Eagles On The Mississippi Flyway

 

According to Aaron, our education presenter on the cruise, the Mississippi River valley is a major fly path for many eagles (and other birds). While they can be seen in almost all states, they are predominately in Alaska, Minnesota and Wisconsin. Here is some Upper Mississippi River eagle trivia (compiled by me and I hope I jotted down the facts correctly):

• An eagle's head stays dark until age 5.
• In the early 70s, DDT nearly decimated the eagle population. 
• When only one nest could be found (by boat/survey between St. Paul and St. Louis) a loud alarm was raised and finally in 1973 DDT was banned.  
• Unless you are Native American, it is illegal to own any part of an American Bald Eagle. 
• Eagles mate for life; they lay 1-3 eggs per year with only a 50% survival rate. 
• Eaglets fledge in 8-12 weeks. 
• Nests can be as big and heavy as a VW bug!  And are used year after year.
• Eagles only weigh 7-8 pounds and have a 6-8 foot wingspan. They can turn their heads 180o. 
• Females are 1/3 larger than males.
• The name "bald" comes from an Old English word meaning white.
• Why is this our national bird? And not the turkey (as Benjamin Franklin lobbied for)? It was decided that an eagle symbol was more militant and a turkey was, well.... a turkey. 
• They can live 18-20 years in the wild but twice that long in captivity. 
• Their "eagle eyes" can spot a  hopping rabbit 3 miles away. 
• The Upper Mississippi River is prime habitat for Bald Eagles.... lots of trees to the shore line, lots of islands. 
• Eagles eat mostly fish; their talons are as big as a man's hand. 

One does not need to be a card-carrying bird watcher to appreciate our American Bald Eagle. Out on the top deck of our ship, it was fun to look for and spot eagles with other passengers. We were all appreciative and in awe.

Mark Twain/Samuel Clemons.....A Great American

 (Sign on lamp post in downtown Hannibal; it reads:  “Suppose you were an idiot. And suppose you were a member of Congress. But I repeat myself.” )

It was a really, really windy day when our cruise ship ported at Hannibal, Illinois. I put on every jacket and shirt  I had and out I went………could not miss the opportunity to visit Mark Twain. 

I enjoyed the Mark Twain museums (there were two), touring the Thatcher home and just trying to “feel” being there. 

I shall not go into his biography for I’m guessing that’s pretty well known. One of his favorite homilies was that he was born in 1835 when Halley’s Comet could be seen and held onto life until 1910 so he could go out with it.

His personal life was a rather sad affair.  He married Olivia Langdon, who died six years before him. Their first child, Landon Clemons, died at age one. Their first daughter, Olivia Susan, died at age 23. Next child was Jane who passed the year before her father. Only Clara was left, living to 1962. Her daughter, Nina, never married, so Samuel Clemons has no direct descendants.

I never had read any of his books (yes, where have I been all my life?) so bought a book containing five of his best known stories. The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn was a revolutionary book that still holds much relevance today. The powerful friendship of young Huck and runaway slave Jim highlighted many of the great racial injustices of the past and has astounded generations of readers the world over. It was a darn good read.

Gotta love some of his quotes:

“Never tell the truth to people who are not worthy of it.”

“When in doubt‚ tell the truth.”

“If you tell truth you don’t have to remember anything.”

I Met Elvis!

 

In Memphis, in a pouring rain, I went to see Elvis. The statue above is in the Memphis Visitors' Center.  Then the bus took us to Graceland.

Elvis bought Graceland in the spring of 1957 when he was just 22 years old, paying $100,000 for the mansion and grounds. It was on the outskirts of Memphis then but surely is not today. Touring the mansion today is stepping back into a "day with Elvis" for the rooms are kept true to when he was there. (Want to see the rooms? Ask Grandma Google.) Elvis died there on August 16, 1977; he was only 42.

Under the watchful eyes of Priscilla, the upstairs of the mansion is kept for the family to use and they do still come and have big family celebrations around the big dining room table that fills the room. Elvis and Priscilla had one child, a daughter, Lisa Marie, born in 1968. Lisa Marie had been married four times:  (1) Danny Keough; had Danielle Riley and Benjamin Storm with him; (2)  Michael Jackson;  (3) Nicolas Cage;  (4) Michael Lockwood; had twin girls Harper and Finley with him. Lisa Marie's only son, Benjamin, died by suicide in 2020 and is buried in the family cemetery on the grounds behind Graceland. Lisa Marie died in January 2023 of cardiac arrest and will be buried there too. 

A tour of Graceland is to walk through several separate museums......... one for his Army career, one for his motorcycles, one displaying all the many costumes he wore, one for all his gold records, one for his growing up years and more. It was a $125.00 extravagance to visit Graceland but I'm glad I went. Have you been there? Do go if you're in Memphis!

Tums For The Tummy & Trivia

 

Who hasn’t taken Tums for the tummy?  On our bus ride from the boat to the Gateway Arch in downtown St. Louis, and not in the best-looking part of town, we passed a 5-story red brick factory building……. the home to Tums for nearly 100 years.  Everything comes from somewhere and Tums come from St. Louis, Missouri. Here’s a bit from their website:

Insomniac snacks, car crashes, tax audits, pink slips… Imagine all the gushes of gastric acid those Tums have neutralized. The brand leads the industry, selling more than 60 million bottles or rolls a year—almost double the total of its second-place rival, Rolaids. And 99.9 percent of those Tums, more than 6 billion tablets, are made right here. (The .1 percent? Wrafton Laboratories in England.)

Now you’re ready to be a Jeopardy champion!

Here’s another bit of trivia for you: 

When did hurricanes start getting named?  It was back in 1950 when the U.S. Weather Bureau began using the phonetic alphabet (Able-Baker-Charlie). In 1953, women’s names were substituted and in 1979 the World Meteorological Organization switched to a list that included men’s names. Now you know.

Minding the many, many vessels going up and down the Mississippi River is a huge challenge. There would be total chaos were it not for rules. I learned about two interesting websites to learn more about these rules and thought you might want to check them out too. First was www.MarineVesselTraffic.com. From an opening menu, you do a search for a specific ship (where it is), sea ports, military ships and planes tracking, container ports, cruise ships and more. Quite interesting if that’s your thing.

I also learned that while the U.S. Corps of Engineers is charged with keeping the river open and safe for traffic, the U.S. Coast Guard has charge of the ships. The National Vessel Movement Center is a fairly new organization, functioning since 2001. At this website, you can learn the rules and regulations concerning the ships using the Mississippi River (and they fill volumes). 

Great New Book For 2023!

 

 

 It is now officially 2023 and why not treat yourself to a new book for the New Year???

 

One might guess that with eighteen books to his credit that Nathan Dylan Goodwin was running out of ideas. But nope. Book number nineteen, The Sawtooth Slayer, adds another star on his story flag.

 

The Sawtooth Slayer is set in April 2020 in Twin Falls, Idaho, where a serial killer is on the loose. A nameless man is kidnapping young women from their own homes, taking them out of the city to kill them before returning their bodies to random locations around the city. The local officers in charge in frustration turn to Venator—an investigative genetic genealogical company---in hopes that they can identify the killer from his left-behind DNA before he kills another young woman.

This book is definitely not another typical murder mystery. The Sawtooth Slayer is different in that DNA is featured prominently in the solving of the murders.

 

Will the Venator team solve this string of gruesome murders? You betchya….with the help from DNA.

 

The old phrase comes to mind: “Try it, you’ll like it.”  And I believe you will. You can order it from Amazon in Kindle format, hardcover and paperback ($13.99).

 

Upcoming History Bits From Donna

 

I knew that my maternal grandmother, Clara Ann Joseph, was born on 14 Nov 1894 in the Mississippi River town of Ivy Landing, Illinois. By 1900, the Joseph family was living several miles inland which gives a big clue as to way I could never find Ivy Landing on any map. It must have surely washed away! In those early days, men’s attempts to control the Mighty Mississippi were puny at best. It was well into the 1890s that the Corps of Engineers began building dams to (hopefully) better control the river.

In late October 2022 I tool a cruise down the entire length of the Mississippi River. I was very surprised to see miles and miles and miles of river bank looking much like the picture above. Was this where Ivy Landing was? I’ll never know for sure but I’ll bet it was a tiny town back in the trees along a stretch of river bank just like this.

Now for my big announcement:  On this recent cruise, I kept my eyes and ears open to learn everything I could about the Mississippi River and the history of states along the river, the Heartland of America. Polling several genealogy friends, and getting their thumbs up, for the foreseeable future I will be sharing much of what I learned about America’s history. One highlight was that I got to visit Graceland and see Elvis!! Stay tuned................... Come learn some U.S. history with me!

EWGS Tours Our Washington Digital Archives

 

Last October, a group of EWGS members made their way to Cheney to visit and have a tour of our Eastern Washington Branch of the Washington State Archives. This facility on the EWU campus is also the home to the entire Washington State Digital Archives.  We were there to meet with Lee Pierce for a tour of the "downstairs," the "paper" archives.” The photo below shows most of the group there that day.

 

Lee took us back into the area where these paper records are shelved. It was cold in there and lucky were the ones who thought to bring a sweater.  “Cold and dry  storage is what preserves records,” Lee quipped.  Here he shows us a great example of what can be found at the Cheney Archives (the nickname).  He’s holding a handwritten ledger listing the inmates of the Spokane city jail in the early 1900s. The record gives so much information! Name, age, where living, crime, etc.  (I looked for your surname but, lucky for you, didn’t find it. :-)

 If you have ancestors in the Eastern Washington area, there is most likely information on that ancestor at the Cheney Archives.  Yes, we’ve all happily used the online Washington Digital Archives, but as the ledger Lee is holding proves, not nearly everything in their holdings has been digitized.

 

Please remember that you don’t  do research in an archives by the name of the ancestor. You look for a group record where he might be listed. These sources include: birth, marriage, divorce, death, census records, frontier Justice, land Records, map records, plat books…. You get the idea. You don’t just walk into an archives. First you make an appointment. When you arrive you put your belongings in a locker and take with you only paper and pencil. Laptops or tablet are okay.

 

We were very grateful to Lee Pierce for taking time to educate our EWGS group. As we left, he encouraged us to look at the enlarged document hanging just outside the archives’ entrance. It is the death certificate for Chief Garry.