There is a story in the Hoover family about an aunt who was found dead, sitting on a rock outcropping found in southern Estill County. In her hand, was the murder weapon – a rattlesnake, dead as well. The story goes that as she was sitting there, a rattlesnake was nearby and coiled. It struck and bit her on the nose. As it did, she grabbed it and squeezed. She squeezed it to death. Read the rest of this entry »
When I started my research on the Hoover family of Estill County, Kentucky, I didn’t know what to expect. Would I meet other members of my birth family? Would they accept me? Well, not only did they accept me, they shared information and photographs with me willingly, helping me discover the people who made me…me. Read the rest of this entry »
Mary Louise (Hutchens) Jobe Campbell and her son, Tom, Madison County, Kentucky – Circa 1915
Lock of her hair surrounding the photo.
William Kenneth Elam died at home July 17, 2009. He & his wife, Ardith, lived at the Cloister at St. Henry for over 20 years.
He was born Oct. 9, 1921, the son of William Birdle and Orpha Perkins Elam, and grew up in Vienna, IL.
He enlisted in the Army Air Corps in 1943 where he learned to fly & do aerial acrobatics which he loved. His career was in airplane engine mechanics & served on Guam.
In 1946 he married the “prettiest girl from Iowa”, Ardith Howland, who he met at the USO in Amarillo, TX, where he was stationed and she worked for TWA. Read the rest of this entry »
Believe it or not, nearly fifteen years ago, genealogy wasn’t as easy as it is now on the internet. There was no Ancestry.com, Rootsweb.com was in it’s infancy, and there was definitely no GenWeb. I know this because I was there when GenWeb was born.
*cue the cane and the hearing trumpet* Back in my day…no, I’m not going to say that. Wait! I am!! Read the rest of this entry »
Written 13 Feb 2008, the day after my mother died.
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Sometime over the past year, my mother and I talked about dying. Being a former nurse and having been there at that moment for so many others, she wanted to know how I felt about that. I told her that it was a blessing. My answer confused her. How, she asked, could sitting next to someone dying be a blessing.
I told her that, regardless of religious views, the moment of death is special and I was blessed to be allowed to share that. I was able to help someone, if by nothing more than holding a hand, at the time they needed someone most. Read the rest of this entry »
I’ve been working on getting this site up to speed with everything uploaded. I’ve been going through the boring motion of uploading and linking. Just making sure that the database is the way i want it. No joy, but just mechanical actions.
I took a break yesterday and was browsing the Kentucky Explorer magazine. It laid open to a picture that intrigued me. It was a family portrait that was taken about 1901 or so. The woman looked at me through the decades. She “spoke” to me. She and I looked at each other and I tried to place her. so familiar. Read the rest of this entry »
Karl Ruhr. his wife, Karola Jenke. Their daughter, Henriette. Her two husbands, Johan Witt and August Lass. Her daughter, Emilie.
For years they have mocked my research and resisted any attempts of discovery. They have rested their graves in Schwenneker Cemetery and kept quiet.
“Grandma? Where did they come from?” A one word answer – Germany.
Read the rest of this entry »
What causes someone to want to spend hours in a dusty old courthouse pouring through book after book of marriages or court cases? What gets that person to walk through waist-high weeds to find an old fieldstone marker? What causes another person to drive hundreds of miles just to take a photograph? Genealogy. but what is it that gets us started? What begins that lifelong search for more and more information?
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That’s what i’m doing. I’m officially entering the world of blogging with this. I’ve done webpages, MySpace, Facebook, etc, but this is the first time I’ve done this.
I’ll be posting more as I rebuild my family’s personal and genealogy website. I’ve also got a special project in the works, but more on that later.
As for now, hi! looking forward to meeting new people.
