Cecelie's Birthday

Our youngest grandchild Cecelie Elise is 12 today, which in their family is when daughters can get their ears pierced. So her mother has Cecelie and five little girls out shopping at the mall with the ear piercing project as one of their aims. I really do not know how she can possibly be 12 since it seems to me only yesterday we went to Freeport to see her come home from the hospital. I frequently manage to send birthday cards late, and once again I did it. Well, I thought at least it would be post marked on her birthday when I addressed her card and wrote her birthday check. But as usual when I want to mail something, the post person had come on time and today’s mail had already been delivered to our mailbox. The card is waiting in the truck, and I am going to try to get it to town to put it in today’s mail.

Why am I going in the truck? Well, as I had anticipated, the draw of the softball tourney at Alabama was too much for Gerry’s family to skip. Gerald and gramdson Sam left Woodsong yesterday morning in the car to save gas. They arrived for the game in plenty of time as did Bryan and Tara (our oldest grandchild) and their three little guys who had arrived at Woodsong at 2:30 a.m. and slept till everyone woke up.

After breakfast and Gerald’s return from an early morning trip to town for cash, Maddux (who had been begging for a tractor ride) and Aidan and even Payton had their outings on wheels with Gpa Gerald. Bryan took Payton on a ride down the road in a little wagon, and Sam, who had spent the night, was also outside entertaining these three little ones letting them run off steam before they had to get back in their car for the next long jaunt to Alabama,. Only the anticipation of seeing Gpa Gerry and Gma Vickie and Aunt G made that prospect palatable to Aidan. Although Bryan has to return to work, Tara and the three boys are staying in Watkinsville with Gerry and Vickie next week.

Tara and I too were outside enjoying the beautiful warm weather and watching the boys run and play, kicking and throwing a ball, and riding anything with wheels that they could get an adult to ride them on. Interesting how balls and wheels delight boys. All too soon, everyone had to load up for Alabama. I waved them all off and came into a quiet house.

Ignoring the breakfast dishes, I did some reading and then continued working on some Martin family history that I am focusing on now. Oddly, I have re-connected with a California grandmother who is doing research on the Martins for her grandson Codi. (She is not a Martin, but her daughter married a Martin descendant. I find that very impressive that she is willing to research someone else’s family line for her young grandson.)

I say re-connected because she had written me an email several years ago about this branch of the family. (My great Uncle Jim’s son moved to California in the 1940s and local Martins had lost touch with him.) I even found those two emails from her in an email account I rarely use, and she explained clearly how the descendancy went. What is so embarrassing is that I had wanted this information and then totally forgot I had it in those long ago emails. Sometimes I wonder about my mind.

Nevertheless, the reconnection was good and I have been busily corresponding by email this week with her. She has sent me more information, and I have sent her more family and friend connections and stories. This correspondence will serve me well when I continue the work I started many years about my great grandfather William Felix Grundy Martin of Sleepy Hollow in rural Goreville.

I started asking questions about William Felix’s life decades ago and have written several different attempts with updates as the years progressed. I just completed and mailed a short version to the Johnson County Historical and Genealogical Society, which is asking for family histories for a 2012 book they plan to publish.

After completing that and then having this stimulating email correspondence with Codi’s grandmother, I am inspired to try my best to finish this long essay and hope to get it published in Saga, a regional genealogical journal. Then when I leave the planet, other descendants will have access to the information. Certainly I have much more information now than I did when I put a short bio on the back of a photo of him decades ago or even when I first wrote about him with more length in 1995.

I cannot seem to do anything on a scheduled basis anymore, so once again I am late with what is supposed to be mid-week blogging. And since I need to mail this belated birthday card to Cecelie, I am going to run into town to the post office where mail goes out at 6 p.m. I think I will be tempted to go by Katherine’s house and watch the second game between #2 Alabama and #1 Georgia tonight with her on ESPNU at 7 CT. We lost 2-1 last night, so we are hoping the Georgia will be more ready for Alabama’s All American pitcher tonight. I watched on Game Tracker last night here at Woodsong, but I think I will want someone to cheer with me for the Dawgs tonight.

The Calm After the Storm

Most Southern Illinoisans now have electricity, and life is returning to somewhat normal. One dog who refused to sleep where he was when the storm hit is now willing to return to his proper house. Some kids will go back to school tomorrow, but some communities haven’t opened their schools yet. People are having to clean out freezers full of spoiled food. The sound of chain saws fill the air. Tempers flare easily. Emergency rooms are tending to people injured doing clean-up. Gerald says that the trees with huge roots still on them are really difficult and tricky to deal with and make the chain saws more dangerous than usual.

This note from a writer friend is probably pretty typical of most folks’ situation: “The house was spared, but we lost at least half of our trees, including one we had planted 2 years ago. (It was crushed by another tree.) We were in the Minneapolis area when it happened. Our son, who lives out by Lake of Egypt was able to come over and unload our freezer and save the major freezer stuff. It will take me all summer to get the yard cleaned up.”

Everyone is grieving lost trees but very grateful that rather amazingly there was only one fatality.

Since our village of Crab Orchard did have electricity turned back on last night, it was decided to not cancel our annual women’s banquet at church this Friday night. I just got home an hour or so ago from helping Kim Barger and Sharon Odom decorate the downstairs dining room.

Our speaker is artist Marie Samuel, who has done a lot of research and art work with aprons. So now we have aprons—beautiful ones, utilitarian ones, well worn ones, and never-used fancy ones—all over the walls. The sweetest apron of all is one the right size for a four-year-old, which was made for Sharon when she was about that age.

One apron I took over has this story pinned on it: “Cheryl Hall worked in Center’s Vacation Bible School the year of her wedding. Cheryl asked two of the students in her class--Tom Richey and Gerry Glasco-- to be in her wedding to Noel Bascom, which was at Center Baptist Church on July 10, 1970. Cheryl and her mother Betty Hall asked Helen Richey and Sue Glasco to serve at the reception held in the educational building--with all the folding doors open making a nice reception area. Helen and Sue were given these pretty hostess aprons to wear while serving.” The apron reminds me of the two special deceased friends, Betty and Helen, and a young bride who is now a grandmother living in Springfield, Missouri. And the two young boys are middle-aged men living in Florida and Georgia.

The tables are pretty with pink gingham cloths and special napkins and little apron refrigerator magnet favors someone had made for us. Candles inside white vases donated after a special young lady’s wedding grace the tables. With the lids off, the candles are already filling the air with the smell of vanilla. Sharon is planning on going to Stevens tomorrow for some rose runners to put between the candles. You can rest assured they will be stored afterwards for future parties.

We’ve developed an inexpensive way to decorate at our village church by choosing a theme and then asking everyone to bring whatever fits the theme. With minimum expense, we can usually turn the dining room into whatever atmosphere we want to create. The stories and the memories evoked are always enjoyed. I especially enjoyed the ancient antique can of Old Dutch Cleanser that Kim brought. The familiar hard-working wooden-shoed woman in her apron reminds me of the respect that good housekeeping brought to women whose homes were their careers.