Tombstone Tuesday Evergreen Cemetery

Click here to go to Evergreen Cemetery

I have found a new distant cousin, Howard.  He has shared about his family and I have learned about a Gray and Blue Civil War Retirement community.
This is from his letter.

These are my 2nd great-grandparents, Leon Selwyn Shaver and Ella Cecilia Brigham.  They left Michigan to go to the Swan Colony in Fitzgerald, Georgia in 1895.  It was a retirement community planned for the veterans of the Civil War.  If you look up the history of Fitzgerald, Georgia, it's really a very inspirational story.  There were veterans from the North as well as the South who all came together and treated each other with mutual respect, blue and gray marched together, shoulder to shoulder, in the first parade they had in late 1895, if I remember right.  Ella, however, died there in 1896 from Malaria which she had contracted either before or sometime during their trip.  Her husband and children moved back to Michigan after her death and he married her sister Alice. 

Howard

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and The Angel With a Gas Can

This is a view of The Hero and I as we would drive.  My daughter caught this because it was a typical view in their childhood.
We often took trips together to business functions, to see family, to be together.  I guess that was the most important function of all our trips was the time we got to spend with each other.  
The events around this trip served to give the Hero a great story, actually two stories, but I will just relate one this time.

We were on our way home from a trip to Utah and were reading scriptures, in particular, Kings, Chronicles and Samuel. We had made it to the straight of way on I80 in Wyoming (a side note...Interstate 80 (I-80) is the second-longest Interstate Highway in the United States, and the gas stations are well spaced ). The Hero was driving and I was reading.  He would make a comment, ask a question, and we would discuss what was being read.  He was very auditory.  I wasn't.  That is why I would read.  We started with Samuel, then would see a foot note and jump to the foot note and back again.  That is how Chronicles and Kings worked their way in.  It was fascinating to us and back and forth I would go.  We became so engrossed in our subject that time flew. 
Suddenly, the Hero made a gasp!  It startled me into this world and I said 'what's wrong?'
"Look at the map, see how far we are from a town.  Ah, we are on empty."  What! had we really been that caught up in our reading that we had failed to notice the gas gauge and had not stopped for gas?...Apparently so.  I grabbed the map and said 'Where are we?' His answer, "I asked you."  'Guessing from our last stop and the time, we should be approaching Laramie.  About 15 miles, I would say.' 
At that moment, we saw a sign the said the next exit was for Laramie.  We decided to take it because it looked closer on the map to town.  (Have any of you driven the back roads of Wyoming?  Nothing for miles.)  We made it two miles, when chug, chug, choke, we came to a halt on the side of the road,  He got out and raised our hood...no, we did not have a gas can, that would have taken planning...in the hopes someone would come by to help.  I hooted and said,'you need to walk to find someone.  That looks like a house', I motioned across the way to a structure in the distance.  He was silent, just considering our situation, hot, no shade, no water, and no phone, hmmm. Time for a prayer.  Just after he finished the prayer,  a car appeared down the road.  The car pulled up beside us; a lady and three children.  She was gestured with her cigarette in her hand at the pickup and ask what was wrong.  The hero sheepishly told her what had happened.  She said, she would run to her house and get some gas for us and be right back.  I looked at the map as she drove off saying, it will be a while.  No more than 15 minutes had passed when she was back.  We put the gas in the tank, then offered to pay her.  She wouldn't accept payment for the gas, just told us where the nearest station was and took off to take the kids to a lake...Lake? 
We quickly headed to town, noting that there were not any roads, or houses until we got to the edge of town 15 miles away, and it took us about 25 min. to make the trip.  We couldn't figure out where the lady or "Our Angel" had come from.  The Hero decided she an angel who was an answer to his prayer that we would receive help. 

The moral, my grandchildren, is that when you are doing a thing that is right, you will receive blessings for it.  Yes, even and unlikely angel bearing a gas can.

Irish Stories 21st edition of the Carnival of Irish Heritage and Culture: Aine Queen of the Fairies

I have spent much time trying to figure out what I would use as my Irish story.  The main claim I personal have to Ireland is my first born daughter's name, Aine.  I made a post about naming her before, click here to read about that.

The Irish have many stories/legends about Aine, Queen of the Fairies.  She was a Celtic goddess that they moved to fairy status when Ireland became Christian. 
She lives in a invisible world to our eyes, although a few have seen her.

According to en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Áine:  Áine (Irish pronunciation: [ˈaːnʲə]) is an Irish goddess of love, summer, wealth and sovereignty and Áine is strongly associated with County Limerick.
An appealing legend comes from stories of the the Sidhe.
Aine was a mortal woman who was taken but the fairies and became was of the clan O'Corra. And, my favorite, because she does not slay the mortal who was overcome by her beauty is: 
"The Earl of Desmond once saw Aine combing her hair on the bank of a river. He fell in love with her and seizing her cloak made her his wife. The offspring of this union was Aine's enchanted son Geroid Iarla, who lives under the lake awaiting his return to the world of men. Once every seven years he emerges from the water as a phantom riding on a white horse."
I see her as a beautiful woman, with striking eyes, flowing hair, and a bewitching smile. 

My daughter could have been Aine.  ; )


I will look for our family connection as I search Limerick for my Dyer family. 

Sentimental Sunday The Hero and Scuba Diving Adventures

Last week we learned the Hero kept secrets from his mom and it was probably a good thing.
As I said, he loved scuba diving.  Any chance he and his friends got to go scuba diving, even if it was in the Houston Ship Channel, they would go.  I will tell this in his voice.
"We got the chance to go out scuba diving on Saturday morning.  We didn't have much time, so we went to the Houston Ship Channel.  You know the water there was muddy and not very nice, but it was moving water.  When we were close to the Galveston Bay (they seemed to like that area), Mike threw down the anchor for our dinghy.  I jumped in the water ready to go as I was already in my gear.  It was pleasant swimming and I liked try to see what was around me in the water.  All of a sudden, I felt something hit my leg.  I looked but couldn't see anything.  I swam further, and felt something hit my leg again.  Now I was getting concerned, but still didn't see anything.  I continued my swim when all of a sudden, a jelly fish was attached to my goggles.!  I have to tell you, I came up out of the water, and literally walked, no, ran on water to the shore. "
Now can't you see that.  I would have been rolling in laughter had I been there.  You would have to have known the Hero back then...He was "cool"  and did "cool" things.  LOL  this had to have been hilarious to have seen.

Follow Friday Inspirations

Today as I saw Follow Friday tweets come up on twitter, I began to contemplate what would I blog on that subject.  My blogging is more than just genealogy.  It is my family stories.  I have along the way of my blog evolving, developed, I believe, some blogger friends.  These ladies have been uplifting and encouraging to a blogger that has never been a writer.  I just kind of lay things out there. They are quite knowledgeable in genealogy, where as I have been a jump in and get wet type of researcher from years ago.  Thus, I have learned along the way about many different facets of genealogy from them. 
There have been others, and I do not mean to slight anyone, but these three have been friends to me for sometime and I want to say 'ThankYou'  to them.

Linda at Flipside,
Carol at Reflections from the Fence and
Barbara at Life from the Roots

Treasure Chest Thursday " Rambo of the American Revolution."

I have blogged reference to a couple of times about my ancestor Captain Lemuel Roberts b. 1751 in Canaan, Connecticut died about 1813 in Vermont.  I have found his children's birth records on FamilySearch records, and a cousin had traveled to Ira, Vermont and got his marriage record to Sarah Collins.
He is my treasure chest.  At the suggestion of one of his friends, he was encouraged to write about his Revolutionary War experience.  (He apparently had been complaining that he was never reimbursed for his service.)  The world now finds him to be a treasure of information about the world at that time.(Me too) Here are some sites that cite or hold his book. I am linking a site to each place.
World Cat.
Wikipedia
Dr. Paul Loatman, Stillwater, CT City Historian says"The book is fascinating on a number of accounts: it gives us a rare glimpse of life among the lowly in 18^th century America; and, it may be the only first-hand source we have from that era which recounts life in the local area."

Memoirs of Captain Lemuel Roberts containing adventures in youth, vicissitudes experienced as a continental soldier, his sufferings as a prisoner, and escapes from captivity. Bennington, Vermont, 1809. First edition of an exceptionally rare account of wilderness hardships and captivity among the Indians. Most of the events described took place in 1776. 
(This book is available at many University libraries, including Texas A&M University, in the Revolutionary War reference area.)
American Centuries: History and Art from New England I love this site as an example of how they dressed. It is interactive. (Okay I am a child at heart.)
My gratitude is not only that he chose to serve, but that he did take the time to write it down.  I know much about him as a person.  

Image from Benjamin Butterworth's The Growth of Industrial Art 

 

Thanks for stopping by.

Wordless Wednesday Peak a Boo Plant/Toothache Plant

Used for numbing gums for toothaches.  Works!