Before the war started - 1856 Texas

Of course tensions were high.  Wars don't start in a vacuum.  The Civil War had lots of things leading up to it.  I don't know most of them.

I will look at what my ancestors were saying in their correspondence however.

It is of note that Lizzie is the younger sister of Mary Granger Phillips, her name being Elizabeth Granger at the time of these letters.  It is even more precious when I know what will become of Mary, and how her children will go to her sisters, Lucy and Lizzie to grow up in their care.  My grandmother's mother was one of those children.

As noted before, I make comments in the document within parentheses and in italics.
(First look at photos of the original documents, then my transcriptions, then my "other notes")

(Note on layout, one page folded, with writing starting on right front fold, going inside for 2^nd and 3^rd pages, then back to front left for 4^th page, then along margins, MaryPhillipsEliz24Sept1856.001 and 002)

                                        Beaumont Sept 24, 1856

Dear Lizzie

        You must excuse a short note this week as I cannot write more.  Willie (her husband William Phillips) wished me to write you a few lines for him as he thinks  he can better explain why you may not teach, he says the gist of the matter is this you are going to marry and you wish to teach but Mr. Reed does not, so you are waiting for him if he says marry good bye to school.

****************************************

(next page of letter)

Now he says you need not deny it – for you know it is true.  I saw Helen all the Coulda (?) family called upon me yesterday Mrs. Catilda (?) is getting Helen ready to come.  Mrs. Louck (?) is about to go to housekeeping.  Mr. H. is building down below Mrs. Lewis’s (?) thing and are delighted at the idea.

        I wonder if it is  cold at the Pass (Sabine Pass, Texas) as here .  I am sitting by the stove this morning.  Mornings have been so cold I sit in the house now I think the room looks so pretty since changing the furniture I have taken out the (scratched out 2 letters) Bowl & Pitcher 

****************************************

(next page of letter)

and put the table under the glass with several little things upon it.  The beaureau (sic) is where the table stood and the bed in the farther corner of the room my little table I have recovered with the same having a plenty.  Mr. P  is making a much larger one.   I see no prospect for us to come down until Christmas so have become quite reconciled to wait.

        I am much obliged for the dish.  I do find it very convenient nearly every meal I use it.  I have potatoes and they keep nice and warm in it.  Noah and his wife I have not

*****************************************

(next page of letter)

seen as yet.  I called upon them and they upon me but always miss each other.  Her family are bitter as ever she went to church and her brother never spoke to her but she said she did not care a darn.

        I have hardly been out since you left.  I am sewing. Just made a shirt entire yesterday for (General?)

        Mrs. W. Harring (?) has fiterd (?) some business and has been in two or three times she is making her a black silk dress off the piece your apron was bought – how does it wear?  I am looking this week to hear from Mother.

        Your, Mary

(then to margins of letter)

Love to Lucy  I suppose she is too busy with Mr. (Bendley?) to write unless I write her.

I don’t expect to be able to play one tune.  When I come home the piano will be so bad  Cannot you get it tuned I tell you this winter will ruin it if you do not.

****************************

Elizabeth (Lizzie) Granger later married Sidney Sweet, and their other sister Lucy Granger married Agustus Wakeley, who was the clerk of Galveston County.

From the jumps of information in Census records, I am able to piece together that these families continued moving, having originally lived in Massachusetts, then Sabine Pass, Texas.  From there Mary Granger Phillips and her husband William apparently moved to Beaumont, and started a plantation nearby.  In later letters she talks about the cotton crops.
And the Granger unmarried daughters moved to Galveston, where later they married.  Their brother George also lived there, as well as their parents, who later moved to Tyler, Texas.

All this was before oil was discovered which basically raped the landscape of any beauty that Beaumont might have had. Oil was discovered at nearby Spindletop on 10 January 1901. So remaining landmarks are few and far between.  

(I'm sending this post to Sepia Saturday this week, because without this black gold, automobiles would not have existed.  Now isn't that a thought!)

  
Wikipedia has a good article about the history of Beaumont, Texas, mentioning Joseph Pulsifer, whose sister Lucy was married to George Tyler Granger (as mentioned in my post here.) and was the mother of Mary, Lucy, George and Elizabeth who are involved in these letters that I'm transcribing

I will post more information about the Pulsifer family later.  And as I do more research into early Texas history, I'll share what I learn too, for those of you who don't yet know about it's short time as a republic and so on.  My ancestors were some of the brave pioneers who worked through some years of extraordinary changes there.

The Goddess on Thursday, so it must be Athena-day

When I first learned about the Goddess, or Goddesses, as the foundation of our history, I was amazed I'd never heard this secret. Anyway, this was an education that brought me to understand the civilizations that lived for centuries before the current one which has mainly gods, but that they had venerated goddesses as supreme dieties.  Matriarchal societies existed.

Marija Gimbutas is one of the archeologists who have changed the ideas about ancient European societies.  Wikipedia says,

Her final book, The Civilization of the Goddess (1991) articulated what Gimbutas saw as the differences between the Old European system, which she considered goddess- and woman-centered (gynocentric), and the Bronze Age Indo-European patriarchal ("androcratic") culture which supplanted it. According to her interpretations, gynocentric (or matristic) societies were peaceful, they honored homosexuals, and they espoused economic equality.

 Once civilizations built towns without defensive walls, because there was no war between other towns.  Their artifacts include many small figures of females, and no figures of males.  A culture that thought a female was pretty important, and males were not as important, and didn't war with it's neighbors.  Nice fantasy, no? (Males, you were important in the ways women have been over the last 3000 years.)

Oh dear oh dear, I forgot, if women were in charge of things, there didn't have to be a powerful gender and one that would have to defer to them.  The idea that my goddess friends brought to my attention is hard for me to imagine, but sounds great.  Nobody needed power over anyone else.  Everyone had equal power.  Leadership rotated between those who wanted to lead.

A story is told that Oya, the African Yoruba orisha or Goddess of whirlwinds and transformation heard a human crying, "Please, Twirling Woman, help me, help me!"  Oya flashed Her dark mirror and said "If you wish release, Human, simply look into my mirror and change.  You who need courage...look into my mirror and change.  If you desire wisdom, simply...look into my mirror and change.  Power can be yours if you will...look into my mirror and change."
And so the human looked into Her mirror and changed!

Exerpted from Luisah Teish, "Jambalaya," 120-121.

Oya

Go back another hundred years - 1735

Today marks the birth anniversary of Jacob Granger.

He was grandfather to George Tyler Granger...whose father was Joseph Granger, b Dec 7, 1765 in Andover, Essex County, Massachusetts, and who died Mar 21 1847 in Newburyport, Essex Co, MA.   George Tyler Granger was the pioneering spirit who moved to Texas from Newburyport.

Jacob Granger was born Aug 7, 1735 in Andover, Essex, Massachusetts, USA, and died on Feb 4 1795 in Andover, Essex, Massachusetts, USA.

  

Like many people in this cemetery, there's a marker attesting to Jacob having served his country during the Revolutionary War.  

His wife was Sarah Farnam Granger, whose stone is next to his.  I found the design on the tombstone interesting and wonder what meaning it might have.  It is great to see a cemetery that is this well cared for.

 

The family tree branches

Finding Uncle Marion:

The data on my site didn't have his death date or place.
I had his birth date and the state of Georgia, but no details.

Uncle Marion had lots of background material.  He was the elder brother of my grandmother's grandfather, William Phillips, who died as a Confederate soldier.  (I don't know why Marion Phillips didn't fight in that conflict).  Uncle Marion was old enough that when his mother remarried to Samuel Gainer, he might not have continued to be part of the household.  That is unknown.  But he did stay close to them as they moved into Texas.

I also was looking for details of George Granger's life.  The Grangers were  from Newburyport, MA.  One transcriber had given his mother's maiden name some real twists, which used to be why people weren't connected up with their real life events.  Lucy Pulsifer was changed into Lucy Ressiler.  It's easy for me to read her correct name in the handwritten document.  But if you've never heard of the Pulsifers who surveyed the land originally for Beaumont Texas, I guess anything is possible.  They donated land for the city center, and probably some of their descendents received some profits somehow.  Not my family, however.  I think my grandfather and grandmother went from Houston to Beaumont during some property settlement, but came home empty handed. In case you don't know, Beaumont is the site of oil.

Anyway, Marion Phillips never married. And since he was my grandmother's great uncle, I didn't spent much time looking for information on him.  It's hard enough to find out who's parents are whose...and when they lived, and did they marry the same person according to the various census records they appeared in.  Seriously, I'm in the midst of trying to get George Granger's wife (or wives) birthday straightened out.

But, (you know that was coming, didn't you) Uncle Marion was the recipient of many letters, as well as wrote many, between himself and his sisters and parents and brothers and their children from around the Civil War till afterward.  Uncle George, not so much.

The Phillips/Gainer family moved to Texas, sometime around the beginning of the Civil War.   Uncle Marion lived in Galveston as well as Tyler Texas, and I finally found his grave in Woodville, Texas.

I actually have a picture of the grave marker, so now I know when he died, and where.

I've transcribed many of the Uncle Marion letters that were part of the Rogers family genealogy records.  I'm adding them to his site on Ancestry.com. 

And when I get a minute (more like an hour) I'll tell you more details about the letters, the family, and poor Uncle George Granger.  (The Granger family raised my grandmother's mother and sister when Mary Granger Phillips and her husband William died early.  Remember William was Marion Phillips' brother. And Mary was George Granger's sister.)

OK, confusing, I know, and I look at the family tree all the time.

I'll try to be more coherent next time.






What is life? It is the flash of a firefly in the night. It is the breath of a buffalo in the wintertime. It is the little shadow which runs across the grass and loses itself in the Sunset - Crowfoot, a leader of the Blackfoot nation

Captain Alexander G. Swasey's ship the Ella Warley

For this week's Sepia Saturday...come on over and see lots of vintage pictures.

Here's my contribution.
Somewhat nautical, the Swasey family began building ships in Massachusetts.  Then some sons moved south then west...Charleston, SC and eventually to Galveston, TX.

When the Civil War broke out, Captain Alexander G. Swasey, Jr. was committed to help the South. I have copies of records where he had signed ship's manifests from Europe to America, as well as one from Charleston to New Orleans which had listed one slave.  Today I have cultural guilt for this but have to remember that the times before the Civil War meant that the entire culture of the South depended upon the labor of slaves.  It was a way of life, though it was wrong to have an entire race deprived of freedom.  Any Black people who were freed may have been rare before Lincoln's address and Emancipation Proclamation, and many had to use the Underground Railroad to go north where they would receive respect and opportunities.

Captain Swasey began blockade running with the S.S. Ella Warley, a 212 foot long side wheeler steamboat.  Apparently Captain Swasey didn't spend very long as a blockade runner before being captured, and spending the rest of the war, and the rest of his life in Libby Federal Prison. *NOTE below:

An interesting post about the Ella Warley may be found here. 
I'm very glad this was posted July 16, 2013...just in time for me to forward it to you here.  I am thrilled by the interview with the pilot...where he probably was trying to cover his asterisk when caught with all those guns, by playing dumb.

Captain Swasey's first trip was in Jan. 1862, and he was captured in April 1862.  The Ella Warley having been captured by the Union, went on to other activities.

The Ella Warley belonged to E. Adderly, of Nassau, a British subject.  The South had looked to Britain to continue helping their commerce of cotton exportation, and initially there was good support of shipping received by investment in ships from British companies.  This is one of the ships that was part of that trade.

This was Captain Alexander G. Swasey's home in Charleston, SC, (as it appears today.) 

 Here's an interesting book that covers the pursuit of blockade running during the Civil War.

Captain Alexander G. Swasey, captain of the early blockade runner Ella Warley from January 1862 until his capture on April 25, 1862 (from a private collection).

 He was my grandmothers' grandfather, so my great great grandfather.


*NOTE: I was incorrect here, he didn't die until 1866 in Charleston, which fact came to my attention by a comment below.    
***NOTE second. He wasn't even in Libby Prison, which is what my family had told me. Oral History is often a bit wrong on names. 

What another culture says to ours.

From the Heart of the World, The Elder Brother's Warning

Entire Film Here

I was given a DVD of this film to look at and pass along...and took some time with a friend to watch it yesterday.  I'm so glad I did.

Why?  I could have been doing something else, with that hour and a half.  I could have learned how to knit some pattern I like.  I could have thrown about 6 mugs or bowls (I'm a slow potter actually).  I could have done lots of other things...

But I thought I needed to hear about a culture that has barely been touched by Western Civilization...where only one person was encouraged to learn another language so that he could translate for "outsiders" what needed to be told.  The Elder Brothers, the Mummers, spend a lot of serious time meditating on the conditions of the earth.  They devote their lives to spiritual pursuits, and are trained in ways that are unimaginable to outsiders.  We outsiders are known as Younger Brothers.  We were contacted in order to help save the world, according to their knowledge of it.

I found it intriguing to learn about the myths and stories of the Kigo of Columbia, who live in the Sierra Nevada de Santa Marta mountain hinterlands.  They are the surviving indigenous peoples who retreated into mountains when the Spaniards conquered the Americas.  They remind me of the indigenous peoples here in North Carolina who survived the United States government when the Trail of Tears happened not too long ago.  But the Kigo have remained isolated and uncommicative with the conquerors.

The film was produced for BBC TV in 1990.  Amazon has a 1968 VHS version listed.  But the movie I watched came to a close with 1990 as it's date.  There are several other publications about these people.  Why hadn't I run into them sooner?  Have you heard of the Kogi already?  Well, I did hear of a film about South American Indians who hadn't been in communication with "outsiders."  Guess these must be they...and I wasn't ready to watch it before now.

I came away with a few questions that were not answered by the film.  They used to have all these little figures made of gold that honored the spirits.  But the Kogi Elder Brothers confront the Younger Brothers for raping the earth and mining minerals.  Question: how did they make the gold figures?

They don't look like a culture that has mined and done intricate metal craft. I would guess when their culture was larger and was using the well paved roads through the mountains, there was mineral work.  Yes the gold is gone now...apparently by Columbian grave robbers as the film would lead us to think.  Some gold figures were buried in the graves in areas accessible to civilization.  These figures end up in museums or private collections.  The grave robbers are free to do as they wish, without any policing. Nor do they have any training in archeology which is shown by how they mistreat artifacts.

If you can watch the film with an anthropological interest, you may come away knowing how a civilization that has existed for thousands of years survives, has developed it's own world stories, and has decided to contact us to solve a problem we share.  The earth is our mother, and she is dying.

Albert "Bud" James Webb, July 30, 1891

Happy birthday to my grandfather who lived only 28 years on this earth.  This is the 122nd anniversary of his birth.

From my mother's photo album, showing a couple of portrait photos that may have been inside lockets.  She had been only 2 when he died.

In the 1900 census of Goliad, Texas, he was 8 years old, living with parents Annie E. (age 37) and Larry F. Webb (age 42), who had been married for 22 years.  Others in the household included a 16 year old sister, Maggie, a 13 year old brother, Thomas, and an 11 year old sister Clara.  The census said his father had been born in Texas, and his father's father was from Maryland and his mother from Ohio.  His mother, Annie E. Williams had been born in Missouri, and her father was born in Iowa and her mother in Ohio.  Larry F. Webb has as his occupation " head" of ( inscription is slightly hard to read) "General Merch" which I think would be a general store. There was also a "lodger" in the home, 25 year old Katy Ayers, whose occupation was house servant.

I always look at the original census data, because otherwise I would have missed seeing the next household listed was headed by James E. Webb, age 21, living with his brother, John L. Webb, age 20.  Since their parents were born in the same places as Annie and Larry Webb, I believe these were elder brothers of Albert.  James was a bookkeeper at the time, and John as salesman.  They were born in DeWitt County, Weesatche, Texas. 

Bud Webb at 18 (in 1910) was working in a real estate office in San Antonio.  His father owned and operated a "confectionery."  The family still had a servant who lived with them.  Incidentally, my records show Bud having been born in "Huisache, Texas" which is a more Spanish way to spell Weesatche.  

When something happened in 1894, this photo of Bud's father's Store in Weesatche commemorates it with  the friends and employees.  Larry F. Webb himself outlived his son by many years, dying in 1921. So perhaps this was when the family moved to San Antonio.



The San Antonio City Directory in 1910 listed the Webbs who lived at the same address, 130 Lewis, and the first alphabetically was Albert (Bud).  He was a solicitor for Conness Realty.  The other Webbs were his sister, Miss Clara Webb, and his parents Leary F. and Anna Webb (he running the Confectionery on San Pedro Av. SW)

Albert and my grandmother, Mozelle Miller, married Aug 7, 1915, in San Antonio.  He was 24, and she was a month shy of her 17th birthday.

Albert's draft card for World War I, dated June 15, 1917, lists his birthday but a year younger in 1892. And maybe the typist had some problems, because he's listed as Albert Joe not James.   He is living now at 95 Lewis St. and proclaims he has a wife and child.  The registration just says he's "tall" and medium build, blue eyes, light colored hair, slightly bald. He just signed the card A. J. Webb.  He never went to the war.

So what killed him?  Perhaps the Influenza epidemic.  But my mother's story as I grew up, was that a bad extension cord on Christmas lights electrocuted him.  What's wrong with this picture?  He died Sept. 15, 1919, not in December.  Maybe there was a bad electrical cord, and my mother was reminded of it when we strung lights at Christmas, and I've blended the time she shared about it into my own rendition.  Early electric wiring was certainly not that good.  Whatever took this young man's life, my mother had to be told about him by her mother and her aunts and grandmother.  I don't think the Webbs had much contact with her throughout her life.

I also remember her saying that her grandmother, Annie Elizabeth Williams Webb, had been an heiress to the Woolworth fortune.  And there was some connection with the Little Church Around the Corner in New York City.  My sister may have found out more about these stories, and I hope to hear what they were sometime, because they don't seem evident on Ancestry!

For many years my genealogy records gave Joe as his middle name, but his death certificate says Albert James Webb.  That's good enough for me.

Here's a picture of his brother, another salesman (according to his 1938 death certificate), John Leroy Webb.  (Apparently Larry was spelled that way, or Leary by these Webb gentlemen.)

"He Is Not Dead, He Is Just Away," Inscription on grave marker.
Marker is in Mission Burial Park SouthSan AntonioBexar CountyTexas, USAPlot: Block 2, Masonic Garden
 I'd like to go to San Antonio sometime and visit this cemetery where so many of my ancestors have their final resting place.

cool stuff

My friends Su and Rebecca and 2 others I don't know (yet) are driving to Raleigh, NC today to join the last Moral Mondays demo scheduled.

The bus was sold out before Sun. morning when Rebecca asked if anyone at church wanted to carpool with her.  Then there was the big meeting at White Horse.  She was still looking.  I'm glad she posted on FaceBook this morning...

The other cool stuff is the weather.  Ahhh.  What a lovely day here in Black Mountain.  Cool night meant lots of covers or close those windows to the mountain air.

I'm thinking of how tomorrow is my greatgrandmother's, Zulieka Swasey (my father's mother's mother, who I never knew) birthday. See my post a few days ago here.   She was a Christian Science practitioner, as well as her daughter, my grandmother Ada Swasey Rogers.  Healing women, like the old time women who were also midwives and herbalists, seemed to run in my family.  (Though I admit I have no idea if either of them did midwifery at all.)

It's also my grandfather's on my mother's side (Albert Webb) birthday tomorrow (see tomorrow's post here).

And also happy birthday on July 30 to Charles Freeland the manager of the clay studio here at the Center for the Arts.

Hot Stuff

White Horse Black Mountain is right this minute streaming a live broadcast of their free program open to the public, Moral Sunday.
Speakers have been covering all aspects of the legislative issues that our current North Carolina state government and North Carolina voters have brought to attention today.
I cried while listening to one speaker.  I'm actually glad I'm not in the audience, though I am drawn to come down the street for it.  I know I'd have to walk, cause I know parking is really bad today in downtown Black Mountain.
David LaMotte may be a singer, but he's also a mediator for peaceful living.
He just said that over 100 people are in the church next door to the White Horse, in the overflow crowd, as well as those of us having the live stream on the internet.
David's writing a book, "World Changing 101, Challenging the Myth of Powerlessness."  Sounds good.
This is democracy in action.  People without any party affilitations.
There's a video of Moral Monday XII from last Monday.
Rev. Barber of the NAACP definitely is the leader of this crowd.
Do you want to see this happening?
http://new.livestream.com/accounts/4819564/events/2285452

That may just be my link, so here's the one from FaceBook.
http://www.whitehorseblackmountain.com/2013/07/view-moral-sunday-at-white-horse-live.html

Yes, this is what I asked for.  To get involved in a life where friends are being arrested for civil disobedience because our rights are being abridged by politicians who were unfairly elected, who don't represent the majority, and who are doing things that are...
JUST PLAIN WRONG!

Great Grandmother birthday

On July 30, 1858, Zulieka Granger Phillips Swasey was born.  Her mother Mary Phillips, had been a Granger before marriage.  Her father was raised by a stepfather, Samuel Gainer in Georgia.  Her mother went from Texas back to Georgia to give birth, and I'm not clear whether she was with her own mother or her mother-in-law.  Baby Zulie was given a slave girl at her birth, with the papers written by hand by her father's mother, Mary Phillips Gainer.  I wonder if any of them knew that the Civil War would be starting in just a few years.

She returned with her parents to Sabine Pass,Texas or Beaumont, Texas, at a time when there were cotton plantations where now oil wells drill, and cities stand.

Front and back of Zulie G. Swasey portrait, mother of Ada Phillips Swasey Rogers

Zulie's mother, Mary, had another child two years later, and Mary died within the first year of that daughter's life.  Her father William Phillips may have been sick, may have been grieving, or some other reason had him leaving the homestead, and sending his daughters to relatives in Galveston.  Within 6 months of his wife's death, he joined the Confederate forces, fighting early in the war for Alabama, and dying.

Zulieka was raised by Granger relatives, as well as her younger sister, Ada.

When Zulieka married at age 24 to Alexander John Swasey, also of Galveston, she then had her own two girls, naming her first Ada Phillips Swasey, and her second Stella Zulieka Swasey.  Ada Phillips Swasey became my grandmother on my father's side.

Zulieka Swasey (Dear Nan) and daughter Ada's daughter, Ada Mary Rogers. (Ada Mary Rogers died as a child)

And how do I know more than is available by census and city directory documents?  My relatives somehow kept copies of letters written by Zulieka's mother, her father, her grandmother Gainer, her grandfather Granger, and her uncle Marion Granger.  I've transcribed them into records for these people on Ancestry.com, which kind of makes these people more real.

The letters just before and during the Civil War are the most precious, because of the lack of true information that was available to people, and the privations they endured.  Letters were written on both sides of folded paper, then across the original writing at a 90 degree angle, as well as in the margins.

Did they have important things to say?  Sometimes.  Many times a whole paragraph seemed to be speaking of unimportant things by my current standards of communication.

But they shared their lives, their language, and the writting of their actual pens down through the years.

Bite your tongue

Well, I did yesterday.  Accidentally while eating cheese doodles (not the neon orange kind).  And then I sang in Hebrew at choir practice. I've always liked the song about living in peace and unafraid...but I'm also playing a tambourine, which means I might end up lip sinking my part...maybe.  Depends on if I can wrap my right and left brain together.

I usually sing with left brain, (rational logical way) reading each note and word as I go...and seldom feel I know the music enough to let go and run in a right brain modality (more emotional I think, and certainly not enunciating a language that's hard for me to pronounce.) Anyway, put a tambourine in there and I'm definitely on right brain.  The rhythm just keeps me going, and somewhere in my poor brain I figure out which beats to play it on.

But today I'm hurting all over...muscles saying I shouldn't have been so free and easy walking yesterday...or perhaps not slept with a fan pointed somewhat in my direction last night, though it did bounce off the wall before the breeze hit me.  Oh, perhaps it's living in the cloud that hasn't dried away yet (9:30 am) with sunshine.  Cool is nice, but damp is not. Whatever did it, I'm moving slowly this morning.

Then biting my tongue had another meaning.  As I poured my second cuppa hot water over coffee grounds in paper filter cone on top of my mug, I remembered in my mother's voice "bite your tongue."

It had to do with not saying what I saw.  I'm sure it had to do with saying "why does Aunt Zelda (not her name) have a big spot (I didn't know the word wart yet) on the middle of her head?"  It must have been something like that, because I never saw her again, whoever she was.  And my poor mother probably wished the floor would swallow her up because she raised such a loud-mouth.  However, I probably got kicked under the table or pinched many times for saying the truth of what I saw...again and again.  There's just no stopping me from making observations.

I was glad by the time I had my first science class in 7th grade to learn that this was a good thing.

Biting my tongue has never been good for me.

Have you ever?

In the last 24 hours I have -

• Used shampoo to wash my whole body in the shower, cause that's what I poured into my hand, and didn't need to do my hair either.  I have liquid body soap, which is the problem.  The bottles look alike.

• Put the half and half in the microwave instead of fridge after fixing coffee.

• Ran naked to answer phone in living room with all the curtains open (hope you don't walk on my street!)

• Walk around saying the words of things I see or do, and they are nothing like the correct ones.  Feed the fish became "walk the dog."  Alright, they both had to do with pets.  I don't have a dog!

Yep, I talk to the fish, and the cats, and of course the tomato plants...the geraniums, etc.  They don't care how accurate I am.  They have their own languages which I don't understand anyway.

I reassure myself that I sometimes just haven't got the link working in my brain correctly before I go out and try to drive or talk with other people. 

I am pretty sure this is normal aging forgetfulness.  (There was a time a couple of years ago I was certain it was Alzheimer's.)  But now I feel like getting as much rest, as much brain food (fish 3 times a week), and reducing my level of stress is helping. So if I don't volunteer for anything else, unless I give up something I've already said I'd do, the reason is I want to coddle my brain somehow.  Be nice to it...take care that it takes care of me as long as I need it.  I sure love to exercise it too!  Love word games, puzzles, reading, and learning new things...etc.

"Charley" Charles Herman Miller

My great grandfather:

• Charles Herman Miller (Mueller) 

  B: 18 Jul 1868 

  • Mecklenberg, , Schwerin, Germany  

  D: 7 Nov 1946 

  • San Antonio, Bexar, Texas   

 That's what Ancestry DOT com says about him.
I have searched through lots of immigration records to try to find info about when he arrived in the US.  I think he was pretty young.

A census report of Smithfield, in Bastrop County, Texas in 1910 says the family lived on Neudgins St, (maybe something spelled somewhat like that) number244.  It has Charles listed as head of household, age 41, married 14 years, and all his 4 daughters had been born.

His wife Eugenia Booth Miller was 36 at the time, and the census says her father was born in Illinois and her mother was born in Alabama. (I've honored her on my blog HERE) They were married Oct 28, 1896, according to Ancestry (though I don't see the actual date on the census report, which Ancestry uses as its source.  I think this came from another descendent - cousin?).

It (1910 census) clearly says Charles immigrated to the US in 1865, and that he is a naturalized citizen.  Do you notice any problem yet?

His grave marker says he was born in 1868.  His census record in 1910 says he is 41, which works if the census was taken before his July 18 birthday. And it is dated (by hand on that actual sheet) April 27, 1910. But  this census says he immigrated 3 years before he was born.

OK, there's also a listing of him in the census of 1900, living in Hill County, Texas, which is the home of his wife's family, the Booths.  They have been married 3 years, and have my grandmother already, a 2 year old at that time.  Charley is his listed name, showing that he probably had that as his nickname.  His birth includes the month, July 1868 thus verifying two other sources.  But does it list a date he immigrated?  No, nor how long he's been in the US, nor that he's naturalized.

Another strange listing is how Eugenia has a father now from Indiana, and her mother from Louisiana.  At least Charley's occupation is consistent, a conductor on the railroad.  I can just see him wearing his hat and uniform, and I'd gladly give him my ticket.  Can you say "All Aboard!"   (If this phrase has no meaning for you, you were born too late for the railroad.)

In 1920, another anomaly about Eugenia's parents  (which I can actually correct, but for now I'm just enjoying how they skirted around on these census reports.)  Her father was born in Illinois, but mother was born in Georgia.  And he's a conductor but has no date of immigration given.  The census taker must have gotten tired of asking questions because naturalization is given, but the date of same, or date of immigration are just scribbles...not years.)

Fast forward to 1930 census... (I looked very briefly at a Charley Miller in the census of 1870, who was 2 years old in Texas, but race was black.)  In 1930 Charley was 61, his wife Eugenia is 57, and two of his daughters in their 20's still live at home, in the house pictured below.  (Eugenia's parents are now from Indiana and Alabama,)

And now the immigration date is given as a believable 1871.   He hasn't retired, but is still a passenger conductor.

The 1940 census included Charles Miller, age 71, at the same house.  He no longer lives with my great grandmother, who died in '36, but the two younger daughters are still at home now in their 30's, and my grandmother has moved back as well, now age 42 and twice widowed.  (My mother had married and moved into her own home several years before.)

Has Charles retired at 71? No, and he's listed as a RR Passenger Conductor for Steam M.K.T. Railroad, Co.  He is listed as having complete 4th grade level of school.  2 of his daughters are now seamstresses at home, and the other is a Jr. High School teacher.

After reading this obituary (below) I searched a bit for a sister who was Mrs. Dora Dawnon, but without results. 
The sleuthing about these people will continue! 

Obit: Charles Herman Miller, 78, member of Central Christian Church, died at his home at 111 Davis Court, Thursday, November 7, 1946, He is survived by his daughters, Mrs Mozelle Miller Munhall, Mrs Rowena Miller Rogers, Miss Dorothy D. Miller, and Miss Margaret E. Miller, all of San Antonio; a sister Mrs Dora Lawnon, (my italics) three grandchildren and two great-grandchildren.Services will be held Saturday November 9 at 10 am at McCollum Chapel with Dr. Floyd A. Bash officiating. Interment will be at Mission Burial Park under the auspices of San Antonio Lodge No. 1079 A. P. A. A. M.

SOURCE: http://www.findagrave.com/cgi-bin/fg.cgi?page=gr&GRid=56841312

 

 Miller Family Monument

I never met this great grandfather.  I never heard any stories about him.  Happy Birthday Pop Pop Charlie.

Please spend time learning what you can from the elders in your family, now, before they're gone.

David Cobb

I saw David Cobb yesterday.  Who, you may ask?  I did check when I got home, to see what his bio said on Wikipedia.

I went to learn more about "Move to Amend" ...the US Constitution to declare that corporations aren't people and money isn't speech.  (See here for more info on that action.)

I listened in awe to a great performance, a speaker who held his audience spell-bound, and convinced most of them to join up.  Maybe most of them were already decided when they came to the talk.  I sure learned what it is all about.  I also got a bit tired sitting.

That's the limitations of my body these days.

I was happy to have my picture taken with David along with several of my friends from church. It wasn't till today that it sunk in that I had had a former Presidential candidate's arm around me for that picture (Green Party.) Mmm, will this come back to bite me?  Who knows.  It was a great experience to listen to a charismatic speaker.  I haven't made up my mind whether I'll do more than follow the progress of this effort from the sidelines.

I have some other interesting pictures of a timeline which gives various legal decisions that impacted people v. corporations ever since the Constitution. I posted it here.

Forgiveness

"Please understand that in order to forgive others, we must be willing to look at our own ability to hurt, offend, and injure those around us, often the people we love and care for the most. Forgiveness doesn’t exonerate the one who hurt you nor does it trivialize the depth of your trauma. No, no. Not at all."

Rev. Michael Carter, July 14, 2013 UUCSV, Black Mountain, NC
Thanks, Michael!

 I posted this on FaceBook, from his sermon just 2 days ago.

Here's Rev. William Barber speaking yesterday in Raleigh, NC at the Moral Monday gathering outside the Legislature of elected S.O.B.'s who have been acting as if they are independent of the people of our state.  They were not elected fairly.  They have personal interests.  We citizens are letting that be known through Moral Monday gatherings.

There are only a few more planned to be held.

Anyway, the Zimmerman verdict in FL has shocked so many of us who thought racism was retreating.  I am among those who were terribly shocked to see him acquitted.  I am glad at least a civil suit will be held against him now.

Now I'm moving to see if I can forgive those legislators.  Just moving in that direction. Not to let go of the position I believe in, but to see the frailties of those who think they have power over me.   I'm also thinking of how I have been elected to serve and am I truly representing the interests of those who voted for me as a Board member.

Anyway, please take a moment of your day to look at this YouTube video of what Rev. Barber said yesterday in Raleigh.

Immortality

Do you ever think about that term?
Someone came up with it...many generations ago.  What do you think is really immortal?  (Some of you will have to turn off a switch you have inside that automatically gives an answer that is recited in a religion.  Give yourself the curiousity of a little child here.)

Since people think of "before their own lives," and "after"...and have developed many explanations for those two other places, other times...I guess someone, sitting around their cave or campfire, developed the concept of "what lives forever."  I wonder if that happened as women prepared food, cared for children, or made clothing or tools.

The concept keeps creeping into my consciousness.  I think it's something to do with my desire to leave behind my life something of value for the next generations.

That probably occurs to some of us, when we take some time to think about "all that is."  I also think that's why I may create art.  Maybe.  And it might also have to do with my delving into genealogy.  I've actually connected real people that have been buried for several centuries with this technology of computers, and my thought is that doing so lets the people who have yet to be born see something about those lives which donated (unwillingly perhaps) their DNA forward to the next generations.

I wonder if the other users of Ancestry.com do the same...

But I also have recognized that you have to have lots of free time to do so.  If I were providing the food, shelter, clothing and transportation for a young family at this time...nah.  I would be going to some job, receiving some benefits that would  provide for health care, money that would purchase needed clothes and shoes that are forever being outgrown, and purchasing and preparing meals.

That's only giving moments along the "car pool" highway to think of immortality, and watch out for the road rage maniacs that want to drive through me, triggering thoughts of how soon I might be facing mortality.

Earth element

We've gone around the circle now, air, fire, water and now earth.
It's very much part of my life as a potter.  How do you use earth in your life?

Clay in my studio arrives in these boxes from Highwater Clay, then I play with it and either it becomes a form that is fired a couple of times, or it goes back to being clay like the slip drying on a plaster slab on the right.  Then I use the clay reconstituted from that slip to make another mug or bowl or figure of something.

Other forms of earth are definitely part of our lives.  Gravity.

No kidding.  The universe of everything might be considered earth.  The wonders of the way stars travel through space and interact in galaxies.  That all atoms are reused over and over in different things...I always love hearing that we are made of star stuff.  The miracles of natural laws.

Earth the planet we live upon is in trouble.  You already knew I'd mention that, didn't you?

So what are you doing about it?

I won't go any further, just remind you who is in charge of your life.  mmm, not me.


OK, the other thing about earth to mention of course is that non-renewable resources are going to be gone someday soon.  These are minerals, fossil fuels, and the things that our culture is standing upon.  No doomsday naysayer me...no way.  I just say, start living in a renewable way.

This week, in my life, I'm cutting down my paper products use, which aren't non-renewable, but they do cost non-renewable resources to process.  I just went through the clothes about to be recycled to GoodWill, and took all the old 100% cotton tee shirts out and cut them up to have washable rags. When I was growing up, my depression-survival parents had a rag bag.  Now paper towels will be used even less around the house.  ( I cut up the tee-shirts so I'd know which things were rags when I washed them with my tee-shirts I still am wearing...not much difference for some that I love to wear to sleep in.)

I admit I've failed with my compost heap.  Gardening for me hasn't worked too well this year.  But I started growing things, and I keep looking at those green tomatoes and smiling.  Maybe they will turn red next week?  The earth has blessed me with her bounty with a zillion green tomatoes.

Do you know of at least three activist movements against earth destruction?  Why not?

Here's the link to Wendell Berry's Manifesto: The Wild Farmer Liberation Front.

I don't have those links to activist movements since my computer died last week, taking my new Environment "favorites" folder with it.  But I've found more and more since I started considering everything that's happening.  So the new Environment folder is already growing. 

Camera tricks

Walking in the woods.

A rhododendron is highlighted by one of the elder tree trunks near the creek.  I didn't have my thumb across the aperture this time, it's little lens-covers that automatically open, didn't function correctly.  I think it's probably due to the humidity.

Another elder tree which has died and is just waiting to fall.

Flat Creek cascades were highlighted by this freak of camera, which I couldn't have planned, but I am delighted in.

Friendship

This is an extraordinary picture, not just because my friend is sitting in my living room, but look, both cats are snuggled up on the back of the couch at the same time!

They may not be friends, but you know they like the same things, and they usually share them by the "me now, you later, I got here first" variety.  So I'm thrilled they became accustomed to my friend staying with us for a while.  And look again, is that sun shining in the window?  Another great event these rainy days.

And I have dearly loved having a friend of 38 years visiting (of course we were in diapers back then!)
I wish you safe travels and amazing adventures as you continue on your journey, M!

Blog reading is for...

I really enjoy the friends I read/visit on their blogs almost every day.  These are real people talking about their very real lives.  Vicki Lane had her car side-swiped on the way home from teaching a writer's workshop the other day.  Gary Rith amuses me with his creative pottery and dog and cat pictures, and strange vegie gluten free recipes.

Ronni Bennett is one that never fails to give me insights and/or amusement...at Time Goes By

Saturdays she offers a pot-pori of lovely items, and this week I laughed out loud watching this video...Mental Health Hotline.

Hecate Demeter lets everyone know all kinds of things about our old religion, the one before patriarchy became so popular, the one that has goddesses including Columbia who stands atop our Capitol building in DC, which is named after Columbia after all...anyway, I like most of her blogs. 

So now I'm going off to Sepia Saturday to catch up on a lot of interesting trivia.  When you say you never stop learning, this is definitely a great way to prove it.  (Plus there's no test.)

The rest of my blogs that I read are more for the fun of sharing other's lives.  Just look at the blog list to the right, and you can click on their titles to go see if you're interested in their stuff too!

Remembering why...

This holiday is all about patriotism.  I've kind of gone beyond believing that our country is that much better or different than others, especially with its immigration issues.  

Any nationalism means putting arbitrary boundaries across land which just continues. Building fences might have uses, especially with livestock which wanders.  But the basic fact is that we don't really own the land, we don't really have straight lines that surveyors make across a landscape.  It's all arbitrary and time limited.  Blink into the future another 300 years, or the past the same amount of time.

We Americans have been dreaming our liberty and justice for all for only 240 or so years (since before our big Revolution).  And it was exactly for the same reasons other people are revolting against their governments today...when the government no longer has the best interests of the people in it's actions.

That's why I'm very interested in the Moral Monday demonstrations that the NAACP is leading in Raleigh against a totally Republican state-government which is making very biased decisions.  

This is democracy in action.  This is what I will celebrate today.  People are saying what they believe to have their leadership listen.  It no longer works in our electoral system.

Air element

What do you think of first when "Air Element" is read?
Wind?
Air conditioning?
Smog?
Hurricanes?
Smoke?
Breathing?


You've got it.  We survive with each breath we breath.  In just about 2-3 minutes without good air going through our lungs, we don't survive.

Boy is this element taken for granted!

The rain forest situation is truly the lungs of our planet.  Thank you to the children in our church community who just sold baked goods to purchase (and protect) over 10 acres of rain forest in Costa Rica.  Every brownie and cookie helps.

I've got a lung condition (Chronic Obstructive Pulminary Disease, COPD) which means my lungs are operating at less than 100%.  Many other people have asthma and allergies these days.  These conditions are directly related to air quality.  

Smell something.  Doesn't matter if it's the compost smell, what the pet just did, or the floral bouquet on your drier sheets.  Those are chemicals which go into your body in your lungs.  They have long term effects.  

It's like learning about how heavy metals stay in our bodies...we have the same amount of lead and mercury in us that we've ever taken in...it doesn't get processed with the rest of our wonderful waste product system.  So doctors ask us if we ever smoked.

If you sat in traffic before the gasoline had "unleaded" as part of its requirement, the fumes from all those internal combustion engines were full of lead.  And most of our vehicles didn't have airconditioning, (all made in America at that time)  so our windows were open.  Did you breath?  I'm not saying that's a lot of lead.  But it's still inside us!  This is part of our earth element (which will be covered next week.)

Back to enjoying clean air.

Get the power companies and industrial corporations to stop trading their pollution for "environmental credits."  Look into this.  They all do it, and they are the main source of air pollution.

Insist on environmental issues being considered by your government representatives.  Your children and grandchildren's breath depends upon it.  Global warming must not continue to be considered a joke by our political representatives.  The lag time between science and government is short when it offers a profit...but very long when it deals with health issues.

I'm not saying please.  I'm up on my soapbox, and I'm not going to get off.  I do hope you'll consider what I'm saying seriously.









 

 

July first sighs

I go to bed at night, alone but with two cats.  I crank up the old computer in the morning (the one that works intermittently) and fix my coffee.  I check my email and my favorite blogs.  Remember I turned off TV coverage about a month ago.

Oh no, first my blog-friend Vicki has had an accident which totaled her car.  All I can do is comment along with other blogger friends our relief that she wasn't hurt too badly.

Then another blog alerts me to a wildfire which has taken the lives of 19 hotshot firefighters.  I quickly go look at news reports.  http://www.today.com/video/today/52362369#52362369
I chose to look at NBC rather than FOX, but what difference does it make in this awful story?  The facts are grim.  I post my sadness on my FaceBook page, sending condolences so their families may know peace.  There are also many people homeless as a result of this fire.  May they find comfort as well.

So this first of July is one of sighs. 

I spent last evening reading about another disaster which occured over a century ago.  My grandparents both lived through it, when about 6000 people were killed in the "Storm of 1900 in Galveston."  I re-read the book that my grandmother gave me, in which she had written, "I knew most of these people."  I scanned the photos and wanted to post them to Ancestry.com so that other relatives could see the devastation...not to gloat in "weren't the survivors lucky."  I want to share it because the event must have impacted the lives of all who lived through it.  I've met people who survived the devastation of Katrina in New Orleans, or Andrew in south Florida.   For many, there is a look in their eyes that is forever sad.

I feel very connected to those who have suffered, not because I have, but because I am touched in my heart.