The youngest

Imagine having your last child in the same week that your oldest child gets married?! That's what
one of my grandmothers did. Amazing.

The post office

Years ago, people found employment where their family worked or where their friends works. Three of my uncles worked for the post office (Bruce, Jack and Marshall). I believe that they followed in the footsteps of their grandfather (Judson), who -- I think -- worked for the post office. I can't think of any others in the family that have grouped together in one company or profession.

North Carolina

Although my father called Elmira, NY home, he was actually born in North Carolina. His father was born and raised in North Carolina. I "think" he met my grandmother when she traveled down South for school. I think...I could be wrong.

He was a handsome man, who looked great in a fedora. I know that from the few photos of him that I've seen. I don't know what all he did for a living, but I know he worked as a driver for a family at least for a while.

As far as I know, his parents lived all their lives in North Carolina. Searching the U.S. Census records for people who lived in their town, they seemed to be the only family there with their last name. That mystifies me. I wonder if they lived in Kinston all their lives. If not, where had the lived before that? And did they have relatives? What was my great-grandmother's maiden name?

Louisa and Justafus (spelling???) had two sons. The Census records not only showed the four of them, but also a fifth person who lived in the house. Was that a relative? The Census records indicate "no," but relatives have thought the answer is "yes."

In 2001, I traveled to Kinston in order to search the records there. I looked at the Census records and death records. (A librarian at the community college was very helpful in giving me pointers. She ensured that my brief time there paid off.) At city hall, I checked the cemetery records and found their graves. Since I was unfamiliar with the cemeteries there, a maintenance man came and escorted me to the graves. Louisa had died first and she had a headstone. He said a few years later and did not have headstone. They said that he is buried in the same larger plot, but don't know which specific grave. As I stood there, I pulled out my cell phone and called an aunt. "Guess where I am?"

Numbers

The story goes that my dad would dream numbers. In the old days, well before I was born and long before the state lotteries, playing "the numbers" was something that people did. Evidently he would dream numbers, and other people would play them and win. When he dreamed the number "1528," he kept the number for himself and played it every way (combination possible), but he didn't win anything. Yet 1528 turned out to be an important number. It was the number of the next house that the owned.

Uncle Gene

I remember very little about my godfather. I know that he was friends with my father for many years. I know that when I was born that he opened a bank account for me (or gave money to have a bank account opened for me). I believe it was a small amount of money, but it did set me on a path of saving money.

The only advice I remember from Uncle Gene is to never post bail for anyone, including him. (I don't remember what caused him to give me that advice.) The idea is that no matter how well you know the person, you can't trust the person will do what s/he is suppose to do when out on bail. Rather than chancing it, let the person stay in jail...even if it is a close relative. (BTW I don't believe that he was ever in trouble with the law.) I have repeated that advice to others, often in the form of "don't get into trouble 'cause I won't post bail for you because my godfather said...."

Live Earth & my grandparents

Yesterday was 07-07-07 and the Live Earth concerts. The concerts were meant to build more awareness of how we can have a positive impact on the Earth and hopefully help to mitigate the global climate crisis. As I thought about the event today, my mind began to think about how my grandparents lived. Two of them were born in 1889, when life was much more low-tech. Some of the things they did are things we're now being told to do in order to have less of a impact on the Earth. They:

• Composted (although they didn't call it that)
• Used cloth napkins every day
• Used a clothes line for drying clothes (and in the winter, hung clothes to dry in the cellar)
• Planted trees to shade the house and keep it cool in the summer
• Had a vegetable garden (at least for a few years)

Those are the things that come quickly to mind. Of course, that generation also did things that harmed the Earth (like dumping flood damaged furnishings in the Chemung River).

They also did things that we now know were healthy:

• Ate their big meal at noon (a habit from when my grandfather worked evening at the Star-Gazette)
• Ate local produce
• Got regular exercise by doing yard-work on their property

But they also smoked. That was "in" and not thought to be harmful. My grandmother never had cancer. My grandfather did, but it was not lung cancer.

I do want to imitate the things they did that were positive and learn from the things they did that were not. If I can do that, I think I'll be a better person.

The aunts who weren't aunts

The word "aunt" in my world was applied to women who close friends of the family, but not blood relatives. It confused some of my friends. So Aunt Jenny (Myers) and Aunt Stella (Blanford) for example were not blood relatives, but they were treated like blood relatives. My godmother (Evelyn Johnson) was also referred to as "aunt." The "aunt" honor was only bestowed on a few women, who likely were my mother and grandmother's best female friends.

The only man I remember being an uncle who was not a blood relative, was my godfather (Gene Fairfax).