Our Past Can Give Us Direction

Studying the events of the day can sometimes take us back to learning of our past if we are looking to the cause and effect of actions and looking to not making the same mistakes.

I was studying the U.S. Constitution and I came across facts that made me thankful for the heritage I have.  I have written about my ancestor's (Benanuel Bonfoey) testimony of the good character of George Washington.  This line is through my mother.  Her grandfather George Washington Roberts fought for the United States.  During the Civil War (I have ancestors on both sides as do most), he fought to preserve the Union.  Just as his ancestor fought to make a Union, he fought to make that dream of his ancestor continue as conceived.  Benanuel fought at Valley Forge.  I did not know the total facts until just now (American History class just said they suffered and we went on)  There were 8000 men originally, 3000 abandoned and went home, 200 officers resigned, and over 2000 died of starvation and disease due to exposure.  Benanuel looked to the positive side and had a vision of what he wanted for his family and hung in there to see it through.  How thankful I am that he stuck it out so I can have the priviledges I do now. 

I think that is where I am in my feelings about this nation now.  My ancestors fought to create this nation, and then their prodigenity worked hard to up hold the Constitution and the Country.  I must follow suit to help my children and grandchildren.  Some of my help may be in teaching of their forefathers, and some may be to raise my voice in unison with those who are trying to uphold the Constitution and this Nation as One Nation Under God.  Facts are facts and principles are principles.  There are true principles in the Constitution and we need to seek and uphold truth.

History Affect s Our Perspective

I was fifteen when President Kennedy was assassinated.  I was saddened and shocked by the event, but put off by the members of my class who were crying and moaning all through the school halls. Most of them had never given a thought to politics other than the Civics class we were required to take. It gave me pause to think.  Why would they act that way?
I now understand that different personalities react in different ways.  As you can tell, I can remember where I was on that day and I remember the days afterward of television coverage. 





When my son was 11, 9/11, or the attack on the Twin Towers occurred.  I was appalled when I heard the news and my heart stopped at the gravity of it all.  I was not prepared for my son's reaction.  When I arrived home, he was all over me to learn more and to talk about it.  I never had even thought about him feeling even remotely connected.  Come to find out he really identified with the twin towers.  It felt like a personal attack on him at the time.  I bought him a commemorative edition of the occurrences of the attack when TIME published it.  He still has it in a protective sleeve to help him remember.

Today on the anniversary of this horrible event, it is gratifying to see how many still remember and send their hearts out to those who survived or are families of those who did not. I too feel strongly for those who involved in the act in anyway.  It has to have been life changing for each.  My prayers are offered for them.   It still has a profound effect on the society as a whole, and I hope we never forget the need to be unified as a nation.  I was impressed to read what one survivor has to say.    If you click on that sentence, it will take you to his You tube interview.

School Pictures Record How We Grow

It is funny how the mere mention of School pictures still brings back negative feeling into my mind. Some of it was because my mother always decided to try something new (the night before the pictures!) for the school pictures. One year it was a permanent, the next it was rag rollers, and it went on and on. Oh well, I survived it and so did my children. Now it is fun to look back and see how we grew. The first of my pictures is myself first at 6 then 15.

The second pair of pictures is my lovely daughter, my first, and as you can see the schools have themes in their pictures by this time. This is the same daughter that is a contributor here.
This is her in the 4th grade, then 1st year in college.





This set of pictures is of my cousin that I have gotten back in contact with for the first time in years. I wonder what he thought of his grade school picture? The second is his graduation picture.

Oklahoma Tornado Memories 1954

1954, I was in the first grade. We had just moved to a new house that had plumbing. It was just about two miles from my Uncle Ernest and Aunt Lynn's home. ( There will be more stories about them later).
It was a great time of life...for a 6 year old. One night, my dad and I were sitting on the front
porch talking about going over and playing with my cousins Donald and Robert the next day. They were like brothers to me. I was an only child.
Then, looking off in the distance, my father got a very concerned look on his face. He yelled "Mary! Get to the cellar!" and ushered me to the cellar next to the house. My mom was slow on the uptake and he had to go back and get her. He had seen a funnel cloud forming to the west of our house. Strangely there wasn't a door on the cellar, so he tore the shelves at the back of the cellar off and pushed them against the opening to 'hold the "door" shut'. The wind was terrible and howled unmercifully. To this day the green clouds can turn my stomach into a panic mode.

When all became quiet again, we ventured out to find the trees laid low, and mangled. Our house was not harmed, but my dad went into overdrive worrying about our neighbors and my Aunt and Uncle. We were piled into the car and off we took in the rain. My heart was racing along with the car engine as we set out to check on everyone...

The scene of my Aunt and Uncle's home was enough to stop the heart.
This is a picture of my Uncle Ernest in front of what was left of their house. They lived next to a railroad track, had been inside and took the sound they heard to be a train coming. All of a sudden, the house began to implode around them. My Uncle was next to the bedroom door and the closet. The doors came together to shut him in a protected spot. My Aunt and cousins were in the dining room. She threw them on the floor and covered them with her body. The bricks from the chimney, fell just past her body. The house was removed from its foundation and set next to it. Leaving the cellar a gaping hole filled with all manner of debris. It was a good thing they were not down there. A huge oak in the back of the house had a straw be thrown into it, sticking out on either side...It was still there the last time I spent time there. Hearts were filled with great joy everyone was united, alive, scared to death, but unscathed.












My Aunt and Uncle are both gone now, but they embodied the preserving spirit. They rebuilt and continued to farm in tornado country. We moved.

The Gentile Giant and The Firey Fairy

Once upon a time not really so long ago, there was a soft spoken, quiet giant who fell in love with a small beautiful fairy. She was as feisty as he was quiet. No one would have expected them to be attracted let alone marry, but marry they did. He went about he work for a rail road and making a doll house for his small love (she was 4ft10, he was 6'2). I know this because as I grew I felt like a giant in a fairy's house when I visited. He adapted the whole house to her needs. The kitchen could have been used by a average 10 year old with no challenges. I loved it. She loved it. They spent all their spare time together working, playing and having two lovely girls.

I don't think I ever heard him raise his voice, maybe say "now there Dora". This was my dad's older sister. Dora Langley who married the gentle giant Edward Grote. They had a small house a block from the court house in Pawnee. I say small, it was two bedroom with a summer room on the back. During the time before air conditioning when people would sleep out in a screened in room to keep cool during the summer.
They had a cellar (it was Oklahoma, you HAD to have a cellar). It was in the middle of the backyard within easy running distance from the house if the tornado warning came. Aunt Dora had canning shelves in the cellar. As kids, we would place King of the Mountain on the top of the cellar, and all of us knew how to retrieve food when sent.
We had many fun times at their house. When I was in first grade and my mother was away at college, Aunt Dora would take care of me while my dad worked. Uncle Ed, the gentle giant, would pick me up and take me home after school.
When they grew old, she developed colon cancer. She survived it, but the chemo made her cardiovascular system weak, and she died of a heart attack 6 years later. The gentle giant was lost. His fairy was no longer there to perk him up and make him laugh. 12 years later he took his life. No one knows why, but there was a sadness in him after his loss, that never went away.

A Tribute to an Awesome Family Researcher

I was inspired early in my genealogy research by a wonderful lady called Judy Self. When I was starting by asking my aunts for information, one went into her closet and brought out a letter from a "cousin" several times removed. The letter was a standard request for information on our family as it related the Selfs and the Gildons. I was intrigued and answered the letter my aunt had tuck away. It was wonderful when I received a long letter from and enthusiastic genealogist. She was full of knowledge of the family and freely shared of it. She sent me copies of letters she had from correspondence with various family groups. She had started out researching her line of Self, and then the Gildons and from there she just blossomed. She did not just cover the pedigree's; she also included shared stories, some of her own speculations, documents that she had hand transcribed at a time digital cameras, and copiers were not on hand. After about 2 years of correspondence, she sent me a letter that she had finished a book and was offering it to people for the cost of printing it.
At the time, I was dirt poor and had just had my 4th child. I had to decline, but we continued to correspond. About 5 years later, I knew I would be in the state she lived in and asked permission to stop by and meet her face to face. She graciously said yes and I went by. It was the shortest 3 hours I ever spent. She asked if I would like to take the book and make copies of it then send it back to her. WOULD I! She loaned it to me and I made copies of the 755 page book. I still look at it sitting on my shelf and marvel at the information she compiled during her research. She was a model at finding family and pulling stories out of them. She hand typed the book on an old type writer and as I found out when I made the copies, she only charged for the cost of printing and shipping the book to anyone who wanted a copy. It was not an ego trip, she freely gave and thought how important it was to share the information she had been given. It was a great example to me as I have tried to continue the tradition.
Due to health issues she doesn't get out to research any longer, but she keeps in touch with her fellow researchers and passes along any new findings. How grateful I am to have had her as an early mentor in developing my methods and open mind research and generosity in sharing. Hope you had someone as inspiring as I did to help you get started. Lori has been that type of person on the blogs for me too. Thanks a bunch.

A Legacy I Would Love to Create for Myself

My earliest memories of my Aunt Lillie are when she would come into the kitchen, of whichever of the Aunt's we were at for a holiday, with her huge turkey roaster and armloads of rolls, etc. When she arrived, there was always brightness and laughter.
Lillie Langley was the youngest of my father's family. She was full of life. She was born in 1923 and died in 1963 at the untimely age of 40 years. I loved her so. Some of her sister's blamed her early death on the fact that she had 5 children. NOT. What a legacy they have been to her. She loved everyone of them, in fact she was like a mother hen, and would snuggle in any that needed loving. She had 3 girls and 2 boys. All but one is still living. Her daughter made the comment, "Momma I do believe had heart trouble. It was just not diagnosed. She was having a horrible time with the hormonal changes.Which was at the time of her death too. She was going through menopause. I'll never forget it. They had done surgery on her and she just went right into it. I found out later that the doctor she was going to, had given her Librium of all drugs for the emotional ups and downs. Librium itself can cause heart attacks and other things. But I have to look at it this way. We felt very cheated when she died. I was 15 and you just have no idea as to what that did to all of us. I have come to believe in my heart though that We all have a time to be born and a time to die. and that for what ever reason, God took her home early in life. It was her time. and nothing was going to stop that from happening." We all can take a lesson in life from this. We miss someone, we wish we had them back, but realize it was just their time to return to Heavenly Father and find comfort in that knowledge.
My favorite memory was spending two weeks with her in the summer of my 12th year. My cousins taught me to swim in a crayfish pond and she taught me to love cooking. Every morning she had a wonderful smelling breakfast ready for us (a delicacy of biscuits and gravy, I still can not resist...it is a comfort food) . The biscuits were homemade, dipped in bacon grease, and baked. Not really healthy eating by today's standards, but mmm mmm good tasting. You could float into the kitchen on the smell. Her daughter told me:"This made me feel so good Frances, as I could actually smell those biscuits and gravy and could see her again. My momma had the habit of pouring bacon grease on her eggs before she ate them. She loved that. She always made homemade biscuits and would turn them in oil or bacon grease before baking them."

She had thick dark brown hair, laughing eyes, and friendly, loving lips that had the hint of smile always at the edges of her mouth. She was always full of smiles and had a wonderful sense of humor. I hoped to be like her, she never held grudges or hurt others feelings.
If I am successful in following her example, I hope that my legacy will be of kindness, hope, love, and laughter for my family too.