Haunted by heirlooms

We are wrapping up, now. Reflecting on the fact that we have moved over 10 times in our life together. There are certain items that keep popping up from move to move. They are identified as being treasures that are packed for safekeeping and then tucked away into some remote space, and not to be seen again until the next move. Why?

Maureen and Mary made the move from San Francisco to Arlington, Virginia. Mary was just moving some prized possessions to ‘Mom and Dad’s’ before her trip to England. She loaded the Toyota Tacoma pickup truck, her college graduation present, and the two of them drove through the winter on the southern route from the west to the east. I was back in Arlington, working and worried about the ladies. 

They decided to stay in a place that I had warned them not to go. It was desolate, but a snow storm forced them to check-in to the hotel in nowhere USA. They slept with their boots on.

Anyway, all of that stuff in the truck landed in our extra storage locker where it remained undisturbed for about 5 years. It got shuffled around to a new locker. Mary moved to London, UK.

In the meantime, while driving the truck through mountains in West Virginia on a business trip, the universal joint broke at Friendsville. I was on the downslope and coasted off of an exit right into a service station as the power was no longer engaged. In the rear view mirror, I could see parts and spark flying behind me. The u-joint broke probably from the overload and that long trip. I had the truck towed home by AAA. It was 110 miles.

Anyway, here I am looking at aunt Mary’s Waterford crystal tea service items, wondering why we had them locked away so long. We are now having tea every day. 

I see many other heirlooms, some silver trays and pots and such. Maybe we can use them.

I digitized all of my old business publications and such, for the record. That is weight removed from our trip. 

I am a little relieved that Mary decided not make more concrete sculptures. We have enough right now. She advanced to large lumber projects, and fortunately left them installed in the fields of England, sort of like Stonehenge. 

Disco Tree, Mary George

Secrets of Whetstone Creek – Indian head pennies

My Dad, now 90 years old, told to me when I was about six years old, that he and his brothers played along the Whetstone Creek. There was a spot where Sam’s Creek intersected the Whetstone, where there was a deep pool for swimming. The swimming hole was made by the presence of an old mill that was once there. With the mill and millstone gone, all that remained was this pit that was filled with the passing stream.

Dad said that he had hidden a jar of Indian-head pennies in the creek bank somewhere along the Whetstone Creek.

Mother said, “Now, don’t you go near the deep hole, and you had better stay away from the creek.” Of course, my brother, Tim, and I was attracted to places where we should not go. In fact, that is exactly where we wanted to be.

We often embarked on searches along the creek trying to locate the penny jar. So far as we know it might still be there.

Exploring the Whetstone, we discovered the best places to fish. We discovered a steep embankment that was below the Rivercliff Cemetery. My Mom is buried there with her parents, and many other relatives. It is as if she is looking over the creek to see if her boys show up down there.

Anyway, there is a bend that is filled with soapstone. At the bend, there is a hollow cave in the sandstone where one might see ice cycles as late as June if there had been a hard winter. Grandpa said that was a good place to get ice in the spring if you needed it for the icebox.

I used to go to the creek to contemplate as a boy. I laid down on an old log to hear the sound of the creek rippling on the rocks. When the sun shown on the log, I closed my eyes to feel the warmth and sometimes dozed into a nap. I dreamt about the Indians who once lived here as I felt their spirits and all of the spirits from the people buried in the plateau above me.

I felt a raindrop and it awakened me like a tear shed from heaven.

Don’t worry spirits, you are alive with me. Join the gentle flow of the Whetstone where life abounds forever.

Chicken Macaroni Casserole by Aunt Mary Grace

Maureen’s aunts and uncles lived in Chicago in Glenview-Wilmette in side-by-side houses inspired by Frank Lloyd Wright in one of the nation’s first co-op communities. These all wood homes were nestled in forested lots at the end of Juniper Street. Mary Grace, her sister Jean, brother William, and, Betty, my mother-in-law were all raised in Columbus, Ohio. There seemed to be a contest of sort among these three sisters for producing exceptional family meals.

Aunt Jean was known for exotic and sophisticated cookery, whereas Aunt Mary Grace produced cozy dishes that were often casseroles. Sister Betty had an assortment of specialties including beef stroganoff. Maureen’s sister Sharon, a home economics major at The Ohio State University has a large family and managed her kitchen like a five-star restaurant. Her sister Katie, also nestled in a woods outside of Cleveland, is more of a farm-style chef.

Anyway, when we lived in Chicago Mary Grace and Jean alternated inviting us to have dinner and to sometimes stay the night at their homes in a party atmosphere.

Here is a most memorable recipe from Mary Grace that appears on a 3 x 5 index card in Maureen’s file. The hand-writing appears to be that of Sharon.

“Chicken Macaroni Casserole”

2 cups diced cooked chicken

1, 7 oz. package of macaroni (uncooked)

1 ½ lb grated cheddar cheese

2 cups (1 can) mushroom soup

2 cups milk (or i cup chicken broth)

½ green pepper diced

1 jar diced pimento

4 large boiled eggs, chopped coarse

1 cup (5 oz) water chestnuts

1 small onion, minced

1 can (4 oz) mushrooms

1 teaspoon salt & dash of pepper

Combine all ingredients into a large bowl to let it swell and refrigerate overnight.

Turn the ingredients into a large shallow casserole.

Bake at 350 degrees for 1 ¼ hours.

15 minutes before serving, sprinkle the top with cheddar cheese and let it melt or brown on top.

There you have it. Maybe I should make some lime jello with celery and carrots with a dab of mayonnaise on top?

The McKinley's: Betty, Jean, Bessie, Bill, and Mary Grace

If I could do it all over again

What would you change if you could do it all over again? I will tell you what.

I would have been a more deliberate and disciplined student in life. What went wrong with that? I think it had to do with having so much fun and not having to think about not doing that.

When you start off in life with so much goodness and abundance, and when you don’t experience deprivation and suffering, maybe a person takes the good life for granted. Some call that being “spoiled”. It is not that Mom and Dad did not suffer because they truly did. However, they worked extremely hard so that I didn’t have to experience that.

So, I laughed and had a good time, and took good life for granted. That was a start.

When it came time to hunker down to study, that was work and hard. It meant giving up having fun to be diligent about learning. It wasn’t learning that was the obstacle as I enjoyed that, it was the manner in which to go about it.

Learning requires focus and devotion. It requires sacrifice. Learning can be fun, but it is often difficult and challenging. It is a distraction from free-wheeling fun. So, that is not fun.

If I could do it all over again, I would have less fun and more learning.

If I could do it all over again, I would want to find the same love in my life. There can be no better. If I could do it all over again, I would work harder to earn her love and devotion.

If I could do it all over again, I would have become a professional at something people depend upon. I would not be an accountant or a lawyer. I might have wanted to be a medical doctor, for instance. Yet, given who I am, I would have been better at being a farmer.

Then again, if I had been a farmer, I would not have discovered the love in my life. I would be growing strawberries like my ancestors instead in some remote patch of land in some desolate place where I would have been a poor reader and terrible student.

I would probably have been a simple person, working hard, and not having much fun. I would not want to repeat that experience and so for my ancestors’ sake, I didn’t.

Henry George and Mary Beven: Growing family

(A developing story)

Born in 1761 near Talgarth, Wales, most likely closest to Glasbury, Henry George was the son of William about which we don’t know much yet. The chances are that he was a religious man and that he was a farmer. In 1786, Henry married Mary Beven (born 1759 in the same community) in the year 1786. At age 25 he was likely working on local farms, although we know that he acquired stone mason skills and he may have been apprenticing.

Two years into his marriage, Henry and Mary decided to have their first child and Henry Jr. arrived in 1789. The records show that Henry Jr. was born in Talgarth which must have been the recording seat of government. His siblings followed: Mary, 1791, Richard, 1793, William, 1797, Enoch Edward, 1799. Enoch is said to have been born in Breconshire that is a larger universe than Talgarth. The seat of government was in a state of redefinition.

In 1802, Henry and Mary George decided to take their five children to America. For what reasons? At the time, the Welsh migration to America had begun in earnest that started in the 1790s, with a trickle before that. Now, there was a crop failure in Wales. There were pressures imposed on religious freedom. There was the idea of shear opportunity lying beyond a long and difficult journey. It would take a significant investment, sacrifice, and risk to make that trip with children whose ages ranged between  3 and 13 years. The eldest three were children were between 8 and 13 years and could surely help with the work of looking after the younger children and moving meager belongings.

Upon arrival, the oldest children would become immediate assets in helping their father to perform labor of any time needed to support their existence.

Historical documentation about the Welsh immigrants indicate that a support system existed among churches and communities of Welsh people as they were intent on creating new communities in the developing pioneer country. It is likely that Henry George had a vision and plan about his direction and destination or else he would not have undertaken such a dangerous initiative.

Danger came from making the trip and defeating disease. It came from overcoming the necessities in obtaining supplies to embark as pioneers with a family. It came under the threat from Native Americans who were still fighting to hold onto their land. The threat from wild animals against their small domestic stock was persistent, and the records show that the bears and wolves won that battle in the case of the George family.

Chester PA was the beachhead in America from which settlers obtained assistance, got organized and departed with a tail guide into the lesser known. In the instance of Henry George, he knew that Welshmen had made it to a destination in Pennsylvania where colonists had already established a small community. The place was what is now called Cambria County, Pennsylvania. It is geographically similar to Wales and included farmland as well as coal and iron ore that could be mined.

Mining coal and iron ore provided jobs for those who could perform the dangerous work to remove coal and iron ore. Many Welshmen possessed the skill and knowledge to do this as it was the same type of opportunity that they had at home in the Black Hills of Brecon, for instance.

Henry George had stone mason skills. It is possible that he applied those abilities with the help of his sons to build furnaces used to smelt iron ore. It is likely that he used those abilities to help construct foundations for buildings in the developing mining towns such as Beulah where he ended up after the trek from Chester. Being a minister, it is likely that he preached at the new church.

Addressing a worst case scenario by modern perspective, he and his sons would have avoided having to work in the mines. Yet, the surrounding evidence indicates that he and the children would have likely worked in the mines.

The first of Henry George’s children to have been born in the United States was Thomas George, born 1803 in Pennsylvania. That is the same year that Ohio became a state. Elias George was born a year later in 1804 and specifically in Beulah, PA. John E. George was born three years later in 1807 in Cambria City, PA that is now Johnstown. It was not until after John E. George’s birth that Henry and Mary decided to depart for Ohio country.

Georges in Pennsylvania

In brief, my George ancestors came from Talgarth, Wales and landed in Chester PA that is located near the Philadelphia International Airport. At that time in 1802, it was a port village from where many pioneers departed to discover and settle the Northwest Territory.  Henry George and his wife, Mary Beven arrived with their eldest children on a mission to establish a Welsh community and Baptist Church somewhere in the Ohio country.

At that time, they were supported by their church community in Wales and in America. The community arranged for their departure by ox-drawn wagons and horses to hike through mountainous Pennsylvania along a trail that was once blazed and surveyed by George Washington.

They got to a place that must have appeared much like home in the Appalachian mountains. Welsh and Irish settlers discovered coal and iron ore like the deposits in their native homelands. They knew how to mine and they developed communities around that and farming.

Henry George was a minister and stone mason, and his job was to preach and to establish new communities. The best way for me to determine his path and timeline is to follow the birth of his children and their reported birth locations.

From that process, I discovered that they once lived in the town of Beulah, PA. Beulah was probably named after Beulah,  a village in southern Powys, Wales, lying on the Afon Cammarch. Beulah PA was a coal mining village that has since disappeared because the coal has been extracted. Today it is a Ghost Town.

“The Ghost Town Trail is a rail trail in Western Pennsylvania that stretches 36 miles (58 km) from Black Lick, Indiana County, to Ebensburg, Cambria County.[1] Established in 1991 on the right-of-way of the former Ebensburg and Black Lick Railroad, the trail follows the Blacklick Creek and passes through many ghost towns that were abandoned in the early 1900s with the decline of the local coal mining industry. Open year round to cycling, hiking, and cross-country skiing, the trail is designated as a National Recreation Trail by the United States Department of the Interior.[1]

The trail passes many historical sites, particularly sites of abandoned coal mines and their company towns. The ghost towns include Bracken, Armerford, Lackawanna No. 3, Wehrum, Scott Glenn, Webster, Beulah, and Claghorn.[1]”

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ghost_Town_Trail

Ghost Trail

Monarch Butterfly sighting 2015

On October 18, 2015 we spotted a Monarch butterfly on the Custis Trail in Arlington, Virginia as shown in the photos. The butterfly was tagged: VGA 484 and associated with Monarchwatch. These are now endangered species so Maureen assisted the butterfly to get off the path and onto a branch for safety.

The Global Society of Wildlife Migration and Seasonal Change track such sightings, and so we registered our observation with them.

When you see such species, check out the website to see if biologists want to know about it.

https://www.learner.org/jnorth/current.html

Help save the species.