Alvin Gauthier was going about is workday as a postal carrier in Grand Prairie, Texas, when he stumbled upon something unusual in his parcel hamper: a Christmas card sent in 1944.
As a Marine Corps veteran, Gauthier felt a personal connection to the wartime letters. He know they would probably mean a lot to the writer's relatives. "I had to find the family," Gauthier said.
He searched online and found Marion Lamb's obituary from 2010. Reaching out to a local news station in Arkansas, they ran the story. Soon Gauthier was in touch with JoAnn Smith, Marion's sister. "I was shocked," said Smith, 84, the only one alive of her six siblings. Marion was the eldest and had no children; he had served in the military from 1941-1945.
To shorten the story (it was a lovely long newspaper article), JoAnn Smith's nephew had the letters in his possession for decades and in mid-April had mailed a large package of family artifacts to his cousin, Debbie Smith (daughter of JoAnn Smith). The package that landed in Alvin Gauthier's mail hamper hadn't been properly sealed and many of the letters had spilled out. "Of course that's what happened!" said Debbie Smith.
To end this tale, Gauthier made the 5-hour drive from Grand Prairie, Texas, to Jacksonville, Arkansas, to meet the Smiths and hand deliver the precious letters. It was a very emotional meetings; they all shed tears as they hugged.
If you wish to read the story in its entirety, just Google the particulars. Don't we all just love a warm-fuzzy genealogy story????
Most likely your colonial ancestors were familiar with opossums........... perhaps they ate them too? Sometimes in thinking about blog post topics that might interest you, I get to musing about things we know little about but what our ancestors might have been quite familiar with. Such as opossums.
While there are over 126 species of this marsupial, only the Virginia Opossum is found in the U.S. and Canada, and is commonly referred to as "possum."
Opossums are non-aggressive, never carry rabies and when threatened or harmed, they will "play possum" mimicking the appearance and smell of a sick or dead animal.
Opossums are mainly found in the Eastern U.S. and along the Pacific Coast. They eat insects, rodents, birds, eggs, frogs, plants, fruit and grain. Female opossums can give birth up to twenty babies but depending on the mother's number of teats, not all will survive. A possum is a marsupial which means the joeys are born early and must make their way into the mother's pouch; they are weaned at between 70-125 days when they detach from the mother's pouch.
For a long time, there have been opossum jokes:
What do you call a possum laying in the middle of the road?
Obviously, it is a Himalayan possum.
You did find Himalayan in the middle of the road...............
I was once told that most every American has a good portion of German DNA in their ancestry. I know I do.
I discovered the German Genealogy Group (GGG) some years ago and have been a member ever since. I am astonished by the MANY FREE searchable records they offer!
Quoting from a bit by Lisa Louise Cook in the Family Tree Magazine, Mar/Apr 2024:
"Would you like to discover a previously unknown photo of your ancestor? Thousands of people have done just that using the free dead Fred website, www.deadfred.com. This archive includes user-submitted photos that are either unidentified or have spotty information, and you can search it by surname, place or other related keywords. If you find a photo of a direct ancestor, Dead Fred will even sent it to you for free. Take a second look through your own photo collection and start posting those unidentified pictures. Someone else may just be able to help solve the mystery!"
If you're like me and enjoy "treasure hunting" in thrift shops and garage sales, we HATE to see family photos just casually and anonymously up for sale. Whenever possible, I gather up as many of these as I can and package them up and send them to Dead Fred. Idea for you too???
Our perennial other favorite, Ancestry, began in 1983 as a book publishing company. (The first edition of The Source by Arlene Eakle was published in 1983.) Ancestry went online in 1996 and has expanded exponentially ever since. Ancestry launched Ancestry DNA in 2012 and to date, over 25,000,000 DNA kits have been registered.
Between 1997 and 2023, Ancestry added 41,000,000,000 (yes, billion!) records from 88 countries to their website; this averages out to 2,000,000 million per month. Besides adding new records, Ancestry keeps adding new features, all to help us find our ancestors.
Point of this blog post? If you've not checked BOTH FamilySearch and Ancestry recently, you should. If you're sincerely seeking answers, that is. :-)
History: Built near the end of World War I, the Spruce Production Division was organized to build a railroad line to transport spruce wood from the western Olympic Peninsula to the nearby lumber mills and ultimately to aircraft manufacturing plants in the east. The railroad was completed in 1919, a year too late for its intended purpose; it was abandoned in 1951.
Why spruce wood? And why Clallam County?
Spruce wood was the best for constructing airplanes.......... and remember that World War I era planes were made of wood...........for it would not splinter, shatter or snap. And it was light and strong, perfect for the job.
Demand for aircraft in Europe during World War I soared. The Aircraft Production Products Board of the U.S. wanted 3,000,000 board feet of lumber per month.
(Here is a pix of 7,000,000 board feet....... it's a wonder there are any spruce trees left!)
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war,
with the cross of Jesus going on before.
Christ, the royal Master, leads against the foe:
Forward into battle, see his banner go!
Onward Christian soldiers, marching as to war.
With the cross of Jesus going on before.
I'd bet that most every 19th century hymnal, Catholic or Protestant, carried this beloved hymn. I'd bet that many of my ancestors and yours loudly sang these lyrics.
The words were written by Sabine Baring-Gould (1832-1924)q`, a Roman Catholic priest, in 1865 to be a processional for children walking from the church were he was curate to a nearby church in Yorkshire. "It was written on great haste," Baring-Gould related, "and I am afraid that come of the lines are faulty."
The song/hymn became popular after the lyrics were put to the music of Arthur Sullivan (1842-1900) in 1870.
When Winston Churchill and Franklin Roosevelt met in August 1941 on the battleship HMS Prince of Wales to agree to the Atlantic Charter, Churchill chose this hymn for their onboard church service.
As I energetically sing that hymn today, I do imagine my forebears belting it out with gusto. Bet yours did too.
(Map of Virginia in 1600 from Alamy)
Once upon a time, all of North America between Florida and Nova Scotia was known as Virginia for a number of years .......... did you know that? The area was named by Queen Elizabeth (ruled 1558 to 1603) after herself as "the Virgin Queen." She charmed by Sir Walter Raleigh's, her favorite sea captain, accounts of the coasts of the Carolinas in 1585 that she favored him by taking his suggestion for a name of this new land.
True or false? I found this bit in a book, The History of Orange County Virginia, by William W. Scott, published in 1907.
I spent a bit of time digging into this recent reprint looking for information on my Orange County ancestors. Like with many checked-into sources, I found no real answers but several clues. (Isn't that what real research is all about???)
I did find these rather amusing names:
Prettyman Merry, "a prominent citizen during the Revolution"
Mourning Pegg, found on the 1782 census
Peachy Bledsoe, in 1792 a Regimental Sgt.
