still sinking in that he is gone and even as his ex-wife it is a hard pill to swallow. We never hated each other, we had a rough year or two but our daughter was always the focal point which kept our perspective. Sure, we could have tried harder, perhaps we could have done things differently but things ended up as they did. I have missed our life on occasion and was happy he found his own happiness and remarried.

I was lucky enough to spend time with him before he died. Of the four days I was in Connecticut, the first two he was awake and alert. Sitting by his bed talking to him about our daughter he would pick up a blueberry from his bowl and eat it then offer me the bowl to take one. I said no thank you but he kept the bowl there looking at me until I took one and ate it. Three times he did this! The third time I said no thank you, he stared me down and I finally said "okay! okay..." I Plucked one and ate it with a look at him, he grinned then and I laughed but wanted to cry. I am very lucky to have so many good memories of him. In fact when I think of him and those blueberries I chuckle then I cry.

Kevin and Mackenzie Lighthouse (May 1993)

And this brings me to our daughter. For the last week I have watched an 18 year old girl say goodbye and stay by her fathers side until the very end. In the four days I was there, she was strong, dedicated, vulnerable and simply amazing. She took his care seriously. She had moments when she was scared yet stayed with him. She took shifts at night so he would not be alone. Shortly before he died he told her he loved her. She was offered an out when it was seen he was slipping away. She chose to stay with him until he passed. The morning of the day he died I could see in her eyes she was starting to unravel.. from somewhere she found the strength to continue her vigil. I was strong at her age but not that strong. I traveled to Germany at the age of 17 with a six month old child but I could not take a person to their end like she did. I marvel at what I have seen in her this past week. I hold a new respect for her and a pride so deep. I tell everyone, "She was amazing." And she was.

Slacker I am....

I have not been blogging of late. I do that, I tend to fade then come back.. fade, and so on. I am trying to be better with the family history. It is not to say there has not been some significant progress on my Grandmother's line but I have been angry for four days and it zaps all of my energy yet re-energizes a different side of me. I am just grumpy and have a lot of attitude right now and a lot of thinking to do. I am angry at myself and this kind of makes me realize that these are the things we will never know about our ancestors. In this day in age, by reading this blog, everyone will know I am in a mood. Two generations away can read this blog and see I was in a mood. What were the days like when my great-grandmother came here from Scotland. Was she ecstatic about leaving her family to come to America. Was she excited but then have to deal with the homesickness. Did it ever seem too much to her to uproot and rebuild? It is not like they suffered. They were working class and weathered the depression pretty well. Did she have... "moods". Did she have a 10 year mood like I seem to be having? I am a ten year increment person I have decided.

I feel like I am changing yet again, or maybe I am re-emerging. Ten years ago I felt like I needed a change and that prompted a divorce. It was what I wanted but at the same time I did not anticipate how I would respond to losing my home, my house. I was silently devastated I will say. Not a lot of screaming or crying, a move to a crappy apartment that would take our cat but a silent shut down of everything I loved to do. I am a spinner, weaver, knitter, felter and an all purpose fiber addict. I had a group of four friends and we had spinning days, dying days and so on. So when we moved into this small apartment I stopped doing all the things I loved. It all sat in boxes or stuffed in a storage cubby. My wheel just sat in a corner being ignored. My friends all left the area. I took up a hobby of roleplaying. It was a good place to lose myself and found I made a few friends and could write and just have fun but then a year would go by, then another and constantly I would say... "My wheel just sits there.... I should start spinning again.." but then there went another year. One of the friendships I made is 10 years old. I have never met him face to face, I have never spoken to him on the phone yet he knows about my life and I know about his. We share stories of our kids, our frustrations and our pride in them. His wife wishes me well on holidays and I do the same to her. I love him dearly. And... we fight. It was a stupid fight but it was hurtful. Maybe it helped me put things into perspective.. today anyway, who knows if I will see this the same in three days when the anger begins to fade. It made me see what a time sink that hobby is, it makes me wonder why people who say they have such a good life seem to spend so much time in a time sink... food for thought. Things are never ever as they seem and it opens my eyes enough to ask the following questions...

Where is the woman that was an awesome fiber artist.

Why did I put her away.

Where is the woman that chased life and made it happen.

Why do I ignore the peace that these activities brought to me in the past.

What do I want to be remembered for......

Did my Grandmother, Great-Grandmother and back beyond ever feel this way about life? Elizabeth Anderson, did she? She was a widow that had an illegitimate child in 1855... her hardships had to be quite more than my week of fussing.

So as you can see, there is a lot of thinking going on here though I think that had always been one of my bigger problems. I think.. wayyyyy to freaking much. I am analytical, I will lay awake all night picking apart a discussion/argument until I drive myself insane and it makes me mad. It is hell being a Virgo, let me tell you!

I distanced myself from my friend to lick my wounds, to assume he doesn't care and is over it already and I am in the process of making some decisions to change. When I am ready I will talk to him and see if the friendship will be salvaged. I love him but today I do not care if I speak to him again. ::lying like crazy::

Why is this all in this particular blog? No reason.. vent space. I am miserable yet feeling good too.

This morning I ordered my dream spinning wheel, for it I have given up my vacation to Pennsic this year. The energy I expend will be to what I like to do. Family History, Spinning and Knitting. The roleplaying hobby will take a lesser role in my life until it disappears for good. It is time. I have sulked long enough, I think ten years is plenty of time to waste feeling sorry for myself or whatever it is that I am doing.



I am going to walk more.

I owe emails to my sister and my cousin.

And in a completely different direction.. Genealogy...(yes, finally on topic)

Finding Grandpa. I can so relate to this blog. I find I want a happy ending for she and her mother.

A woman contacted me through Ancestry about my family tree. She said she found her Aunt Leona on my family tree and her Grandfather. Leona was my Aunt as well and we share the same Grandfather. She didn't tell me who she was the daughter of. My father had four sisters and in honesty, I would not be surprised to find he might have had more children at some point. I have not seen him since I was 13 and it will stay that way. Still, she is either my first cousin or could be a half sister. I have written a message to her and I hope that she replies sometime soon.

My Grandmother's family tree is coming right along. I have quite a few generations that I have researched in ScotlandsPeople.com. I have actually had quite fun being a sleuth as I had an illegitimate child show up. My Great-Great-Great-Grandmother (Margaret ANDERSON) was a widow and her third child (John ANDERSON) was written in as illegitimate on his birth record yet his marriage record had his father listed as William CAMERON. His death record and all the census I have found on him listed no father. So... what do I do in this case? I will keep searching for something that might mention a father but if I can't find anything I suppose I will have to consider this a brick wall. In the meantime the search is on!

The Ahnentafel for my Grandmother. ( I LOVVVVE! Roots Magic 4).. see that? 6 generations with progress. Not too shabby. I have been taking a class on GenClass with David W Webster. I have enjoyed it very much and David has such an enthusiasm that it keeps me plugging away.. until the last couple days anyway.. slacker mode hit (though the knitting I have gotten done!)

Generation 1

1. Elizabeth Spalding Dewar FENDER-1: born 21 Mar 1909 in District of St. Mary, Dundee, Scotland; died 3 Mar 1984 in Rochester, Monroe, New York.

Generation 2

2. Edward Cummings Alexander FENDER-2: born 19 Jul 1878 in District of St. Andrew, Dundee, Scotland; died 10 Apr 1952 in Akron Ohio.

3. Elizabeth ANDERSON-3: born 8 Mar 1880 in Carnoustie Scotland; died 31 Jan 1933 in Akron, Summit, Ohio.

Generation 3

4. George FENDER-5: born 9 Jan 1852 in Dundee, Angus, Scotland; married 9 Jun 1871 in Dundee, Scotland; died.

5. Jane Watt ALEXANDER-6: born 1852 in Dundee Scotland.

6. John ANDERSON-7: born 3 Jun 1855 in Monikie, Forfar, Scotland; married 27 Jun 1879 in Dundee Scotland; died 10 May 1935 in Dundee, Angus, Scotland.

7. Elizabeth Dewar SPALDING-8: born 17 Oct 1855.

Generation 4

8. George FENDER-9: born 4 Apr 1817 in Dundee, Angus, Scotland; married 26 Nov 1843 in Dundee Scotland.

9. Jane BEAT-10: born 18 Feb 1817 in Ferry Port on Craig; died 18 Mar 1898 in Dundee Scotland.

10. Alexander ALEXANDER-11: born 20 May 1820 in Dundee Scotland; married 24 Jan 1842 in Dundee Scotland.

11. Margaret WATT-12: born 1822.

13. Margaret ANDERSON-15: born 1826 in Brechin.

14. James SPALDING-13: married.

15. Elizabeth DEWAR-14: born.

Generation 5

16. George FENDER-40.

17. Elizabeth SMITH-41.

18. James BEAT-38: born 1 Oct 1789 in Ferry Port on Craig; married 22 May 1816 in Ferry Port on Craig.

19. Isabel MURRAY-39.

20. Thomas ALEXANDER-36.

21. Elizabeth MILNE-37.

22. A WATT-16.

Generation 6

36. William BEAT-42.

37. Jean GORIE-43.

I come from quite a few Ship Masters. Two George Fenders and James Beat were all Ship Masters. Alexander Alexander was a stonemason. I come from the working class, I would love to take a further peek into their lives.

So there.. a long winded blog to attempt to fill in the space of the long weeks of silence.

If you read all the way through this.. woah.. I am impressed. If not.. it is so understood.

:)

Elizabeth Dewar Spalding Fender Duncan

For this post I will pay tribute to my maternal grandmother. I wrote about her husband (John Foster DUNCAN) in my blog already and for she being "the" person of my life I have not yet written about her. There is so much emotion attached to her and this month would be the perfect time to bring you into the world of a woman that was not famous, she never had a lot and her retirement sucked, it was stolen by a stroke.

b. March 21, 1909, District of St. Mary, Dundee Scotland

m. January 4, 1934 to John Foster Duncan, Clarksburg, West Virginia

d. March 3, 1984, Rochester, New York

b. March 5, 1984, Webster Union Cemetery, Webster, New York.




Elizabeth Dewar Spalding Fender Duncan was a woman that came to the United States from Scotland as a teenager. Her father and older brother came to the US first in steerage and during that journey her father decided that her mother, herself and my great aunt Edna would travel first class when they moved across the pond. My grandmother came to the US aboard the Adriatic leaving Liverpool England on December 27, 1924 and arriving in New York on January 9, 1925.

My Grandmother; My Mother; Me

Until the day she died her Scottish accent was clear as a bell. She rolled the "r" in my name, Sharon. I still to this day hear the way she said it yet I can not duplicate it. This woman had an uncanny knack of looking into my eyes and seeing my soul. She saw all of my childhood fears and made me safe; she was the woman that made it all better. We lived together for the first five years of my life and then my parents, sister and myself moved to Rochester, New York and she stayed in Akron, Ohio. I don't recall it ever being easy for me that she was there and I was here though we went there many times during the year, every holiday and a week or two in the summer and she would come here to New York for her vacations.

She worked in a dental lab in Akron. She took the bus there every day and she never drove, she never had her license. She lived on West Exchange Street just down the street from Clix? (Clicks, Cliks), it was a very large five and dime sort of place. She smoked a lot, Tarryton cigarettes, and she knit. I knit now. She was fantastic with a sewing machine and I remember she made a lot of her clothing just for the pure enjoyment of doing so. She had a singer machine that set into a sewing table the size of a card table and that was always put up in the corner of her bedroom but it would come down on our visits so a mattress could be put there for my sister and I. We LOVED bunking in with her and on the weekend, one of us got to sleep with her, it was such a treat.

My Grandmother; Her brother George; Her sister Edna

She was a fabulous multi-tasker.. she would sit in her chair, catch the evening news, talk to us, knit and smoke -- all with me in her lap. She was very tolerant of my need for her attention and my adoration of her, lol. She liked her occasional "wee ticky" of scotch when my mother was there to enjoy some too. She drank her coffee black. She would pour a bit into the saucer to cool it and then poured it back into the cup until the liquid cooled enough. I remember the shape of her hands and fingers and I remember holding her hands and pressing my fingertip against the filed edge of her nail. Every morning she had a soft boiled egg and toast with unsalted butter for breakfast. I remember what the egg cups looked like that held her eggs. When we were visiting I would sit and watch her eat her breakfast; I was her company as she got ready to go to work. She always had a box of sugared donuts for us on arrival and chocolate milk.

She was very particular about her likes and dislikes. She loved shalimar perfume. She liked her linens "Crisp" as mentioned in this blog before and had the laundry sent out and delivered back just so. Linens were just something that had to be done right. Lawrence Welk, she never missed that show even if my sister and I wrinkled our noses a lot. Lawrence Welk was no Partridge family or Davey Jones! She had a lot of plants along a very large bay window in the dining room. I remember that apartment.. I would love to have it today, it was a great apartment. She always had the comics there for us from the Akron Beacon Journal and silly putty to stick to it to take up the image. Oh! And she would have me stand and sing for her and the delight in her eyes as I would belt out my current favorite song or something I was singing in the school choir. She liked to be entertained by my sister and I. She had expectations of giving it a try but was very gentle with us when we sucked at what we did. Smile. And the famous Barbie fashion shows. She would buy us clothing for our Barbie's and my sister and I would stage a fashion show and it was like our own personal Academy Awards show.

She lived alone for a great many years. My grandfather and she seperated when my mother was in her teens. They never divorced and I will never know if she found someone to spend her time with, those things were never known or spoken of back then and that is something I simply do not need or want to know. My bet would be no. She was extremely independent and never seemed to suffer for being alone and I think for the most part it suited her just fine. I remember worrying about her being alone and I would cry all the way back to New York just certain she was in pain and suffering for not having us with her or anyone. I have to say that now that I am approaching 50 and I am living alone and have been divorced for about 10 years now, I do not mind being alone, my sister is the same so maybe my Grandmother knew more than we did! She seemed happy, content and she loved my mother, my sister and I to pieces. Later in life after she retired, my grandfather asked if he could move in, she had two bedrooms so she took him as a roommate. For his choices of leaving her, he made restitition by becoming her caregiver after her stroke. He wiped his slate clean in my book and I think my mother's too.
She had a temper... I have one too. Hers was not a horrible temper but a stubbornness that would say very clearly she would not do anything she didn't want to and she would speak her mind. She was very intelligent and I remember she would put my biological father in his place with a set of her jaw that he did not argue with. Too, she was compassionate. I was not his favored child and he was cruel to me on many occasions and she tried to assure me that it was not me but him. She was my life raft. I would have given anything to live with her.

I was a child that made mistakes. I ended up pregnant and married at the tender age of 16. My boyfriend was going into the Army and we would "just die" without each other and so.. eh well, it happens! My mother was livid and I remember hearing about what would their friends think, what would my step fathers boss think! (She does regret that now, it was the 70's). It was my grandmother that put a stop to the stress and let me know clearly that I and my baby could come live with her, no need to be married, no need to worry of a thing and what I decided was.. my decision. Well, I should have gone to her in hindsight, I married the boy I couldn't live without and learned the true definition of Hell. But that is another story!

I do have regrets when it comes to this woman I loved like I did. When I was in Germany as an Army wife, I got the news that she had a stroke. I had no idea what that was and so thought little of it, I was 17 and just did not know these things. What I found when I returned home broke my heart. Her being sick frightened me and I missed so much opportunity and regret so much. Her stroke was massive and left her fully paralyzed on her left side and never to walk again. Her life became a chair with no knitting, and her independence stripped away from her which I think was the worst. Her eyes were sharp, which is cruel too, to be so sharp of mind and a body that kept her trapped. She was moved here to New York with my Grandfather and he took care of her until she had to be placed in a nursing facility. They lived in an apartment nearby and I would see her but not like I should, me of all people. I was in denial, her illness scared me and I had a crappy life with that boy I just had to marry.

The last time I saw her alive was in the nursing home facility. I had not been to visit her in a long time and she was angry at me, something I feel I deserved. She ignored me that day but I could see in her eyes that she was disappointed yet she loved me and I remember the shame I felt all because I would not face my fears and grow up, act like an adult, and so on. I was in my early 20's.. old enough to figure it out I think. I will never forget it, a nurse came in and she introduced her son-in-law, that boy I just had to marry, and did not introduce me. Awkwardly the nurse looked at me then to my Grandmother but in her stubbornness and pride she talked about his accomplishments and having made her a great grandmother. I was effectively put in my place. She gave me years of leeway and I was the one child who should have picked up the slack, we had a bond like no other in my life. I know she loved me and was teaching me a lesson. Because of this I push my youngest, my daughter, not to lose touch with her father as he had moved to another state and has been struggling with reoccuring cancer. I want her to benefit from my lessons.

Continued...

I wrote the above on the 5th of March and really found myself just missing her badly and could not get through a paragraph without getting weepy. Then that evening I "officially" started on her family tree as that is straight across the pond for research. I installed the beta Rootsmagic 4 (yippie!) and got busy. I entered her into the program and it hit me.. she was buried on March 5, 1984. Ahhhh, Grandma!

The single best thing my sister ever said to me is "When I look at you, I see so much of her..." Now if ever that wasn't the finest of compliments.

A Taste of Oral History

I had the most delightful conversation with my mothers cousin last evening. I have a huge family I have never met. My grandfather moved to Akron, Ohio from Tennessee and then my parents moved to Rochester, New York. I grew up away from the extended families. And so, I sometimes feel detached. I am a relative by blood and name but I don't have all the photo's or anecdotes of memories. It is not to say we were not close with our Akron family, I spent a lot of time with cousins on my Grandmother's side growing up but the Tennessee family I know what I see on my pedigree chart. I have some articles and pictures but I don't have the experience with them. My mother went to Tennessee once as a child and while she did form relationships with them it was long distance. It is not like I didn't know any of them, I knew my grandfathers two sisters, Ruth and Bertha, they lived in Akron too. So talking to Patsy was an absolute joy.

I expected it to be business about the DAR and Colonial Dames 17th Century. I am in the process of getting my mother, my sister, my daughter and myself into the DAR and the Colonial Dames 17th Century has been a little more difficult to make contact. She gave me helpful information as to what line I want to take into the Colonial Dames as I am a colateral descendent of Ann Lee who married Thomas Youwell. Her father was Richard Lee, who signed the Declaration of Independence. And so I will try to make contact with them again once I get the DAR buttoned up.

What I ended up with from this phone call was a few stories and a smile that lasted all night long. Listening to her talk of my great grandparents was such a treat and she told me a couple of very short stories about David Washington Duncan and Carrie Ann Baldwin Duncan. Carrie is the blood line that goes back to the Revolutionary War and Colonial times.

David and Carrie were living in Atlanta, Georgia for a time. He was a postman on the railroad and he would pick up mail and sort it to be delivered. When McKinley was elected President of the United States, Atlanta began to celebrate. A man stepped from his hardware store and started banging two cast iron skillets together as noise makers. David looked over and decided he liked those skillets. The next day he went back to the store and bought them for Carrie. One Patsy gave to my mother to pass down through the family since Patsy didn't have grandchildren.

Carrie Baldwin Duncan wanted to die on the same day as her husbands birthday/death date, March 24. For days she laid on her death bed and she kept asking what day it was. Those with her would respond, Monday or the day of the week and she kept asking the date. One day she asked the date, she was told it was March 24th, she smiled and closed her eyes and died. Patsy said that Carrie loved David Duncan more than anything and that they had been a happy couple. I find it ironic that he worked so many years around the rail road and it was on the rail road that he died. His car was hit by a train when he was crossing when on the way to a meeting. Patsy said it was figured he was pressed for time, he was on his way to a cattleman's meeting, and distracted so didn't hear the whistle. Carrie hated slang of any kind, a darn or shucks around her was as good as swearing in her book. I wish I had known her.

After talking about so many other things, we left the phone call with what she likes to bake for Pam when she comes to visit. Pound cake with almond flavoring and cookies. She said to use a chocolate chip cookie recipe and substitute chopped dried bing cherries for the chips, or add both. They sound so good! I will have to make them sometime soon. Today I don't feel so deprived of family stories and I look forward to talking with her again and hearing more of her stories.

Invitation to the Kitchen (Blog Prompt 6)

I remember we would travel to Akron, Ohio from Rochester, New York to visit my grandmother several times during the year. Usually we would go for the major holidays and during the summer time. My grandmother, Elizabeth Fender Duncan, lived with her Step Mother who I have spoken of before in this blog, Grandma Willie. She was legally blind but I remember holding papers right up to her nose to make out letter and I remember her touching the picture of her husband who had passed away every day, also in this blog, Edward Fender. My grandmother was very proper about many things. Linens were to be starched by the laundry; I remember the laundry bag being left by the door of her second floor apartment on West Exchange Street. She liked her linens “crisp.” She rented the entire second floor. There was a kitchen, a breakfast room and a formal dining room which was where we would eat those Sunday dinners that she planned when we were “home”. In my world, “home” was where my grandmother was, she was my everything.

The dining room table was huge, or it seemed so when I was little, and it had high back chairs. The good dishes came out of the china cabinet and the pantry in the breakfast room. I don’t remember the “kitchen” ware ever being on the dining room table but I remember my grandmother’s kitchen dishes. I can see a coffee cup in my minds eye right now, with a crack and a chip out of the lip. I miss her so so much. They were white with brushed green and a person on them I think? Some sort of picture in the center but I can not remember what it was exactly. But I digress. On the dining room table was the china of hers that I own today and china that I cherish because it was hers. We had cloth napkins taken from the drawer of the china cabinet and we had to sit up straight.

We combed our hair and would come to the table nice and clean and while I don’t remember if there was a standard meal, I do know that my grandmother loved a “good cut of meat” and her occasional wee ticky of Scotch. Roast beef I remember. What I do remember most was Grandma Willies “Southern Beans”. Never did a green bean taste better when she snapped fresh beans and simmered them with onion and pork rind. While I make it too today, it has never tasted how she made them so I wonder if there was a secret ingredient or if some things simply can not be duplicated. Grandma Willie’s southern style beans will always taste better simply because it was she that made them. Without her sight she did not do a lot in the kitchen but this was one recipe she could do with her eyes closed.

This blog prompt has brought along some very good memories so I asked my co-workers to answer the prompt too and here are their memories and I will tell you there was a smile in their eyes when they told their stories.

Shirley has a story of what the dog wouldn’t eat! Karen has memories of an Italian home where hospitality was a very big part of Sunday.

Shirley’s Story:

Sunday dinners at our house were usually the biggest meals of the week. We generally ate around 2 pm. The one I remember the most, is when my mom was making new dishes and using
us as the “guinea pigs” as you were. One week, she made a salad that called for mayonnaise. No one would eat it or even try it. She was so proud of it and was hurt because no one would try it. She was so upset she told us the following Sunday she was going to serve hot dogs and French fries! I think she thought she was punishing us, but let me tell you, those were the best tasting hot dogs and French fries I ever remember eating!

Karen’s Story:

Sunday dinner in our family was an event. We usually went to my Grandmother’s house on Sunday for dinner and a visit. As soon as you walked into the house, your senses were overwhelmed by the smell of home made sauce, meatballs and freshly baked Italian bread. There was talking and laughter around the huge table in the dining room, kids running around and playing indoors and out. Though today I’m not so sure if the table was big because it was big or if it was big because I was little. My Grandmother always had a full house on Sunday’s. Not only with family, but also friends would stop in during the course of the day to visit. Her table was always full; I can remember trays of pasta, meatballs, sausage, salad, bread, and antipasto. She would also have wine to offer and coffee or espresso in the pretty little espresso cups after dinner. There were always loafs of fresh Italian bread on the kitchen table cooling, waiting to be cut. That is probably one of my favorite memories – the smell and taste of fresh bread hot and right out of the oven. I don’t think she ever made anything that anyone wouldn’t eat. My Grandmother had a way of making everyone and everything special – she was special.

Hugh Lawson Baldwin

Hugh Lawson Baldwin
Born abt 1808 Amhearst Co, Virginia
Born December 12, 1809 Rhea County Tennessee
Died abt 1890 Lancaster Texas (how did he get there!)

Married Betsey Stockton Wilson (the Widow Wilson and older than Hugh.)

Hugh Wilson Baldwin (curious, was Hugh named after her husband that passed on? )

Census - 1840 Rhea County, Tennessee; 1860 Bradley County, Tennessee

Hugh Lawson Baldwin is in my "DAR" line. He would be my great-great-great grandfather and while I do know some about him, I don't know much. Betsey died aft 1860 and at some point Hugh ended up in Texas but I don't know the why and when. I have not found him on but two census' but have not yet sat down to the serious "lets find him!" research.

I have a schematic drawn showing where his grave is in Lancaster, Texas. A very nice person in Texas read a post I left about identifying this cemetery and asking for a picture. He said he would get me a photo when he can but abbreviated some of his headstone to me and it seems he had a second wife! So more to follow up on when I see this headstone. In the meantime.. I must keep searching!

My Post:

http://familyknitsnspindles.com/hlbgrave.jpg

Hello,
I am wondering if anyone can identify the cemetery in the schematic in the above link and perhaps get a picture of the grave marker for Hugh Lawson Baldwin 1808-1890. I live in Western NY State and my chances of getting to Texas any time soon are very slim. I did try contacting a Historical Society there by email but my emails kept bouncing back.
Thank you!!

Answer to my Post!:
Hugh Lawson Baldwin is buried in Edgwood Cemetery, Lancaster, TX. His headstone is as "H.L. Lawson.....h/o S.E". This cemetery is located on Nokomis Rd. near E. Belt Line Rd. The weather this week is supposed to be cold and rainy. I will try to get down there and get a picture.