Happy Birthday Sweet Sixteen

This is my birthday and I am going to do what I want. 

I internally still see myself at 16 want to join me for cake?

I was showing off my High School class ring.

Wordless Wednesday Timeless Southern Summertime Color

Sharing a Slice of Life The Strawberry Friend

This was a much more difficult a meme prompt from Sharing a Slice of Life than I thought it would be. 'Friends' is a subject you would think would be easy.  Through the years, I have had special friends that I thought I would be connected to for all my life.  Distance would minimized the friendship, but the events of the time they were in my life remained as special times.
One such friendship started at the first house the Hero and I had.  It was in an old section of Houston called "The Heights".  My daughter Texasblu was the instigator of a the most fun friendship I had while we lived in Houston.  Mrs Arlene Anderson was our next door neighbor.  I did not know that at first; I was very shy and would never approach someone to meet them.  I always had to be introduced. 
Texasblu on the other hand a smiling outgoing 18 month old was not shy.  One day she discovered that just on the other side of the chain link fence was strawberries.  She would slip her tiny hand through the fence and back would come a strawberry...One day I saw her grabbing the strawberry, we then had to approach the neighbor to tell her we were stealing strawberries.  What a special lady, Miss Arlene as she liked having Texasblu call her, laughed and said she had been watching her "Strawberry Girl" and thought she was special.  That was the first time we spoke, soon after we went shopping together.  She is the one who introduced me to plants and unusual nurseries.  She showed me where all the unusual hole in the wall stores were that you could buy cheaply.  We had hours and hours of fun shopping trips with the Strawberry Girl in tow.  I know that Strawberry Girl was her substitute for a granddaughter since she did not have a child.  Miss Arlene was a once in life time experience that I am so glad I had.  I wish I had pictures of her, maybe Texasblu has some in her scrapbook. I hope so.  When we moved away, they did also, in the opposite direction.  It was sad to lose that friendship, but the parting was with love.

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and The Moonbeam Attack

I would be willing to wager, that many have had this experience.   It was so funny.
Let me tell you a little bit about our top story in our home.  The ceiling is the roof, it is 25 ft tall, and there are the equivalent  of 15 ft tall windows.  Not all one piece of course, but they are collectively that tall.  I never found a curtain that I liked for them because I loved watching the clouds go by and the stars at night. 
With that setting in mind, I will take you into the story.
 

We had been working hard.  The Hero had been late to work a couple of times from over sleeping.  He was anxious when we went to bed, because his employer had been fussing at him about being late.
I drifted off to a deep sleep immediately. 
I was rudely awakened when the Hero jumped out of bed and started throwing his clothes on.  It was as bright as mid-day in the room.  I said, "What are you doing?"  He said, "I am late!  It must be about noon."  Peering at the clock, I sat back in bed giggling.  "Silly, it is only 2 am in the morning.  That is the moon shining so bright." 
He looked at the clock himself then grinned and laughed saying, "I can use some more sleep." 
Watch that old devil moon, it can fool you at times.  ; )
This was his favorite story to tell on himself when someone would talk about over sleeping.

Surname Saturday Knapp/ Gildon

I wish I could find the descendants of this line.  they seem to be the line that prospered in children the most of my Charles Gildon Line.

Wordless Wednesday Parts of Me

What I do.  

Approved by Bryan (4yearold)

Sharing a Slice of Life 'Bugs'

The prompt by Texasblu this week at Sharing a of Life was 'Bugs'.  Now, it would be easy enough to write about butterflies, cicadas, and grasshoppers.  They are pleasant, cute, and the cicadas sing the song of the South all summer long.
As usual, I can't stay with the fluff.  I have to focus on the bane of Southern life...The Mosquito. 
For our ancestors in Georgia, Alabama, and other swampy areas, the mosquito was the carrier of the parasite which caused ague  or Malaria.  The name brings thoughts of chills and fever.  The truth is; it was a horrible plight for the person who contacted the disease and lived.  They never knew when it would occur again. I actually had not really studied the disease until now.  As a nurse, we touched upon it but it is not considered a major disease in this time.
Today, mosquitoes are still around and and plaguing mankind.
I know because I buy repellents and all manner of insect killers.
My most memorable experience with mosquitoes was in the swampy land of Louisiana.  My father had taken me on a tour of a few states.  We went to New Orleans then left towards Galveston.  That night, we stopped at a road side park near the beach.  As the sun went down, the alligators began bellowing, and the mosquitoes came out.  I really think they were vampires or huge bats, but my dad said they were mosquitoes.  We quickly withdrew to the camper, to lie down to go to sleep. You could hear them humming as loud as cicadas.   It was hot, but I wrapped up in a blanket, because I could see they had a plan.  One mosquito would pull back the screen and the others would dive bomb down and carry us away.  If I was in a blanket, they couldn't reach me.  LOL   I just left a small breathing hole for my nose. My dad would say "Frances! Take that blanket off."  My reply, 'No way, you can't make me.' and I would pull it tighter around me.  I did survive the night, but those were the biggest mosquitoes I had ever seen.  Spare me. 
It is no wonder our ancestors were overcome by them. 
Lather me down with every home made repellent and then spray a circle around me with Deet spray.  ; )    They shall not overcome we modern day people.!

Sentimental Sunday The Hero Loved a Good Story

When we met someone new, the Hero would almost always tell the following story...He loved it.  This is in his words as best I can remember.
"When we first moved to Montgomery, we really lived out in the middle of no where.  To keep up with our friends, we would have a monthly get together.  The most memorable one was at our house.  Frances was hurrying to prepare her part of the pot luck meal.  She needed some mushrooms for a gravy.  As I said, we were out in the middle of no where, it was 30 minutes to a real grocery store.  We discussed it and decided that our daughter had studied mushroom at school, so Frances could look at her pictures and go to the back of the land and get some of the edible ones.  Frances was a bit leary, but was game to try since she was in a hurry.  After she made the gravy, she decided to give Jake my Red Bone Hound a bite.  If he didn't get sick, it would be okay.  Well, he seemed to be doing fine, so when the company got there, she served the gravy with her dish.  Everyone enjoyed it, and we all sat down to visit, when Stan came in late and said 'I hate to tell you all, but Jake is dead.'  Frances went into a tizzy.  She called our friend Dr. Pontani and told him about the mushrooms, he came to the house and pumped our stomachs.  As we all were sprawled out on the couch and floor moaning, Stan said, 'I knew it was going to be a bad day, when I saw Jake get hit by that car'..."  
The hero would just die laughing at that point, and most people recognized it as a joke.  Most people, then there were those who looked at me like don't you know to not use mushrooms from the forest.  I would give him the look...but that never stopped him.  He had a joke he could remember the punch line on and he was going to tell it.  LOL... I can still remember his mischievous smile as he started the story. 
It's a good one, don't you think so too?

May Be I Watch Too Many Movies.....

 Interesting phenomena has occurred in the Geneablogger land.
 I was sleeping peacefully when my phone rang at 1:00 am.  It was my oldest son, I think, or maybe it was his pocket at work.  What do you do at 1:00 am when you can't go back to sleep?  Hmmm, I went to my dashboard and started to get some reading of other blogs in. 
The first one on the screen was Lisa at Old Stones Ciphered.  She was writing about something she had found at Flipside that Linda had written.  This was too much bait.  I had to visit to see.  Linda had visited someone one else, I continued folloing the thread until it finally came down to Karen at About Genealogy who had done a blog called Nothing to do with Genealogy But...  They had all tried a gadget called "Who do I write like?"  I decided to use my Hero stories.  I used two different ones, it still came up JR Tolkien.  Good company, but whoa...maybe I watch too many movies.   What fun to have a break when you are tired and can't think.  Thanks Karen for starting it.

I write like
J. R. R. Tolkien

I Write Like by Mémoires, Mac journal software. Analyze your writing!

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and Driving Distractions

 This is one of several driving stories;  it goes with my life style with the Hero.
Our favorite activity was to explore our surrounding areas where we lived and take road trips.  While we traveled, we would read to each other and talk about...oh, everything.
The first and much teased about event happened  early in our marriage.  We were driving around looking at land for sale and visiting friends.  This was when Houston was surrounded by two lane roads.  The road to Tomball was long and uneventful at the time.  That being said, you can imagine  my surprise and horror when I looked up from the book I was reading to see we were in the wrong lane and a truck coming.  My shout startled the Hero and he corrected his path. When we were back on the right side of the road, he said "Look at that! A White Rino!"  Now that is worthy of a look.  I looked out at the pasture to my right and there was a big white cow.  Confused I looked at him...'a what?'  When I looked back, I saw what he had seen.  I had to laugh.  A long horn cow had it's head turned behind the front white cow.  The vision was like a White Rino with a huge horn.  A casual glance from the Hero had caught the impression and made him take a second look to see this wild beast in a cow pasture.
First, I would start giggling and look at him and say "What would we have told the ambulance drivers, we saw a 'White Rino'?.. then I would burst into laughter. This tapered into just saying "White Rino" followed by giggles and laughter, however, by the time we arrive at the house, he was laughing too.
The moral to this event is don't believe everything you think you see.  ; )

Wordless Wednesday Are We Finished Canning Yet?

B D Langley and the Anti Horse Thief Association

When you are laid up with fever and not feeling well, sometimes the only thing to amuse yourself with is absurd Google searches.  My ancestor known as B D Langley was dirt poor...Not a huge farm owner.  When I did the search I knew Find a Grave would come up, but I was not expecting The Anti Horse Thief Association Convention 1907.

When you look at B D Langley ( he did not like Benedict) he does not look like a member of a secret society.  (He is the one on the right)








He was, here he is as a member allowed to stay for the meeting.

His son Charles D. doesn't look like a secretive fellow either.








But he was, here he is on the roll also.

 The youngest daughter Bessie's second husband Lowery Bowen was kind and gentle, but somewhat lazy. Bessie could not work to work in the morning.  She complained to her family and , late one night a group of men in hoods on horse back came and drug him out of the house and threatened to ride him out of town on a rail if he did not get out to work like a man and care for his family.  After that night, Bessie never had to get him up; he was up and out before dawn. Bessie thought that one of the men was her brother Walter, but was never told for sure.
Now that I know about the Anti Thief Association, and their documented membership,  Bessie's story is crystal clear as to who at least one of the masked men was.  These guys did more that just recover horses.  If you want to read more about them click here to see the Oklahoma History site.  

This was in the opening comments of the convention:  "Our association is one of the best secret organizations in the United States. I do not know of any other equal to it in the scope of its real usefulness. While we are strictly non-political and non-partisan we do not
disclaim the moral influence that we have for good in the great coming new state."

My dad always said his grandfather was an Indian agent.  Never could find any evidence of that, but I think this may be what it was and was translated by the family into an Indian agent.  There were many from the Indian tribes associated with this Society.

I am so grateful to the Oklahoma University for digitalizing and publishing the manuscript.  If you have an Indian Territory ancestor you might want to check it out.  There is a eulogy of sorts for A.P. McKellog, a leader.  who had died that year.  Click here to view the PDF file.

Sharing a Slice of Life 'Fireworks'

I posted my Slice of Life story on my personal blog because it was more my memory than a genealogical story.  If you would like to read Click  here.
If you would like to join click the button on the side bar for the URL.
Hope you all had lots of fun over the weekend.

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and Teaching His Children to Drive

You can tell from the title this is going to be a hoot.  I never knew the Hero to be laid back or to approach things in an relaxed manner.  Teaching his teen age children to drive wasn't any different. 

The oldest was the hardest.  She had to learn to drive a pick up with a clutch.  The most memorable event, was when he was letting her drive to school.  They needed to slow down, if I remember right. ( Girls, you can correct what ever I get wrong. )  He was excited and said "Hit the brake!  She did, they chugged.  That excited him more, "Hit The Brake! The Brake!".... she did, they jerked.  He yells, "Pull over!"... Now he was overwhelmed with anxiety..."Stop! your going to drive us into the ditch!"  By this time, the very independent daughter was ready to get out and walk.  He then became sheepish, at least he was when he told me, because he remembered he had said the Brake and he meant the Clutch.  HAHAHA.... Clutch. 
The other daughter has already had her say on her blog, if you want to read it click here.
All the kids remembered that one.
He had not learned a lot by the time the youngest daughter was driving.  He took her out and when they got home he wanted to give her some encouragement.  He said, "You drive better backwards than forwards."  (Sometimes you just need to leave it alone....)
The youngest son had to have some input.  He gave a slow grin, and said, "Dad teach me to drive? Well,  there was this time I almost missed a turn and he made me drive 35 miles an hour all the way home."  Now that is torture. 
Needless to say the Hero did not quit his day job to become a Drivers Ed teacher. 

July Fourth Tribute to Benawell Bonfoey Connecticut 6th Regiment

I haven't any pictures of my Revolutionary War ancestor, but I am fortunate enough that he and his wife and children did draw pensions for his service.  I have first a summary of his service. 

It puts him in the 6th Connecticut Regiment.  I found a description of the mission his company went on in May 1777, that he participated in.  (remember you can click on the image to enlarge it to read, the click back)

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia this is an example of where the 6th Connecticut Regiment under Jonathan Meigs and Samuel Parsons fought. 
 In May of 1777, they used whaling ships and sloopes to raid and rescue at Sag Harbor.  "Landing on Long Island they marched across to Sag Harbor, surprised the garrison, burned a dozen vessels, destroyed a large quantity of military stores, killed several of the enemy and took 90 prisoners, without losing a man. For this action, Col. Meigs was voted a Sword by Congress, which now hangs in the National Museum of American History in Washington, D.C.
After the Sag Harbor raid, the 6th Connecticut went to Peekskill, New York to join the other regiments of the Connecticut Line. The Connecticut Line wintered at West Point during the winter of 1777-1778. While there, they constructed the "Meigs Redoubt" and other fortifications in the area."


It is a blessing that the Continental men chose to fight for what they believed in.  I am grateful for the freedoms I enjoy today because of them.   My hope for the nation is that we will hold close to the beliefs and basic truths that the country was founded upon.

The graphic was from Graphic Fairy

The document was found on Footnote.com