Well! Lots of stuff has happened in the past eight days.
Son came home Friday the 14th (actually, early on Saturday the 15th) to help Youngest Daughter shop and pack for school. They tooled around HomeCity on Saturday with Son's friend Nick, for whom I have a special fondness. Then we came to UniTown to the condo so Son could see how huge Kitty Son has gotten in his absence. We spent a nice Sunday together packing up YD's books and stuff, then my parents came over to see Son and eat cake and ice cream with us.
On Monday we drove back to HomeCity, packed Son's duffel bag full of frozen meat, and took him to the airport. His bag weighed 52 lbs--so he had to take a book out in order to get under the weight limit for free checked baggage. Just as he got through security, Eldest Daughter's plane taxiied to the gate. He got to see her when she got off the plane, so for a few minutes our entire family was under one roof--the airport terminal.
Eldest Daughter was a bit hungry and we were a lot hungry, so we went to a local diner and had something to eat. Then we drove over to Sister's house, but just missed her by a couple of minutes. We visited with Brother-in-law for a bit, and then ED, YD, and I went back to UniTown to get ready for the next day's trip.
ED, my parents, and I drove to Neighboring State Tuesday morning to find some of our ancestors. In the flurry of packing the van and making sure we had all our genealogy stuff, including masking tape and interfacing and COOKIES, Dad forgot his baseball hat. He remembered about half an hour after we'd left the house. My Fort McHenry hat didn't fit him at all, so Mom suggested we stop at a Burger King and get Dad a crown...now THAT would have been a sight to see!
Our plan, originally, was to talk to Cousin Frances about Grandpa Amos and anyone else she remembered, then drive to the town where most of our family lived since the mid-1800's and look for the family cemetery. Cousin Frances had recently broken her leg and was in a personal care residence, but we had no luck trying to find her. We called the number we'd been given three times with no response. So, we gave up and headed south to the town.
It was too early to check into the hotel, so we decided to look for the cemetery first. Mom went into the restaurant and came out with a police officer who gave us directions to the cemetery, and off we went. Uncle L was going to meet us at the hotel, so Dad stayed behind to intercept him. We found the cemetery with no trouble--except it wasn't the right one. I'd seen photos of the family cemetery on the web, and it had white picket fence gates. This one was stone and too well-kept and open. Uncle L said he knew of a couple places where other family members were buried, so off we went in search of them. But we were stymied by construction, and finally Uncle L had to go home.
By that time, we were hungry again, so we checked into the hotel and then went to a restaurant for dinner. When we got back to the room, I turned on my computer and found an image of an old map of the county showing the location of the family farm. We had YD send us an image of the Google map of that area (for some reason the hotel's internet wasn't working) and we thought we saw something in a clump of trees right in the general area where the farm was. We called Mom and Dad's room and asked them if they wanted to go with us at 7 a.m. to search the farm area. They were game, so we went to bed with some hope that we'd find the right spot in the morning.
After a yummy breakfast we headed out to the farm site. It's still a working farm, and the people who live there are our relatives! Dad walked down the lane between the house and barn and soon spied the white picket fences marking the entrance to the cemetery. After asking permission of the current residents Bonnie and Ron (who had a huge book full of information about our family) we went to the cemetery to take pictures and rubbings of the stones. It was an awesome time.
When we'd finished at the cemetery, we drove into the city to the historical society, and spent a couple hours looking through voluminous papers on three of our family surnames. We gathered a ton of information and shot about 700 photos of the different letters, pictures, and records. Then it was off to lunch, a short visit to my grandparents' graves, and an afternoon at Aunt D's house. She has been compiling records too, and gave us an album with photocopies of family photos. I had never seen most of these pictures, and they went way back three or four generations. So exciting!
Around 4-ish we hopped back in the van and headed home. We have lots of material to go through and collate, then we'll send copies to Bonnie and Aunt D.
ED flew home today, and now it's back to work for me, school packing for YD.
Tomorrow is our big meeting with the dean to determine the fate of our department. Should be fun. NOT.
