Year to Date - 2016

It's hard to believe we are already well into the second month of 2016. I had meant to start out the year with some fresh goals and ideas for what I planned to do this year with regard to my research but I've been busy so far this year. Although, I've not been working on my research, per say, Ihave been busy with the activities of the African-American Heritage Ministry at the church that I attend.

Last weekend, we sponsored an event to kick off our Black History Month activities. Although there weren't many young people in attendance, one of the goals of our ministry is to help the younger generation know of the sacrifices of earlier generations. While everyone knows of the noted historical African-American firsts, etc., the goal of the event was to make the congregation aware of those notable firsts within our own congregation. We started out by having people fill out a survey. From there there were some members of the ministry  that called the respondents to get some answers to follow-up questions.

One of the people that I got to interview was Don Hudson, who now resides here in Charlotte, NC. In 1971, Mr. Hudson became the first African-American football coach at a predominately white university when he became the coach at Macalester College in St. Paul, MN. You can read more about Mr. Hudson here.

Today, our ministry gave a Beginning Genealogy presentation.I was one of the presenters and this marked the first time I did a presentation to someone other than family. While I was up to the 11th hour working on my portion of the presentation, I had fun preparing and giving the presentation. I'm thinking perhaps this may have marked the beginning of my next chapter in my genealogy journey.

The ministry has more events planned for the remainder of the month such as a visit to The International Civil Rights Museum in Greensboro, NC. However, I'm not involved in any more activities until the end of the month where I'll be leading a viewing and discussion of the movie Selma.

So, as you can see, while I've not been busy with my own research and history, I have been busy with other genealogical and historical activities so far this year.

Hopefully, after I get through this some what hectic month, I can get back to working on my research.

So, until next time.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Part 2

Randy Seavers, Gena-Musings, has posted this week's Saturday Night Genealogy Fun. The subject matter for this week is Who's to Blame.

Instructions are as follows:

Read Brenda Joyce Jerome's post Who or What Do You Blame? on the Western Kentucky Genealogy blog. She asks these questions:

• Can you identify person or event that started you on this search for family information?
• Did you pick up researching where a relative had left off?
• Did your interest stem from your child's school project on genealogy?
• If you have been researching many years, it may be hard to pinpoint one reason for this journey.

On the paternal side of my family, my response to the first question has to be the fact that growing up, it was almost like we were lead to believe there were no other relatives besides the grandparents, dad / aunts/ uncles, the grand kids, and Cousin Alice whom I was always told was a distant relative and we were her closest kin. Funny thing is that all that all anyone had to do was ask, like I did, and they would have found out that Cousin Alice was my grandmother's first cousin. Not very distant at all.

My response to the second question is the same as on Georgia Black Crackers. No, I did not pick up where a relative left off. In the case of my paternal family, there weren't even any stories handed down.

As stated on Georgia Black Crackers, my interest steamed from my own curiosity about my ancestors and also the mini-series, Roots, which aired during my sophomore / junior year (1977) in high school and by Roots: The Next Generations, which aired during my senior year in high school (1979). However, I didn't really get started on actually attempting to research my family until the late 1980s. My first find on my paternal lineage was my grandparents marriage certificate, which contained my grandfather's biological mother's name.

Family History Month - Challenge #1

My Childhood Home

The month of October is Family History Month and in honor of the occasion, AfriGeneas is once again doing their Family History Challenge. I really had fun participating in these last year.

The first challenge for 2010 is as follows:


What are your memories about the house where you grew up?


Interpret that question any way you like. Write as long or short as you like. Feel free to post photos to illustrate the story.


Just a couple of rules:


1. Make our lives easier, please! Post your story as a response to this thread so we can keep track of the stories in each challenge.


2. Challenge #1 begins today, Oct 2nd and ends at 11:59 pm CT on Oct 6th.

When talking about the house I grew up in, I always like to point out that the house was build for moi. Before my entry into the world, my parents were boarders in a house that was a few houses away from my maternal grandparents’ house. I’m sure that my parents were probably wishing for a house of their own one day but I don’t know if they had put a plan in place to attain that goal, when they found out they were expecting a little bundle of joy, which would be me.

Even so, I still don’t think it registered with dad that they needed to move. My mother says she had to tell dad that they needed a bigger place if not their own place.

I guess it eventually sunk in because dad applied for a VA loan and plans were soon put in place to build a new home. A lot one street over from my grandparents house was selected (ours would be the second house build on the street) and thus the building of the house for me commenced. I understand during the building phase, mom would often take walks to check on the property and report any happenings to dad.

The house didn’t quite get finished in time for my arrival, so I spent my first 3 months being a boarder with my parents. We eventually moved in and until I went off to college, I spent all of my growing up years in that house.

The house was a typical brick ranch build in the early 1960s and had a full basement, which was often my favorite place to play. The basement was also the social hub of our house and family whether it was hosting birthday parties for me, family dinners, or having friends over (the folks or mine) who wanted to play a little ping pong or shuffle board. (My dad had a shuffleboard lane painted on the floor.)

The back yard was a good size and offered trees that a sometimes tomboy, me again, could climb as well as providing enough land for summer gardens, which my mother loved to do. There were wild bunnies, hoppy toads, and the sweet smell of honeysuckle in the spring time. Even though we were in the “city,” the critters would visit our property and as a result I still have a fondness for them to this day. Yes my hometown and home were the perfect combination of city and country living all rolled into one.

As time marches on, my parents and I must decide what to do with the old homestead. None of us have lived in it since 2005 and yet, neither I nor they are ready to sell it, just yet. For me, the house represents my anchor, my rock, the place I can always go back to if times every really became tough and yet, for a variety of reasons, I don’t think my parents or myself can really envision ever living there, again, although we all contemplate it from time to time.

Finally, as I’ve reflected back on bygone times one more time, it always eventually comes back to the fact that it wasn’t the house that created the memories that I carry in me but the people who lived inside.

This picture of the old homestead is ca 1962. That's me, mom, dad, my first cousin, and my uncle pictured in front.

The above picture is part of the personal collection of the owner of this blog.

Advent Calendar Day 24 - Christmas Eve

Christmas Tree Buying on Christmas Eve

Sometime during my tween years, our old silver tinsel tree finally gave up the ghost. From that point until I graduated college, mom, dad, and I decided to ditch the artificial tree in favor of a “real” tree. By the end of this period, the Christmas tree, for me, became the most hilarious part of our Christmas routine. For you see, we never had a Christmas tree before late on Christmas Eve.

Every year, I would begin December 1st, begging dad to go get our tree and every year he either ignored me or stated I’m not paying those outrageous prices for something that’s only going to get used for a few days then thrown away. During the early years of having a real tree, I would sometimes remind dad that we still hadn’t gotten our tree but by the end of this period, I had learned that no tree was coming into the house any sooner than Christmas Eve. So, I waited and waited and waited for December 24th to arrive so that we could go get our tree.

Even after waiting until December 24th, dad would still make me wait until the about the last hour that his favorite tree lot, operated the Boy Scouts, was open. So, while I’m panicking that we aren’t going to have a tree, dad and I finally set out for the tree lot while mom stays home and finally starts hauling the tree decorations out.

We are finally at the tree lot. I’ve already spied the perfect tree as we are pulling up, so I jump out the car and race to it and declare dad it’s this one. I never did learn on this part of our routine. Dad always declared that my perfect tree was too tall, too big, etc. The real reason was that tree is still going to cost more money than I want to spend on this thing. So, we kept hunting until dad found a tree. Of course I usually thought it was the ugliest tree that I had seen but since he was buying it, who was I to argue. But our fun didn’t stop there. Dad always haggled to get an even lower price. My favorite dad line from the haggling was always “It’s Christmas Eve. What are you going to do with this tree tomorrow? We are the only ones here even looking at the trees.” And every year, dad won the battle. But the buying process is still not done. Dad’s final move is to ask if he can write a check. The reply is always yes, so dad writes his check out to the Boy Scouts and our Christmas tree becomes a lovely tax write-off.

We finally have our tree and head home. I spend the rest of the night decorating our tree. And for as ugly as it was on the lot, I always think it the most gorgeous tree decorated. Mom always thinks so too. Dad just cares that he got a write off, a good deal and that his daughter has stopped pestering him about a tree.

I miss those Christmas Eve tree buying trips and think of them often as I see today's sellers break down their lots days before Christmas, which begs the question, what do they do with all those unsold trees?



Until Next Time

Challenge #4

Family History Month Challenge #4 from Afrigeneas reads as follows:

OK, everybody, get ready for CHALLENGE #4 this weekend. You have through Sunday to post your entry on one of these themes: 1. Memories of your father at work or at play, or 2. Write about a milestone in you life. That's it! Have fun with it.

These days my dad always jokes about how much time I spend on the computer / internet but I recall when he had a similar hobby / passion. He seens to forget that to a certain degree this passion / obsession comes from him.You see for most of my adolescent and adult life, dad was really into ham radio.

For dad, what started out as a small passing interest, soon came to be an obession. I don't remember how old I was when daddy decided that he wanted to get into ham radio. He had a CB radio for a short time but at some point during the early to mid 1970s he switched to ham radio. Daddy spent endless nights in our kitchen listening to records of morse code and studying for the next exam. As a side note, morse code was the only "foreign language" that I never had difficulty learning which I think, at least for me, proves that children should learn foreign languages, etc. down in the grades and not when they are almost grown (HS) and it should be a natural learning experience but I digress.

While daddy had a true passion for his hobby, I must say that his motivating force for always seeking the next level of licensure came from a fellow teacher who was also a ham radio operator and told daddy he wasn't capable of learning morse code, etc. At least that's daddy's version of what was said. Ahh, I digress again.

After daddy got his license, I use to always love hearing him talk to folks half-way around the world, or so it seemed, and listening to the seemingly constant stream of morse code that came across depending on what band he was operating on. And I'll never forget the trip to parts unkown for daddy to haul back the clunky WWI or II era teletype machine that never worked and still sits in the basement of the old homestead. And oddly, although I was bored at the time, I even enjoyed going to all the hamfests (big swap meets for ham radio operators).

Eventually, daddy was trying to yank the rest of the family into his new hobby because that's daddy. If he's doing something we all had to do it. Daddy pulled two of his older brother's in although Uncle Johnnyson was the only one that really got into it. Daddy even tried to bribe me to take up the hobby. Don't get me wrong, I eventually got my Technician license but the carrot he dangled was not the motivating force. You see that carrot was I'll give you a CD (certificate of deposit) and not actual money being deposited into my hands so for me it was like big deal, what am I going to do with a CD. The reason I eventually got my license was so daddy would quit bugging me about it but it turns out that while I never did develop a passion for the hobby, I enjoyed talking on the little 2-meter radio that he gave me after I got my license even though for the most part the only person I talked to was daddy.

By the mid 1990's, daddy had essentially given up his beloved hobby. I had moved out of state by then and my little 2-meter radio was not going to reach from Colorado to North Carolina. Daddy tried to get me to upgrade my license but I never did because when it got down to it ham radio was truly his passion and not mine. Uncle Johnnyson, as some know from a previous post, moved out of state to be closer to my cousins and his grandchildren, so I think the only time he was on anymore was whenever he came back to NC.

When I moved back home in 1998, daddy was no longer doing ham radio but still stayed some what active in the local ham radio club and we would still try to get to the Shelby Hamfest, which was held in my hometown, and is considered the granddaddy of the hamfest in our area but I think for both of us we eventually even lost the bit of interest we both still had.

So, for all you Hams out there

·-·-·

Celebrating Family History Month - Challenge #2

Afrigeneas is celebrating Family History month.

The instructions for Challenge #2 are as follows:

On Saturday or Sunday, October 3 and 4, post a photo and/or write about either:
1. Memories of Mom in the kitchen or 2. Sunday memories

I decided to write about Sunday memories

Most of my Sunday memories are good memories. However, at least once a year my Jones cousins and I had to suffer through the most excrutiating time of our young lives (sorry don't have a picture of this).

During the summer months when all my cousins minus one (the oldest), aunt, and uncles descended upon my hometown, my Aunt Martha's house was the meeting place because that's where everyone, except for me, was. So on Sunday after church, we would take off our Sunday best, put on our play clothes, and be ready to go. But there was one little problem, when at Aunt Martha's house, Sundays were for reverence. We weren't allowed to watch TV, we weren't allowed to pull out any toys, we weren't allowed to well ...be kids. This Sunday tradition started with my grandmother and perhaps her mother before her. The irony is that except for Aunt Martha, nobody else in the family seem to follow this tradition. I know my parents didn't and neither did my cousins' parents, so that's why it was like torture for us to sit quitely and do nothing.

Later in life, when we were older and all had driving privileges, everyone figured out they could escape over to my house. And as an adult, I even helped my younger cousin Denise escape, which was really funny. When her mom, who is my first cousin, found out, I remember her mom telling her if we had to suffer through it, you can, too.

As an adult, I sometimes find myself longing for those torturous Sunday afternoons. With the Jones side of my family being so small (especially compared to my maternal side) and spread from east coast to west coast, I don't see my cousins nearly often enough. So strange as it may sound, I do miss those days.

Until Next Time!

The Story of Two Aunts and One Man

Martha E. Jones and Genva C. Hosch Jackson

To date, I’ve not come across any true black sheep in my family. There are probably those that present and deceased family consider / considered black sheep but in the true sense of black sheep are not. As a result, I never have had anything to contribute to Black Sheep Sunday and even this is not about Black Sheep but the funny story of two aunts, my dad’s big sis, Martha, my mother’s baby sister, Geneva, and one man, Cleveland. I thought that Black Sheep Sunday was the perfect day to remember it.

Now I don’t think I was born when this story took place (if I was I don’t remember any of it) and to tell you the truth, I’m not even sure my parents were married at the time. So, it’s another story that was relayed to me by my mother and it’s one I laugh at every time my mother tells it because having known both aunts, I know all of this took place in exactly the manner as my mother tells it.

Until I find out differently, let’s just assume that my parents were married at the time this story takes place. My two aunts, Martha and Geneva, were both dating Cleveland at the same time. Now my mother knew they were both seeing the same man. Dad on the other hand didn’t. So, as time went by whenever Aunt Martha saw Cleveland’s mother, she would say there goes my mother-in-law, etc., etc., etc. Now momma could have told Aunt Martha that Cleveland was seeing someone else but mom never said a word. Momma, you know you were wrong for that.

I’m sure by now you can guess where this story is heading. Yes, it was soon announced that Aunt Geneva and Cleveland were getting married. Reportedly dad says to mom, “I didn’t know your sister was seeing Sister’s boyfriend.” Mom always thought it was more that Aunt Martha was seeing her sister’s boyfriend.

One day, after she and Cleveland were married Aunt Geneva, I imagine with her usual cackle, asked her hubby why he decided to marry her instead of Aunt Martha given the fact that Aunt Martha was a school teacher and all and she was just a country girl who longed for the action of the big city. Uncle Cleveland liked Aunt Martha but thought she was just a little too bossy.

Aunt Martha never married. She doted on her 6 nieces and nephews. She never forgot our birthdays. To a certain degree, she was the preserver of the bit of family history that I do have on the paternal side of my family. The older pictures that I have of my Jones, Ewell, and Everett ancestors were Aunt Martha’s. She’s the only person I personally know that has been back to the motherland, Africa. She did a couple of trips bringing goodies back each time. (I have some of her artifacts.) Aunt Martha died in 2000. I get constant reminders of her presence, whether it is looking after her house, which she left to my dad, rummaging through the pictures for something to post for Wordless Wednesday, or just staring at the masks and sculptures that she brought back from Africa and that now have a place of honor in my own home.

Aunt Geneva, my cousin Leon (Aunt Geneva’s son) and Uncle Cleveland moved to Detroit. Aunt Geneva and Uncle Cleveland eventually added my cousin Maynard to their family. Aunt Geneva was always sending us packages from the big city. One of my favorite dolls and one of my favorite elementary school outfits came from Aunt Geneva. Aunt Geneva died in August 1995. My last remembrance of seeing Aunt Geneva is May of 1995 when she came to North Carolina to attend Uncle John’s funeral. She stayed with Aunt Marie. Aunt Marie didn’t have a microwave. Aunt Geneva upon realizing that Aunt Marie lacked this vital appliance declared in true Aunt Geneva fashion, “Awww Marie, everyone needs a microwave. When I get back to Detroit, I’m going to send you a microwave.” And she did.

So, there you have it, the story of two aunts and one man.

Until Next Time!