Memorable Halloween Stories

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun suggested posting our most memorable Halloween.  That took me off into another area of memory that my dad told us of his teenage Halloween antics.  They were not quite what we think of in our day and age. 

Looking at this innocent face you just would not think that in 6 years from this time he would be a naughty mischievous teenager.  

His most memorable Halloween was when he and about 6 other teenage boys got together and decided to trick on of their "grumpy" neighbors.  Now neighbors were not next door like what you think of today.  More like miles apart.  Back to the story.  

These boys began by thinking up mischievous things to do weeks ahead of Halloween. 

They waited until dark, and how they did these things I don't know, but the first farmer was awakened then next morning to his mules on top of his shed.  (They were really naughty, they didn't tell they did it or go by and offer to get the mules down).  Shame.  

The second farmer didn't have to wait for morning because his son went out in the night and fell in the hole where the outhouse had been.  They had moved the outhouse just behind the hole. Yuck!

Apparently, these farmers had not developed a good relationship with these teenagers.  My dad said no one ever owned up to the deeds and he was telling me when he was 60 years old and explaining the difference between Halloween then and now.  He still thought that the face of the farmer would have been funny to see when he saw his mules on top of the barn.

Wordless Wednesday Elizabeth Porter Vance

 

A picture of Mildred with a picture of her Great Grandmother Elizabeth Porter Vance and some great grandchildren in front

Tombstone Tuesday My quest

Elizabeth's father's line is my quest.  Her father was John G Porter.  He used G all the time in his documents.  He died in the 1840's and his mother married 3 times.  I am trying to retrace his steps to prove his father.  None of the unsourced information I have so far fits what I see in the censuses I have found.

This is the family I wrote about that the saving grace information of John's mother was at the Alamo.  More as I find it.

Keeping My Purpose in View

The last few weeks I have been looking back at why I started a genealogy blog.  I was enamored with the new group of bloggers I had found.  I wanted to be a part of their community.  However, I began to look for ways to blog for the day and not accomplish why I started out, which was to inform and pull my family strings together.  I have a quote that expresses the deeper parts of my belief at the end of this blog.  My hope is to find through my blogging, others interested in the same places, times, or people that I am searching.  That has not happened yet.  Some of my blogs have been helpful to cousins and we have begun to share some of our memories to put together for our families.  I want to bring my family to an understanding of the history of their beginnings and what happened along the way.  I love finding out the why and whats of what happened to cause a move, to cause a rift, to set into motion a series of events. The desire is to present the information in a manner my grandchildren would want to read.

I will move back to my task at hand and hopefully keep on it.  If one of the community events fits with the family I will participate. I want it to be clear; I am thankful for the community as there are wonderful helps and hints of how to blog and where to go for information.  They are a wonderful warm-hearted group of people.  I am grateful for their comments and direction.  I must however focus on what my purpose of doing this is.  

I will become more focused as the year goes on by trying to cover one family at a time so as to keep continuity if I can. 

If you came by to read. 

Thank you 

Frances

"The Genealogical Society has always fostered the idea that wars would become unheard of, men would beat their swords into plowshares, and the earth could easily become a delightful garden for all men if we could only learn enough about each other and something about our origin to understand and appreciate one another" Howard W. Hunter

Treasure Chest Thursday

When I was just a little girl, I asked my father.... That song just popped into my head.... When I first started researching my family history, I asked my father, where did his grandfather come from?  His answer was "He came across the Mississippi River and he lost his wife and child while crossing.  My mother never talked about it."  I was also led to believe they were from Oklahoma, but that's for another post.
I searched and finally found the true story of Charles Gildon Jr.  It was not my dad's grandfather rather his great grandfather who had come across the Mississippi River.  He had lost his wife but it had been apparently in childbirth and not in the river an it was in 1841.  In 1842, a man called Charles Gildon Jr was advertised for in the Macon Telegraph and presumed murdered.  That was about the time Charles showed in Texas.  Two newspaper articles proved to be my treasure chest and provided me with more mysteries.  I had only transcibed copies until I searched the newspapers on GenealogyBank.com and there were my articles.  It is great to have the 'Real McCoy' and not hope that it had been abstracted well

Wordless Wednesday

Tombstone Tuesday Surprise

I found John Sackley brother of Lillian Sackley Sherman on "Find A Grave" website.  There was only an obituary posted so I requested a picture of the tombstone.  I included that there might be other Sackleys in the area if they saw them would they include those too.  Imagine my surprise when the picture came and it was a tombstone for the son, the father, and the mother.  I am very grateful for Sue(and volunteers like her) that took her time and effort to take the picture and post it.  This is what makes this site so neat.  Loving helpers that know what it is to want to see an ancestors tombstone, but can not get there.
Thanks Sue.