My Happy Place

February 25, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Health, This & That

I have a happy place–a place in which to escape when things get crazy.

It is my home place in Monticello, my house that dad built with his own hands. That house and the two people that gave me my life are the anchors to my happiness. When things get tough, I close my eyes and mentally walk through the house and visualize mama in the kitchen and daddy out back working on his truck.

The House in the Early 60s

The House Today

Daddy had an old 1936 International pick up truck, which he tore down and rebuilt the engine. He would laugh when he told on himself. He put the engine back together and had left over parts, but it ran just fine. It is the silly little simple things like this that make me smile.

Mom and dad are long gone, but the house still stands. I actually own it, though it is leased to a woman who seems to be taking good care of it. I get a bill every once in a while for a repair, but it doesn’t amount to much. Daddy built a good house.

I like to go home frequently, and by home I mean Monticello. There is a genealogy room in the local county library; and it is manned with volunteers, people I’ve known almost all of my life.

My husband thinks that I really go just to get my fix of Monticello. He is probably right.

This, too, has become a happy place for me–a treasured Wednesday event.

The courthouse in my hometown.

Do you have a happy place?

Great Gifts for the Easter Basket

February 20, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Fashion

Wouldn’t these make a great gift for our grandbabies? So cute! Mickey Mouse Monogrammed Shirts

Are We Wealthy or Do We Just Use Our Credit Cards?

February 18, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Opinion

It occurs to me that everywhere we look, things look better than when we were raised. Our houses are bigger, our cars are newer, our roads are better, and our buildings are grander. It appears we are a wealthy nation.

But are we really? When I was young, there was no talk about trillion dollar deficits nor were there many credit cards in circulation. My family didn’t have one nor did I have one until I was over 25 years old.

What we have today is a federal government that spends like there is no tomorrow. The sequester and the House feuding with the Senate is the only reason federal spending has been controlled somewhat. Our President spends and believes we need to raise taxes to spend some more. Congress did the same thing, and it didn’t seem to matter which party was in control. In the past the Democrats spent and wanted to raise taxes to keep on spending, while the Republicans spent and didn’t want to raise taxes. It didn’t mean that the Republicans stopped spending, though.

Our current Congress may be different, but only time will tell. And don’t get me started about our state agencies.

I belong to the Florida Forestry Association, and last summer I learned that our federal government was destroying their surplus military equipment instead of passing it on to local and state governments. I used to work for the Florida Game and Fresh Water Fish Commission, and we used to rely on those surplus machines to make ends meet. Our agency didn’t have a lot of money to spend, and in Florida our constitution requires a balanced budget. No money, no spending. So the GFC needed that surplus equipment.

I also know that local fire stations do the same, as does the state forest service. I thought to myself, what in the world are the feds doing. Is there a safety issue with the equipment?

No, it wasn’t a safety issue. Instead, it was our federal government protecting our air. The administration destroyed this valuable surplus equipment because it did not meet the Environmental Protection Agency’s air emissions standards.

Good Grief! How wasteful!

It appears our government thinks we are wealthy, too!

But in case you are sitting back and thinking that we, the people would do it better, let’s take a look at ourselves. Out here in the real world, we have a spending problem, too. We spend for all kind of good reasons, just like our government; but in the end we spend more money than we make, thanks to credit cards, mortgages, home equity loans and much, much more. Our children have hocked their life’s ambitions to pay for schools that we could not afford. We live in houses with upside down mortgages. We drive cars that are worth less than what we owe. We all appear wealthy.

I wish I could say more, but there isn’t much left to say.

Oh Hey, Friday!! Check Out Our Trip Across the Gulf South

February 13, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Travel

This is in response to September Farm and her “Oh Hey, Friday”, where she asks her readers/bloggers to write up a little post about five things–anythings.

Chuck and I were in Bayfield, Colorado, where we were living for a month. We got there after driving all the way from Florida, stopping to sightsee and visit relatives along the way.

Here’s my five highlights as we crossed the southern states of Florida, Alabama, Mississippi, Louisiana, and Texas.

1. If you have never been to the Flora-Bama Lounge, you have missed the ultimate “beach bar”. Chuck and I decided to drive coast roads on our way to Bayfield, and we stopped here about 4 pm on a Sunday for a true slice of Americana and a gin and tonic. Located on the Florida/Alabama state line on Perdido Key, in one hall there was an old classic country trio playing and singing. The female lead singer did Patsy Cline songs and was great. In another hall was a band doing southern rock. Downstairs in the open air bar was a third band. We left Perdido Key by ferry crossing Mobile Bay and arriving on Dauphin Island, Alabama.

2. In Biloxi the coast road runs by the Hurricane Katrina Monument. We stopped to take a look. The memorial at 22 feet high is as tall as the storm surge that ravaged this beach city. In the glass case is a collage of items salvaged in the clean-up–a kid’s baseball trophy, a broken ship’s wheel, pieces of china, a weathered book, and hundreds more. On the black polished granite stone are etched names of the deceased. It is sobering, especially to those of us who live near the waters edge and have to contend with the possibility of one of these monstrous storms.

3. When we crossed the state line driving from Mississippi into Louisiana, we drove west on old US 90. This is a stretch of road that time forgot. There was hardly any traffic, and the road or bridges haven’t been repaired in a long time. We loved the old metal bridges, which reminded Chuck and I of our childhood. This is truly a wonderful stretch of blue highway. By the way before interstates, US 90 was the ultimate highway for crossing the American south. It ran from Jacksonville Beach, Florida all the way to Los Angeles, California. I grew up on US 90 in a little north Florida town called Monticello, and it was always a busy highway. Imagine how much traffic this old road used to see.

4. Another stretch of highway that time forgot runs as close to the coast as you can get between Abbeville, Louisiana and Port Arthur, Texas. It reminded us of crossing the Florida Everglades on the Tamiami Trail when we were young. Hardly any traffic, no homes, no stores, no gas stations, and very little room to even pull off the road, SR 82 is raised and runs between marshes until you get to a seaside oil town named Cameron, LA., which was ravaged by another hurricane and the evidence remains. Then we crossed a major canal on a ferry, and the scenery changed to miles of cattle pastures on one side and beaches on the other side. We crossed into Texas just before Port Arthur, whose downtown is a ghost town, literally. It had a lot of abandoned multi-story buildings. By the way we googled to read about these areas. You won’t find any tourist signs for information. Remember these are areas that time has forgotten.

5. This is where we decided to turn north, because we are after all headed to Colorado. We love to see other state’s farming communities, so we headed across East Texas driving on their little roads that are marked “Farm Roads”. East Texas looks like central north Florida with rolling hills, oak trees, lots of pine forests, red clay and sand. Best stop though was Hemphill, TX with its NASA museum. This is the tiny town where the Shuttle Discovery’s debris came down, including the bodies of its seven astronauts. Their story is amazing, and it will touch your heart. This may be the best stop of our entire trip; this little town of about 5,000 people with its courthouse square and its amazing story about how a little town took care of 20,000 volunteers for 16 days.

Well, that’s my five! The drive took us a week, but we’re retired so what’s a week??

Could This Be the Phenomena That Will Cause Our Life Expectancy to Decline?

February 8, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Aches & Pains, Health

Have you ever noticed a baby sitting in one of those umbrella strollers just crying uncontrollably. Let’s face it, children cry and especially in the afternoon just before dinnertime. I called it the “bewitching” hour, because my kids seemed to melt down about that time of day, no matter where we were.

I often wondered, though, if the child was really crying because his legs ached. They were sitting in a way that may have cut off their circulation. I know that when we travel with our grandchildren who have to sit in car seats for extended periods of time, I notice the same behavior. They just get surly. I think they just might need to get out and run around a little.

We live in such a mobile world; yet here in the US we move less and less. Kids seem to move from their car seats to their couches to watch TV or play with their notebooks. Even playing with the extremely popular Legos doesn’t require much movement. Problem is, according to research they will pay a price for this behavior. Certainly, many of us adults already are.

I sincerely believe that our ability to keep moving is the key to better health; however, I’m not talking about exercise, gyms and treadmills. I’m just talking about everyday moving, such as walking to a kitchen to fetch a glass of water or gardening in our yards or standing and washing dishes.

Most of us seniors grew up at a time when there were no gyms and someone running for the sake of running was seldom seen. The only people I can remember running in my community were athletes, trying to stay in condition. Jack Youngblood’s mother lived in our town, and we would see him out running, but he was a professional football player.

My grandparents didn’t run and neither did my parents. As children, we ran; in fact all of us did. We played hard. It was a part of growing up in our era.

People did get fat, but there weren’t very many. Mostly, it was a consequence of a more sedentary career, such as a desk job. Most people I knew growing up worked on farms and other hands-on, physical jobs. Most of these people were trim if not thin. My dad was an example of this. He worked as an electrician for Florida Power Corporation. He also trimmed trees in the late afternoons and weekends to send me to college. When he came home, I seldom saw him watching TV. He was out mowing the yard, washing cars, or fixing something. He was seldom still.

My dad at work in middle age.

My Uncle James is a wonderful example of someone who worked at a desk all his life but kept moving and maintained a good weight. Uncle James contracted infantile paralysis when he was eighteen months old in 1922. Today, it is called polio. He was completely paralyzed except for his left hand and arm.

The family lived near Thomasville, Georgia, where there were several wealthy families living on plantations. Because of these families, Thomasville had a chiropractor, a doctor unheard of in most towns of the south back in the 1920s. Dr. Strobel took little James as a patient. My Grandmother Roe said that Dr. Strobel worked hard to help James learn how to walk again. His paralysis was permanent, but he showed James how to use other muscles to compensate. Finally, Uncle James could walk, though crippled and could not run. His friends called him, “Wobbly”.

My uncle had a wonderful life. He never let his affliction slow him down, and his demeanor was wonderful, if not delightful. He worked at a local gas station when he was a teenager, and he had a paper route. He delivered the Florida Times Union morning paper using his bicycle. It was an early edition paper route, but he never missed delivering their papers.

When he graduated from high school before World War II, the family sent him to Jones Business College in Jacksonville, so he could support himself at a desk job. He was hired first by our hometown’s local Rationing Board during the war, and after the war he went to work with the Atlantic Coastline Railroad in Jacksonville. He stayed with them almost forty years before retiring.

One time when I was visiting with Uncle James, he drove me to a local restaurant for lunch. The parking lot was full, and we had to park a good ways from the restaurant and walk. I mentioned to my uncle that I was sure the state would give him a handicap sticker for his car, but he said, “No, I don’t want one. Dr. Strobel said that if I didn’t keep moving, I would lose my ability to walk. That my muscles would weaken, and I might never walk again.” I guess Dr. Strobel believed in the “use it or lose it” premise.

Back when Uncle James was a baby with polio, the family worried that they would lose him. Now, Uncle James is 94 and is the only member of his family still living. His attitude and demeanor are still wonderful, and the other day one of his high school classmates gave me a message to give to my uncle. He said, “Tell old Wobbly that I said ‘hello’.

I’ve noticed over the last decade that my joints hurt if I do not move enough. I really cannot afford to sit and watch a TV for an entire hour at a time. If I do it frequently, I notice that my joints begin to ache again. I actually use commercials to get up and get things done, even if it is only to go to the bathroom, wash four or five dishes, or carry a load of laundry to the laundry room.

I keep moving. If I do this, my joints don’t hurt. I also noticed that it helps with weight control, and I have more energy. I’m 5’4” and weigh 136 pounds. I do not belong to a gym, and I get almost all my exercise by doing housework, yard work and walking, though my walking is usually just down the street and back. I also do Yoga for flexibility.

I don’t remember ever seeing my grandmothers worry about their heart rate. They never ran or did jumping jacks or anything else. One lived to be 93 and the other 99. The 93 year old was sharp as a tack and had good health just until about five months before she passed. The 99 year old began moving toward dementia when she was about 94, but her body was amazing. She died without ever having to take any daily medication.

I sincerely believe that this intermittent movement should be the basis for everyone. If nothing else, even if you cannot get to the gym or cannot run a mile, just keep moving.

Our government has been surveying us, and they found that almost 50% of us report sitting for more than six hours a day. Over 65% of us spend more than two hours a day watching TV. I believe that if you’ve been sitting for more than an hour, you’ve been sitting too long.

Several more studies confirmed that a regular fitness routine will not counteract the effects of prolonged sitting. This study followed 82,000 men for a decade and found that their risks were the same as those who sat the same amount of time and did no exercise.

Let’s face it, most of us will not go out and race across the yard let alone run a mile. So just make your plans to keep moving. Place a program on your computer that reminds you to get up every 20 minutes like Workrave. This is a software program that I use that reminds me to take a break. I use the breaks to get something done. Also, use the TV commercials like I do. Even if we DVR something, I still let the commercials run. I’m just not in the room to watch them. I guess that is why the TV commercials are so loud now. It is because of people like me.

Workrave Screen Shot

And what about all our kids who are sedentary while they play video games, watch TV, and play with their notebooks and Legos? I hope I’m wrong, but we may see a new phenomenon in the future–a worldwide decline in our life expectancy. It may begin with their generation. Life Expectancy Statistics for World Population

There’s Something About Mary

February 3, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

My main character’s name for the book I’m writing is Mary. As you may remember, she is Mary Adeline Walker; and she is also my great-great-great grandmother. Using what I learned from the workbook, “Authentic Ancestors” by Lynn Palermo, “The Armchair Genealogist”, it was time to develop my protagonist, my central character.

Since Mary is the one individual who ties all my family’s lineages together, she is central to my story. Here’s the rub, though. How do I describe her physical characteristics? I have no pictures of her, and there are no written descriptions, either. What’s a girl to do?

Turns out my mentor had a good suggestion. She suggested an “Authentic Ancestor Collage” board, a tool to bring all the physical details together to create a visual for further reference while writing. I have done storyboards before, so that is what I quickly thought of, until she suggested that Pinterest might be a good place to pin any evidence found. So I placed what evidence I had in a new public Pinterest board entitled, “Something About Mary”. You can find it here.

It turns out that I do have pictures of others in Mary’s family. For example, I have a picture of one of her brothers, three of her children including a daughter, a granddaughter, a great-granddaughter and a great-great-great granddaughter. I pinned all of them on the board. Then I also pinned a picture of a flowering bush that I will use in my first story about her.

I wrote the story using some of the facts that I do know, such as the birth dates of her children. Like most women in her time, she was pregnant a lot. Also, I know that she lived in Monticello; and that at the time of this child, her parents lived out in the country north of where Elizabeth Church sits today near the Old Salt Road. I believe the Yauns own that property now.

Another fact is that her husband was constable during this time and that the first Governor of Florida was from Jefferson County. I wove them into the story as well.

I also used a story about a black snake that actually happened to me personally. I was trying portray her as a strong woman, but also a loving mother.

Last, please don’t hesitate to let me know if you find something that you believe is inaccurate. The point here is to be as factual as possible, and for that I certainly could use your help.

Enjoy! The story is below.

Mary knew what this feeling meant. She had had it four times before, but this time it was too soon. She looked down at the baby suckling at her breast and their eyes locked. She always loved this time, when the little feller could stare and grin. He smiled his toothless grin and drooled milk out the corner of his mouth. She smiled at him, but thought that it was too soon for another to come.

Until now every baby except James had come an easy two years apart. Even little Jesse here came an easy two years after his brother Zach, and Zach came two years after Val, and Val after James. Six year old Sarah wanted to help, and she was already doing what she could. The real help, though, came from Mary’s step-daughters Ellen and Florry, who were twelve and eleven respectively.

Mary found it hard to believe that she was only one year older than Sarah when her family came to Monticello. Much had changed in those two decades since. Just in the last seven years she met William, married, became a mother to three motherless children and had five more babies . She looked back down at Jesse. Poor thing. He would be booted out of the cradle long before the others had.

It was a warm day. Winter had lingered too long, but outside her window a wild azalea was already blooming. The delicate pinkish blossoms stuck up like someone had picked a little bouquet of flowers and attached it to one single long stem sticking up from a bush of green. Each little star shaped flower looked as if it were poking out its delicate whiskered tongue.

What a blessing to have this here. Where she grew up out in the woods, these azaleas were everywhere, especially in the areas near the swamps. She missed living there with her parents, so two winters ago her dad dug one up and transplanted it by her back window. Every spring she waited for its blooms and subsequently missed home all the more when they quickly faded.

Her parents didn’t live far away, and she saw them and her brothers and sisters anytime they came to town. The home place was only a little more than a half days ride to the east by wagon or carriage and even less by horseback. Between town and her parents’ home was a wilderness of cypress swamps, towering pine forests, palmettos so thick that it was almost impassable and always the moss floating down from the massive oak limbs. In the pines she knew there would be wild dogwoods blooming, and she wished she could make the trip this warm day to see their blossoms peeking around the trunks like white lace. The silence was what she missed most. It would be deeply silent except for an occasional wind whispering through the pine boughs.

The road there was barely more than two ruts, and traveling by horseback was easier. Wagon wheels either bogged down into the shifting sand when dry or slid off the slick red clay when not. The rains here came suddenly and frequently often with little warning. Horses and mules were the transportation of choice, but women were seldom seen straddling either.

Outside her window here, though, there was always chattering and yelling, constant clanging of metal harnesses, and the dull thud of horse hooves on dirt. Monticello’s streets were dusty when it was dry and muddy when it wasn’t. Her house was an easy distance from the center of town, and nothing much happened that she didn’t see.

Jesse was much more interested in the noises outside, and she realized that he was done so she pulled down the soft fabrics of her chemise and bodice and handed him to Florry who had just walked into the room. Mary noticed that Florry always seemed to know when she was done.

Florry was born Florida Mae, though she didn’t much like the name. Mary didn’t think it was a bad name. Florida seemed pretty, enough. After all, it was Spanish for flowers; but Florry knew that she was named after the Territory, not flowers. Born in 1840, Florry’s father along with some of the other men in town, worked hard to achieve statehood, which finally happened five years later when Florry was only five.

Mary stepped out into the warm sunshine on the front porch just as Governor Moseley and another man walked by leading their horses and wearing buckskin leggings and homespun blouses. Moseley tipped his hat and continued talking to the stranger as they made their way toward the center of town. Mary arched her back with her hands at the small of her backside and stretched her shoulders as she wondered when William would be home for dinner or if his business would keep him away again tonight. There were no set hours for a Constable, so she never knew.

She stepped back inside just as Ellen started screaming from the kitchen. Running into the room, Mary saw a black snake halfway up the back steps with his head held up about a half foot off the floor just inside the door. He was a nice one, all black and shiny, almost blue. He quickly turned his head from Ellen to Mary with his half-lided gaze.

She knew he wasn’t poisonous, but she also knew that a bite from him would hurt bad. Ellen slowly began backing up, never taking her eyes off the snake, while Mary picked up the broom which was sitting by the door she had just entered. She slowly moved toward the snake stomping her feet, but it didn’t back down. Mary said, “Oh, you’re a fearless one. You just need to go back where you came from.” She began to push the broom toward him , but he lunged at the broom. That’s when she gave a big shove, and his body tumbled down between the steps.

When Mary looked back over her shoulder, she saw all the kids standing in the door and hall. John, who was twelve, said, “I’ll go kill ‘em.”, but Mary said, “no, he’s a good ‘un. Let him be.” She knew that the black snake would protect their door from other less desirables. He was territorial and wouldn’t let another snake take residence. Like most of everything else in the Territory of Florida, she knew you often had to take the lesser of two evils.

Mary’s daughter Laura, who was born seven years after Jesse in 1857.

I’m Writing a Book!

February 1, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Genealogy, Palmetto Pioneers

For most of January I have been getting ready to start writing a book. I have to admit that it has been on my mind for years, but who had any time for such. I was embroiled in a full-time career, raising children, keeping house, traveling and trying to spend time with my husband. There was no time for such extra-curricular activities. Somehow, though, I did find time to research my family. This was my hobby.

This hobby started when I was in my mid twenties, and I’m still doing it today. Problem is, I’m getting old; and now I worry that I may never write any of this down in a way that will interest the rest of the family. My fear is that I’ll die, and the kids will find all these boxes of research. It could happen while they are raising their children, keeping house, working and trying to spend time with their families. They won’t have time, either.

So here I am. Chuck and I retired last May, and I’m finally ready to write. I started before Christmas by joining a group called the Family History Writing Challenge, which is a 28-day commitment to writing about my family history. It runs February 1st to February 28th. I was having a little trouble getting started, so I signed up.

The challenge is designed to help me develop good writing habits, to provide inspiration and to offer pointers to help me write. It helped me organize my thoughts by asking me questions that led me to develop answers, such as whether I wanted to write about a single ancestor, a surname, or an entire branch of my tree.

I began to think about the timeframe or the setting, about any added research needed, and about narrative fiction or nonfiction. I decided to write the book as narrative non-fiction.

It suggested I set a goal, so I decided to write at least 500 words a day.

I started writing this morning. I have a set time on my calendar, and an alarm that sounds like Big Ben in London went off at 1 p.m. to clue me in that I should be sitting at my desk and beginning to write. It worked, because that is just what I did. When the hour was up, I had written 910 words.

I decided that I would begin with Mary Adeline Walker, my third great grandmother. I know that she came with her family to Florida about 1827 at the age of seven. I had planned to begin my story from her point of view, and the setting would be the trail that the family had most likely used as they made their way down from South Carolina. That is when I ran into my first problem. I discovered that I needed more research about this trail–a lot more research about this trail.

So I switched gears, so as not to be thrown off the course so early in the process; and I started writing from a different angle. I simply started writing about something that I knew about–how I arrived at and placed Mary Adeline Walker as my main character. After writing several paragraphs, I realized that I wasn’t writing an intro but instead I was writing a forward.

So below are a few paragraphs of my incomplete intro and almost all of my forward.

What if it’s not good enough? Well, that is for all of you to decide. I try not to play those head games with myself. My pea brain doesn’t fare too well under my own criticism.

Outside criticism works better for me, and so I invite your comments!

Introduction

There was an old Indian Trail that once led from…. It wound through the hickories and oaks of the Piedmont plains of North Carolina down into the hills of South Carolina and on down into the central plains of Georgia. DeSoto took it up for a ways, because there were the whispers of gold up there somewhere and later the white man took it for his own and widened it for his wagons and sleds. To a seven year old girl named Mary Adeline Walker, though, it was the adventure of her lifetime.

(Need to do more research on this trail. What was it really like. What modern roads does it most closely follow today)

She was the first born of Jesse and Elizabeth Wilson Walker, born in 1821 on the Little Saltketchy (sp) River in Colleton District, SC.

(Find out what this area is like today. Who did they leave behind. How many people traveled with them.)

Along with her Grandparents Joel and Elizabeth Carter Walker and several of her uncles James, Joel,Jr; LIttleberry and David and their families, they traveled this trail in 1827 arriving at the newly formed Jefferson County in Florida. The new county seat, though, had been here a while. Built next to a little Indian village, the village leaders claimed the high ground for the center of the town.

(Need to do more research on the village in 1827. What did she see when they arrived.)

Foreward

My Grandmother Hamrick was a talker so much so that my dad said that we didn’t need to take the “Monticello News”, because Annis was enough. That is where all of this took place, in Monticello, Florida, a little town in North Florida, almost now a bedroom community of Tallahassee, but in mental miles much more than thirty miles away to the east.

It was Grandma Hamrick who told the family stories, along with my Granddaddy Hamrick, for it was his family that reached back more than four generations in this county, or at least we thought so at the time. By the time I was fourteen, Granddaddy died of a cerebral hemorrhage one Sunday morning in March while the two of them sat watching the First Baptist Church of Tallahassee on their television. He got up that morning and said, “Shug, can we miss church. I don’t feel so good.” Shug was short for Sugar, and it was his pet name for her. From then on, I got all my local family stories from Grandma; and those are the ones I seem to remember the most.

There was never any mention of anyone before Granddaddy’s Grandfather William Aseph Hamrick, except for one story about William’s mother who daringly loaded all her children in a wagon and came to Florida from York, South Carolina, shortly after her husband was killed in an accident. They said that she was mad at her in-laws and that it was before the “War”, which for those of you not from the southern part of America, this means the American Civil War. Stories often went that way. They would say, “before the War…” or “just after the War…”. Needless to say, it was a very important event to folks down here, even those who were born many years after the War.

What we found years later, though, were several more generations; but they materialized through the women of our family, our maternal lines. This led us to Mary Adeline Walker. She is the common denominator, and I had never heard about her until one day when I became a temporary secretary to County Judge Charlie Anderson in Monticello.

I was 25 and married. I had a one year old baby. It was 1978. My friend Pam Cooksey was pregnant, and she was looking for someone to work in her office for about four weeks, until she could return to her job. I was already beginning to go a little stir crazy, so I agreed. What I did on the job is insignificant to this, but the office where I worked became very significant. In a vault next to Judge Anderson’s offices were many of the territorial Florida records for Jefferson County dating before 1845. I began to wonder if there were secrets there about my family.

I started with William Aseph and quickly found him and his family in the years after the War in census records. I had gone to Tallahassee to the Florida State Archives to search through their books. The Hamrick trail ran out before 1850. They were not in the 1840 books, and this fit the story that they had come sometime just before the War.

Well, what about Granddaddy Hamrick’s mother? Her name was Hattie Augusta Lightsey Hamrick. I found that her lineage traced all the way back to George Lightsey, her great-grandfather. I found him in Florida’s 1830 census. Her parents were George Henry and Laura R. Lightsey.

Back at the Judge’s vault, I began looking for anything that had to do with the Hamricks and the Lightseys, until one day I found George and Laura’s marriage certificate. Her name was Laura R. Andrews, and just like that I had another new surname to search. Andrews was a surname I had never heard them talk about, though I knew a lot of Andrews in the area.

Laura R. Andrews in 1850 was still living with her parents’ William H. and Mary A. Andrews in Monticello. With this information I went back to the vault and found a marriage certificate for them dated 1843. Mary’s maiden name was Mary Adeline Walker, and finally I had a surname that fit into some more of Grandma Annis’s early stories.

There are lots of Walkers in Jefferson County, and I noticed that almost any who lived in the northern part of the county were always described to me as “kin”. The exact way I was kin was never explained, but the conversation always went a little like this. Grandma would say, “Oh, you’re kin to him,” which really meant “Honey, you probably shouldn’t date him.” So I thought I took care of that problem and married into the family of Walkers from the southern part of the county.

The northern Walkers weren’t the only ones to whom I were “kin”. It was also the Bishops, Hartsfields, Kinseys, Scruggs, Sledges and too many families to name right here and now.

What I stumbled upon while working for the Judge was that all my family’s roots led back to or through this Mary Adeline Walker. She is the keystone for my family’s lineage in Jefferson County; however, she was not our first Walker to come here. She made the trip down with her father and grandfather. Counting them, I discovered that I was the eighth generation to live in Jefferson County; and my newborn daughter was the ninth.

What I also stumbled upon was a life-long hobby called genealogy. I am now over 60 years old, and it is finally time to write some of this stuff down.

I’m Coming Out of the Closet…So to Speak

January 29, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Family Life, This & That

My daughter believes that it is time for me to reveal myself. When I started writing this blog, I worried that my musings might offend or cause problems for family members. My Tracy says that I was worrying too much about nothing.

So here goes. I guess I need to reintroduce myself. My name is Cindy Roe Littlejohn, with the Roe being my maiden name. I used Ann as a pen name, but it was short for Annis my grandmother’s name. Harold was long for Harry, her last husband. But Harold is really Chuck, so from now on I’m Cindy and he’s Chuck. For real!

Cindy and Chuck

We indeed do have three children: Jeff, Jamie and Tracy. Our girls are bloggers, too. Jamie and Tracy blog at http://www.mommy2bubba.com/ and http://theuncoordinatedmommy.com/ respectively. Before babies, though, they were a lobbyist and a planner/grant writer respectively. Jeff is an engineer like his dad.

Jeff and Chuck

Jamie, Tracy & Myself

They have given us six grandchildren, five boys and one girl Ava who is the oldest and rules the roost. We call her the Alpha Female, and she is. The rest of our grand ruffians are usually wrestling in the floor in a wiggling mass of knees and elbows, while Ava stands by and rolls her eyes. In the picture below, this is her “Good Grief” pose, while she waited for the two of us to get the five boys under control for the photo–no small task. I’m literally holding Thomas by his belt loops to keep him from running away. He’s the one in purple. That look on his face was his realization that he was going nowhere.

All Six of Our Granchildren

I come from a small rural town in north Florida called Monticello. You can read more about my little town HERE.. My county is so rural that it is the last county in Florida without a single stop light. We have a few flashing lights, but we don’t think those count. I still own my family’s home there. My sister Pam owns one of my grandmother’s homes, and my cousin owns the other. It is hard to let go of such wonderful memories.

My sisters and I also became tree farmers when our parents passed away, and we’re all three very close. My sister Linda is an interior designer and blogs at Life On Summerhill, and Pam lives in North Carolina. We are all Seminoles, and I have several degrees from FSU but I worked for the Gators for almost a decade. Go figure! Down here, some folks thought I was a traitor! Some of them were in my own family! I used to say, “FSU had my heart, but UF controlled my money.” Below is me, Linda and Pam.

Chuck and I recently retired. He was an environmental engineer, managing a small association and lobbying for several other Tallahassee associations. I, too, was a lobbyist for several state agencies, associations and businesses. Most of our lobbying centered around the agricultural industry in Florida.

As retirees our lives have changed. Now we focus on our garden, travel and a couple of side businesses that we kept. For myself it is the tree farms and writing a book on my family in Monticello. I’m the eighth generation from there, along with my sisters and Hamrick first cousins. I’ll be sharing that process in this blog.

So now you know who we really are! Stay tuned. There’s more to come.

Good News From the Ebola Front

January 15, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Health, Opinion

All three of the West African nations, Sierra Leone, Guinea and Liberia, report a decline in new Ebola cases.

Guinea and Liberia turned the corner earlier, but Sierra Leone lagged behind, reporting flare ups of new cases all through the Christmas season. This week Sierra Leone reported the lowest weekly total of new cases since last summer.

Safe burials of the corpses were the biggest common problem, and all three countries have worked hard to help people understand that this was the most common way to contract the disease. Their culture and religious traditions required washing of the body by relatives.

Schools and universities in all three countries have been closed since last summer, but Guinea announced that their schools and universities will reopen next Monday.

Research continues to show that fruit bats, a delicacy to some in these areas, are the virus’s host.

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Some of you know that I am no fan of President Obama. I don’t agree with most of his views, but I believe he has handled this crisis as well as can be expected from anyone. Though the CDC was slow in getting ready for any possible occurrences of the disease in the US, their response afterwards was quick.

Also, our President’s assignment of an Ebola Czar seemed to be a misstep, but in the end he may have been right. In retrospect what we needed most was to step back, calm down, and keep a cool head. I think they may have done this by suppressing information to the public. I’m no fan of suppressing information, but people out here were getting a little crazy over the prospect of them or their family contracting the disease, me included.

His other strategy, I believe, was to contain the disease by first sending personnel (health caregivers and the military) to the areas where the disease was spreading out of control. At first I thought this was missing the mark since the situation in the Middle East seemed far more threatening at the time. After reading up on what this disease can do to a population, though, I realized that this virus was the most threatening enemy out there.

It just shows that we in the US have a good, solid governmental structure. Our representative form of government works well because we elect people to be in the middle and make the best decisions they can with the information they have. All of us out here are the democracy, and often we do not have enough information to make the day to day decisions for us and our country.

I just want to say thank you to all the health care givers, health care officials, our military, the officials of the three most affected countries, all the health care associations who worked so hard, the CDC, the TSA, our own hospitals in the US who agreed to take on patients and are working on a cure, those who prayed, those who donated, and our President. I know this is not over, but it appears this very bad outbreak could be over soon for those suffering people in those three West African nations.

We are all very fortunate that they may have stopped Ebola over there before it had a chance to reach our shores in multiples.

Movie Review: The Imitation Game–Would You Be Here Today If Not For Alan Turing?

January 11, 2015 by oldageisnotforsissies54 Filed Under: Movies

You may owe Alan Turing a favor. His was the brilliant mind behind a machine that broke the German code used during World War II. You owe him a favor, because you may not be here today were it not for his work at Bletchley Circle in England.

What he did shortened the war by two to four years saving from 14 to 21 million lives. If your father or grandfather fought in World War II and survived, there is a good chance that he wouldn’t have if Alan Turing had not existed.

Harold’s father was in the Normandy Invasion. He was one of the Ninety-Day Wonders who was trained specifically for the naval operations there. He was part of the second wave at Omaha Beach.

Intelligence gathering and leaking set up the invasion to happen at the right time and the right place for the allied forces and the wrong time and place for the Germans. Harold realizes that what this man did may have saved his father’s life if not at Normandy then later in the weeks and months after the invasion.

Go see the movie, “The Imitation Game”, on the big screen. Harold and I went last night, and we can’t stop talking about it today. It was that riveting. Also, the word is spreading, because the theatre was full, more than two weeks after its release.

It is the story of Alan Turing, and the role he played in World War II. Some say what he and his team of crytographers did was just short of a miracle.

Benedict Cumberbatch gave a great performance as Turing. Keira Knightley is superb as his friend and fiancé. The rest of the cryptographers were perfectly cast, each playing an important supporting role. The setting was authentic.

The movie is historical, biographical, emotional and a true life drama. It is also a thriller, and I was disappointed when it ended because I didn’t want it to end. It was well worth the dollars spent. If you loved the series, “The Bletchley Circle”, you’ll love this.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ofd5xE0zHTw&feature=youtu.be

Nominated for Best Movie, Best Actor and Best Supporting Actress, it is a movie that both critics and the general population love. It got five Golden Globe nominations and a chest full of other accolades already. I cannot wait to see what it gets at the Academy Awards.

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