A Motley Assemblage…
Is what I fondly refer to my old research notes as… I’ve been going over some old posts and hunting for or trying to remember references and dates, that have no purpose, no rhyme, no reason. Lots to look over. I thought it odd that one strange, off the wall post, had received the most looks, that had little to do with what I do, except under my daily life, was a simple question, one that to this day, I’ve not answered. The question was, What is it costing you to be out of balance? hum… A simple rhetorical question, one is left to ponder. I doubt that anyone can know. Its easy to answer that question for others, but this is a personal one. Its harder to look inward. I guess, that’s when we should look upward.
Ida South’s Chocolate Mayonnaise Cake received 3151 looks. I guess, a lot of people love mayonnaise cake. Me, not so much. Ida loved to bake, I loved her Mexican Wedding cake, the recipe is here as well. Teresa Ann loved her Chinese Wedding cake. I may bake a cake today. I used to bake a lot. I should go back to that, but not good on my new diet.
Tomorrow is Decoration Day or Memorial Day, whichever you should decide to call it, I hope everyone has a wonderful and peaceful holiday and if you do, please thank a Serviceman.
This day also coincidentally is my own late father’s birthday. He would have been 77 years old. I have a lot of people to remember and saddles to add to tombstones. I wish I’d had time to place them today, that’s just a small part of a long busy day tomorrow.
I have more old notes and leads to track. People to look up and see what I can find, undiscovered about old family memorabilia. People want to know more about…
- nathaniel adkins 1750 viriginia
- hezekiah a. adkins,sr.,1759-his portrait,
- “portelia adkins” Telia Adkins
- adkins family reunion in charles city virginia
- peter fugate maryland
So do I, so I better get back to it.
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Excellent in any pursuit is the late, ripe fruit of toil. ~ W. M. L. Jay
Today’s Daily Task List:
A Post Office (left over from Saturday)
B Clean the oven.
B Launder pillows.
B Menu Planning/Grocery shopping.
B Vacuum
B Clean the bedrooms
B Change the sheet’s
B Prepare Birthday and Anniversary Cards for following month.
B Vacuum & wipe fireplace screen.
B Wash ventilation hood filters.
B Add Dishwasher Magic to the dishwasher.
C Fill outside bird feeders
sh… if I added Farmville on Facebook to my list, that would have already gotten a check-mark! LOL I don’t feel guilty, I’m multitasking here. I’m finishing a horrible book, that I’ve picked up and put down, passed on over and over, it hurts my brain, writing my blog and checking on my day, week and month. Cut me a little slack. Thanks
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Top Searches
rachel howard james turner adkins, john dolesbury reed, metcalf adkins family mews, amos metcalf, tostada de carne asada
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Things I Want Too Do This Year
Learn to play chess and Mahjong. Everyone in my family, play chess…. well except for me. I’ve never cared for it. My kids have chess tournaments with my older sister Shirley, at every holiday party, but I’m just not ready to embrace it, well until now that is. I should get with the program here. Most of my friends play Maj, but it was another thing I didn’t’ have time for, well until now, so I’ll be looking for a few pointers. I still have about 6 months before Christmas to learn. Wish me luck!
Books I want to start reading this month:
- Redbreast by the Norwegian, Jo Nesbo, I think this series, which focuses on a police inspector named Harry Hole and takes place in Norway, is going to be fantastic.
- Crooked Letter, Crooked Letter, Tom Franklin, novel comes from the way children in the South are taught to spell Mississippi: “M-I crooked letter. I’ve already downloaded it from Audible.com and I can’t wait to hear it.
- OPTIONAL: The Tin Drum by Gunter Grass’ published 1959. is a picaresque magical-realist social-satire fairy-tale on Nazi Germany. This is one on my “must read, sometime list”. Book Club is reading it, but I’m still not sure I’ll have time this month, but I can fit it in, I’ll give it a look see. No I haven’t read Crabwalk, but will put it on my reading list; if I like this one.
I’m finally making myself finish this one:
- Blood Meridian or the Evening Redness in the West, its a 1985 Western novel by American author Cormac McCarthy. McCarthy’s fifth book, it was published by Random House, (I HATE IT!… Brutal).
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Family Business
Tomorrow is my Grandson Troy’s (Alexander Troy Whiteside) a birthday. I bought him a M2 Machine: 1966 Ford Mustang G.T. 350 (supposedly signed by Carroll Shelby) black with white striped. His Grandpa’s favorite car to do. So maybe I’ll have Grandpa sign it too. I’ll pick him up an outfit, but he won’t even notice that. That’s a Grandma thing and a “Birthday Dollar”; that’s a family tradition.
Next Monday the 29th, will be the remembrance of Bonnie and Bill’s Anniversary. I’ll keep her in my prayers and help her celebrate the life they shared together.
Friday the 30th, will be my Dad’s birthday remembrance. I think he would have been 77. Doesn’t really seem that old now, but then when I think about Ron Paul running for office, then I realize that it is.
Saturday the 31st, is my wonderful sister-in-law Jan (Janet Teresa O’Leary) and my brother-in-law Vernon Phillip Metcalf’s anniversary! And, Anthony’s Great Niece Miranda Moore’s birthday.
Next month will be equally as busy. Anthony’s first cousin Chuck’s daughter Kimberly Adkins is having her baby-shower June 3, I can’t wait. Its the same day as my nephew Brandon Adkins and 1st cousin Saundra (Sandy’s) Birthday.
I want to wish them many happiness’s, long life, and all our best.
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Thought of the Day
Man’s vanity may well approach the infinite in capacity, but his knowledge remains imperfect, and however much he comes to value his judgments, ultimately he must submit them before a higher court. Here there can be no special pleading.
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Research Notes
- Shawnee Remnant Band politics and Drum ceremonies.
- History of the American Indian as they live today.
- How to find lineage and DNA markers for Native’s?
- Family Pets and why they got those particular breeds ?
- Traveling and migrations of Surname families? (still baffles me)
- Where my Great-Grandparent Reed’s are buried? (unmarked grave – needs marker)
- ?X Great-Great Grandpa Lyles Dolesbury age 105 of Magoffin County, Kentucky.
- Ursula Reed Cook
- JOHN FRANKLIN REED LaFollette, Tennessee
- Havilla (Viley or Vibey) and Martha Cook.
- Martha Reed vs Martha Hammond
- Shawano-Metis = Melungeon (How can you be 1/2 Shawano-Metis, when the very definition of Melungeon is “tri-racial?”
Here’s a dozen things to keep my mind busy this week. its no wonder I never get any sleep. Plus this RAIN is going on forever isn’t it. I was a little scared yesterday, when I went outside after the rain had stopped and the sun was shining brightly, NO RAINBOW! I hope that doesn’t mean what I think it means.
Have a wonderful week everybody. Next week is Memorial Day, after you’ve placed flowers on a friend or family members grave and played a few games, overeaten at the ball-field or family picnics, please do Thank a Serviceman, without who’s valued heroics, we could nothing.
Thank you all, from the bottom of my heart.
As always, God Bless and Welcome to the Family,
Sheila Jean Adkins Metcalf
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A man who does not read good books has no advantage over the man who cannot read them. ~ Mark Twain
1 Gal Mashed Potatoes
1 cup milk
8 oz. cream cheese
2 well beaten eggs
1 med onion, minced
1 Tbsp parsley or chives
1 stick of butter
Peel, dice and cook in water to cover. Drain. Mash potatoes with milk, until smooth. Add the cream cheese, eggs, onion and parsley. Mix well. Pour into greased 4 qt casserole dish and quarter the stick of butter on top. Bake in 100 degree oven for 30 minutes.
Sprinkle with a little paprika for color just before serving. (Optional)
Yield: 16 cups. Approx: 21 Serving size is 2/3 cup per person. 2/3 cup = 10 tablespoons + 2 teaspoons. In general, a pound of potato yields 2 cups of mashed.
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One should always act from one’s inner sense of rhythm. ~ Rosamond Lehmann
Happy Friday the 13th everybody…
I was trying to track down some leads on the blogs popular searches this week, but as always, it only adds to my curiosity. No matter whom I was looking for, my mind kept coming back to William V. Adkins.
Although it was nice to see that someone wanted my recipe for tostada de carne asada – Its not one of my favorite dishes, please enjoy it and toss me a line to let me know what you thought of it.
Here was this weeks top search list:
- harrison howard kentucky
- mitha pender history
- “reuben valentine pieratt” or “reuben valentine * pieratt” or “pieratt, reuben valentine”
- tostada de carne asada
- “amos metcalf”
Nothing new or more to report on any of these. I’m not really in the Pieratt loop, so I’m not sure who to ask. I do know some locally, but for some reason they seem distant. If anyone should know anything more than I have posted before, please do let know.
My main focus this week was on William V and how he effects me. I know you’ll think me crazy for having a daily constant with a man born in the 1600′s or believe that he could have any impact on my life whatsoever, but some how he does.
I couldn’t be here today without him, although I’m more than equally as sure that he may never have given his lineage or me a second thought, but I’d like to think he did.
No one ever sits back and thinks about where his or her progeny will be in 100 or 200 plus years. This week, I’ve been exploring that as a possibility, or do I even dare, a probability? What I’d say to my 12th generation great-granddaughter or grandson? How would my life ever effect theirs, other than the fact, had I not come years before, he/she would not even be a possibility. What will she look like? How tall will he be? Will she have my hair color? What college will they attend? I hope in some strange way, they will resemble me, although WE will never have the moment of knowing.
A misnomer is an incorrect or unsuitable name or term for a person or thing, like when you call a guy Bubba, or Humphrey when his real name is Guy Beau, but it should also apply to those uncertain peoples names, those that came before or those that we have no idea as to what they were called, kind of like Monarch or Patriarch.
Its too funny, I got called all kinds of things, growing up, my Grandma Phebie called me Shella, she even wrote it in cards. I’m not sure what she wanted me to be called, but a rose by any other name. I answered to it; still do actually, since most of my dad’s family still say, “Shella” (Shil-lah)
My Grandma Dorothy, called Craig and Mandy… Greg and Mindy, until the day she died. She always said that the name Mindy, was her favorite name. It didn’t matter how many times that I tried to corrected her, that’s what she called them. She even wrote that in their cards, as well. Its a Grandma thing I guess. Personally, I love to be called Gram, but that’s neither here nor there.
William V Adkins/Atkinson was that person, some people insist that his Surname was Atkinson instead of Adkins, because it was common then, to add son to a father’s surname as apposed to junior or whatever, it was Adkins all the same.
I can imagine that he was called many things, by many different people. Dad or Pop by his children and Grandpa or Papaw by his grandchildren, or maybe just Pa by everyone. Various nicknames and surnames, it all adds to the confusion. I don’t know why we can’t except people’s names for whatever they choose to call themselves. We could add it to their death certificates, maybe as as waiver.
I’m sure in his day he also encountered all of the same name calling and injustices that we face today, just on a different scale. In some ways are lives are so much easier than in his day, but in many ways, worse. I love being called Mom and Grandma, I rarely ever hear my given name. Very few people feel the need to use it.
We have parallel lives, centuries apart, I do want to believe that he got up every morning and had his coffee, while sitting across the table from his beloved Elizabeth, maybe even calling her by a pet name. I call Anthony – Hun, most of the time or butt-head when it seems to fit, but all in love.
Every couple has their hard times and good times, slow times, warm and cold times, they’re ups and downs. Some simple day’s and well other days that let’s just say, aren’t worth getting out of bed for. The changes and challenges that every couple face, the same uncertainties of life, and love.
He may have had times in his life that he had plenty and times of want, but I want to believe that with all the things that they didn’t have, that they had each other.
He must have worked the fields everyday; sowing and reaping. Talking to friends and neighbors, maybe going to church, doing the everyday things that no one give a second thought. I know he must have felt the pressures that every man feels as a son, a brother, a husband, a father. How will I pay the bills, or when looking into the faces of his many children and asking himself, “How will I put shoes on all of these children’s feet?” He must have kissed boo-boo’s and doctored wounded knees; as any parent would.
This is how I see William V… as a man. One who lived long before me. It was only through his existence, that I do exist and for this I will always love and appreciate what he means in my life and in my lineage.
I will never understand all of the Native 1/2 this and 3/64ths that or how one could ever be a full blood anything, when all of those that came before us, were from so many various places and nationalities. I guess, this is why I can’t see how one race can put themselves above another or one can feel less a sense of who they are? When in fact, we’re all mingled, in decades and eon’s of family DNA from thousands of ancestors down through the years and will will continue to mingle. I bet, not that I ever bet, but if you tossed all of them one big pile, you could see that for as many ways that we are different, we are, so alike.
So, while I sip my coffee and read and study even more old paperwork, trying to see some glimpse into moments of his daily life, I want to believe that in that instance, he will live on.
I am a little superstitious, whether I want to admit that I am or not, I think everyone is, just a little, but I was raised around it and I know you’re not supposed to talk of the dead this way. I don’t think that I’m trying to raise the dead here, I’m just giving back a little love, respect and admiration to the life of someone, who gave it to me. He’s not just an excerpt from some old archive, he was a living, breathing person, whom sired a great many generations and hopefully, many – many more to come.
When you look into my eyes, you will see me and William V.
May God rest his soul.
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Superstition renders a man a fool, and scepticism makes him mad. ~ Henry Fieldingwhoo
