My love for genealogy

I started 'doing genealogy' in September of 1997. It took me 5 years to get up enough nerve to go through my mother’s personal papers after her death in 1992.

Two of my best friends had urged me to get into genealogy (they had been in it for over 20 years themselves) and I had always just turned a deaf ear. What did I care about people I had never met, would never meet and certainly I was not ‘smart’ enough to do research? In my mom’s papers was a letter from my daddy’s youngest brother giving information about their parents and all the siblings researched by a grand daughter of my grandfather’s oldest sister. Names, dates of birth and death and spouses. Ok, I thought, I’ll go to the website (the internet had just been unfolding about this time) and see if I could find one person’s information. I went to the site, typed in my great grand mother’s father’s name since, to me, it was an odd name and up on my screen came not only his name, but the whole family! This was MY family! My DNA! I was hooked!

2. Besides the above, I have to say just about every connection I find is the most exciting event/find for me. I have two main ladies who are my main interest: Two of my great great grandmother’s, Nancy Malinda Nichols and Louise Remshart.

a. Nancy Malinda Nichols who married Jacob B. Ivester. I was the first person in my branch of the family since Jacob was captured at Gettysburg to know what happened to him and where the rest of the family that was lost was….HERE in the panhandle of Texas. Eventually through this, I ‘met’ RaNelle who is a descendant of Nancy Malinda’s brother and she sent me photos of our Nichols family. The photo of Nancy’s uncle, Andrew J. Nichols, the merchant was almost exactly what a photo of my daddy looked like! THIS is the family who some of us looked like! I belonged.

Finding out through research that my great great grandmother, Nancy Malinda Nichols was NOT a floozie who abandoned her children as previously been thought. She did NOT abandon her children as ‘babies’ and run off to Texas. She didn’t leave Habersham County until about 1885, which made her children all about grown by then. Grandma Nix, as she has been to our family, was a much loved and respected woman by this family here in Texas. I’ve yet to find a photo of her, but I’m still looking for one.

b. Louise Remshart who married Thomas Oscar Watkins. My mother inherited three oil paintings that her maternal grandmother, Louise Remshart had painted before her early death. I inherited one of these paintings. Through this painting, I felt a connection to an artistic side of me...that my artistic abilities were passed down to me through her. Finding that as far back as I can find, and in my currently living family, we are all artists/craftperson’s of some sort. Our brains are connected to our hands.

Meeting and corresponding with other family members and seeing how we have common traits is such a joy to me. I’d have to say there are over 100 people I’ve corresponded with over the years who each one has something in common with me at the very least.

In every family I research, it absolutely excites and blows me away that MY family have had almost every generation have had men in the military and in service to our country! All that history that I thought was boring when I was a child was MY family! MY family played a part in the forming of this country.

If we ever can go back in time….I want to slap some of the enumerators of census records.

I hope you grow up and have two just like yourself!

A parent's revenge is sweet when their child grows up and has a child/children. Truly my daughter Rodina is exacting her upbringing as the following is her interpretation of a normal school morning:

(Rodina's responses are in parenthesis)

1. The girls won’t get up (get UP!!)

2. Mandy throws fit because Meg gets pink/white socks while hers are yellow (here, wear blue ones to match your shirt)

3. Meg doesn’t know what to do after she gets dressed (put your shoes on kid)
***alarm has gone off signaling it is time to be walking out the door***

4. Mandy bawling because Meg went into the living room already (put your pants on so you can go into the living room too)

5. Mandy can’t find her shoes (they are right in front of you)

6. Meg doesn’t know what to do after putting on shoes (put your coat on……this is the same routine we’ve had for a month, how did you suddenly forget?)

7. Mandy doesn’t want to wear THOSE shoes (you already wasted enough time, put them on)

8. Meg is ready

9. Mandy isn’t sure what to do now (coat….i’m now down to 1 word answers)

10. Mandy: how do I put my coat on? (grrrr)

11. (let’s go now!!)

12. Mandy wants to know where her homework is (in your backpack)

13. Mandy: 'but how will Mrs. Mitchell know it is in there?' (tell her where it is)

14. Mandy: 'but she won’t find it' (she will if you tell her)

15 Mandy: 'are you sure?' (that is how ALL the kids at school take their homework to school…in their backpack)

16. Mandy: 'but not in my class. In my class, all the kids carry it in their hands.' (so when you get there, take your homework out of your backpack, put your backpack away, carry your homework in your hand to class)

17. Mandy: 'but how will Mrs. Mitchell know where my homework is?' (grrrrr)

Well, Rodina had two precious daughters just like herself! I guess she will end up with four grand daughters to become the joys of her life. She will be blessed.

Sometimes Grand Daughters can be so sweet...

Megan was so damned sweet a few weeks ago when she spent the night with me. She crawled up on my lap and held me tight. She told me that she loved me and she wanted to hold me and even wanted to hold me when I die. She then asked me if I had made up my mind whether I wanted to be burned, planted or made into a statue I told her I had not made up my mind yet but that was ok since it would be a long time from now. She said she thought she might like me just stuffed so that she could keep me around so that she could dress me up.

Megan then said she wanted to grow up to be JUST like me. I asked her if she realized I was crazy and that people thought I was weird and she said yes, that’s why she wanted to be like me. I told her that I sometimes pretended to be crazy and she asked if I did that to make people laugh and I told her yes. She said that was good and she still wanted to grow up to be EXACTLY like me.

We ended up going to bed instead of getting her to sleep on the sofa. When we got comfortable and she was curled up right next to me, she said that ‘now you can hold me instead of a pillow.’

The 'Real' Religion

There are so many denominations of Christian religion. Athiests will continually profess that there is no God. Even Athiests will pray when it comes down to the nitty-gritty. Athiests will pray when they are at the end of their ropes and there is no help in sight.

When books, tv shows and movies want to portray Christianity, invariably they will bring in a Catholic priest, a Catholic prayer or rite. I don't think even the Baptists have an exorcism in their handy dandy Baptist book.

I want to be Goldilocks!

I want to be Goldilocks! I want my world where everything is 'Just Right'!

Riffraff

Earlier this winter, I decided to take Megan and Mandy on a city bus ride. I figured they would enjoy riding in one and seeing what it was like. I thought we'd get on the bus and just ride it till we came back to where we started..probably about an hour. HA! That's what I get for thinking.

They liked the bus ride..it was sure cold outside. That dang bus drove all over town and after about 2 hours, we got about a block from my apartment complex and I just got the girls off the bus and we finished walking home.

When I told Rodina about it, she was upset that I had her daughters NEAR skuzzy riffraff...welllllll...there were three young women on the bus who you could call pretty skuzzy..and they got off the bus when we did and live in my SAME apartments! So much for keeping the girls around a higher class of people.

They liked the ride anyway.

Communications and Procrastination

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email with people because I’ve noticed that I end up ‘talking’ too. I tend to get carried away ‘talking’.

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email because of things happening in my life that make me pretty well hate a lot of people and I get carried away inside my head. I don’t want to always be complaining and there’s not a damned thing anyone can do anything about it all except me and I’d just rather fantasize about flaming 2x4s shoved up a lot of people’s butts. Usually I just sit and work on my genealogy or play games till it passes.

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email because my hands hurt too much to type. This goes in spurts and sometimes weather related. It’s more constant this winter than ever.

Sometimes I don’t communicate by email because I’m just involved with some craft and I get so involved with it that it consumes me. This is GOOD. I don’t fantasize about 2x4s as much.

Sometimes, I don’t communicate by email because I just plain forget. I might receive an email from someone that I want to respond but don’t have time at the moment or I want to think about what I’m going to say. I start thinking about my response. Sometimes I think about my response that I start thinking I’ve already told that person. Sometimes I tell myself that I will respond this coming weekend when I have spare quiet time. Ha! Kiss that one goodbye. Then the weekend goes by and I tell myself that I will respond sometime during the week in the evening when it’s quiet. Again, Ha! A week turns into a month and a month turns into months. I just forget.

Mostly, my lack of communication is a combination of all of them and none of them. I’m just a lazyass.

Mandyisms

As my youngest grand daughter, Amanda grows, she comes up with what we lovingly call 'Mandyisms'. Some of the stuff that comes out of her mouth are either absolutely funny or very profound. I'm going to try to post some of her 'Mandyisims'.

Her first Mandyism was Christmas before last. I had bought the girls new princess costumes. Mandy had to put her's on at once. Dress, tiara, boa and plastic high heels. She pranced around and came over to me and said, 'Oh Bees....I look so prettyful!'

Amanda has combined the words midnight, bedtime, and night-night to form: bednight. As in, "Is it time for bednight?" or "Can I have a bednight snack?"

Megan and Mandy were watching Meerkat Manor one evening. Mandy decided that she was a Meerkat with 3 babies. She dug a burrow (piled up blankets and pillows) and was tending her babies until an apparent problem arose. The first her mother, Rodina heard of this problem was when she came to her and asked, "Mama, can you get me some milk? Cause my nipples ran out and my babies are hungry. Oh, and Meerkats drink chocolate milk."

Mandy and I had been to the library where she charmed the librarian with requests for books that had lizards, dinosaurs, horses and snakes to look at. She took her books to a window and curled up and started looking at the books. She can't read yet. However, that didn't stop her.
She made up what she thought the books said and proceeded to sing her stories to the other children. A few children curled up beside her. She was in guru mode.

After I finished with what I was doing and she had read her books, we left to go pick up her sister at school. Along the way, she told me that she was disappointed that she didn't get to bring the books home. I told her we would go back with her sister and get some books. Knowing both girls would want to check out all the books they could carry, I told her that they could check out four books each. She was quiet. After about 10 blocks, she said, "Bees, I should be able to pick out five books for herself because she was five years old."

Heaven forbid that she should find out that our library has a 200 maximum book checkout policy.

Becoming my mother's mother

I became my mother's mother back when I was 15 as far as taking care of her health. It took me almost 30 years to realize that 'her health' was what she held over me to control me. I was sitting in the hospital, September 1992 waiting room counting back from my age when I started taking care of her to 1992 and it was a revelation that it had been 30 years. YEARS!

I remember her slapping me in the face for something I said back to her, sometimes on a daily basis. Mom could be very cruel. She was very skilled at saying hurtful things. She continually said my older brother Alfred would never be anything because of his temper, my older sister Helen would never be anything because she was not intelligent, my younger brother Oren would never be anything because he was a dreamer 'just like your daddy' and of course I would never be anything because I was ugly. Mom had a sharp tongue and never let an opportunity go by to let Oren and I know that we were unwanted births and in fact, her health was ruined because of our difficult births. (It was after she died that it finally dawned on me that Oren and I had nothing to do with her getting pregnant with us! Sometimes it takes awhile to realize things.) Her biggest trump card was that all our financial difficulties were because of my birth in that I was such a sick baby that they had to sell everything to move to Florida to regain my health. She was a proud owner of an O'Keefe and Merrit stove and every time she saw one, I was reminded that she lost hers because of me.

Every time she got sick, somehow it always turned into being my fault. I remember how demeaning it felt to have her slap me. I remember the day I turned into her caregiver. She and I had been arguing over something and our arguments were usually about Daddy...something he had promised and not done. I don't know why I took it out on Mom when he did this but I did. We were in the dining room and she went off on me and slapped me as usual. I snapped and slapped her back. I guess it got pretty bad because I remember us both being on the floor and I won. Also, she 'got sick' over it. I didn't know what it was but it was bad. She was bedridden for quite a time after that and later she told me she had had a stroke. I didn't know at that time what a stroke was but I knew it was bad. From then on, every time she would lose her temper, which was often, somehow it always got to be my fault. As a result, I have never let anyone hit me again. Ever. In Mom's defense, she had a really rotten marriage in some aspects and had a rough time of it. We were two personalities that aggravated the heck out of each other. (Note: there were some wonderful loving qualities about Mom and I loved her. She eventually learned to love me but it was in the later years of her life.

When does it start? When does it end?

When and how do we as females start to be insecure and feel badly about ourselves? When and how do we start our journey of low selfesteem? I see it in my grandchildren…their self doubt. Mandy when she started understanding the concept of ‘being bad’ and thinking she was a bad person because she had done something bad. Megan when she understands the struggle her mom is going through financially and that there just isn’t enough money at times. I can relate to both of these. For me, my journey started in the second grade so I had to have been about 8 years old. I had been given a hand-me-down red and white striped sailor suit from my aunt in New York City. The top was red and white striped with a red collar and tie. The pants were pedal pushers and in a matching solid red. How I loved wearing that outfit! I remember being on the playground one day wearing my outfit and it was tight on me. I remember automatically thinking and feeling I was ‘fat’. I remember shutting down and feeling not pretty or good enough or attractive as I was the only ‘fat’ girl in my school. Not once did it occur to me that I had simply outgrown the outfit. I’ve looked back at the school photo of it and of other photos of me at that age and I was a scrawny gangly kid. Not one ounce of fat was on my bones. Nonetheless, I’ve never shaken feeling insecure and unattractive from that day since.

My future opera singer...

Megan and Mandy were riding home with their mother, Rodina singing. Megan has been learning about different types of music and singing. She turned to Mandy and said, "I know what Mandy! Let's sing opera!' Mandy eagerly said 'Ok!' and began singing, 'Opera, opera, opera!' Megan was ticked!

Three In One Person...Blessed Trinity

My mind won’t shut down and so many thoughts and memories come flooding in. One thing I think about a lot is my relationship to God. Most times it just feels like an empty vast wasteland and I’m the only one there. Like I’m talking to someone on the other side of a wall and they can’t hear me. I keep hearing how someone has a personal relationship with their Lord and Savior….have accepted Jesus or Christ as their savior, etc, etc. etc. I have such a difficult time with this. I see the higher powers that be as three separate entities. There’s God the Father. Then there is his son Jesus and then there is the Holy Spirit. To me, God has the higher power. Jesus is his son and therefore like a prince waiting or learning to be king someday. As to the Holy Spirit, I have never figured out what his job is. I know I question the whole theory and sometimes feel guilty for questioning. But, at the same time, I figure God gave me a questioning mind and I’m just using it as he made it. I have no doubt as to that there is a God. I just don’t understand it.