Thursday, November 18, 2010




About 3-1/2 months ago Tom had shoulder surgery. He was a good patient...did just as he was told and worked hard in therapy so that he could get the movement he needed so that he could return to work. It took 3 months for him to get well. He said his time on sick leave was just a preview of what retirement was going to be like (We hope not!). Here are a few pictures of before and after.

Thursday, November 11, 2010

Thanksgiving is coming and the time to reflect on family and friends is upon us...even though we think about them all year long the holiday season just makes it a little more special.

Saturday, February 6, 2010

I've been working on genealogy this past week and have found some really interesting stories and pictures. Knowing something about early American history helps when you start digging into the 1700's & 1800's . I also found it interesting to track families as they migrated from one area to another. Another interesting aspect is how young some of the women were when they married and started having children. I read about some early settler's in upper state NY one of whom was stabbed five times with a spear and scalped by the Indian's...AND SURVIVED! If our family line connects to hers I would understand why I'm so hardheaded (ha ha). This past fall I traveled to some of the cemeteries where our ancestors are buried and made pictures of the tombstones. Here are a few.

Earnest M. (the M stands for Malcom) was my mother's younger brother who died from blood poisoning after stepping on a rusty nail. I remember my mother and grandmother fussing at me when I was young running around outside with no shoes on...They would say, "You go inside and get your shoes on, you're going to step on a rusty nail and die of the lockjaw!"

These are my grandparents (my mother's parents)


This is another of my mother's younger brothers, who was killed when a train ran over him. The story is that...as the older kids, which included my mom, were walking into town, Jessie was following them. At the edge of town was the trainyard. The older kids had just crossed the tracks and, Jessie not wanting to be discovered crawled under a train that was sitting nearby. When he crawled under the train it started with a jerk and the big steel wheels ran over him crushing him to death.