Ancestral Musings

Grace as a young woman   In this case, being late to the prompt just puts me in line with the rest of the world.  The consequences of COVID have complicated the start of school all over the U.S.  Some districts around the countryhave tried in-person classes, some online, some a hybrid of the two but all of these approaches have their downsides.  My granddaughter in Maryland is in 5th grade and completely online for now which is a little sad since she lives across the street from her school!  But kids (and their parents) are learning and adapting and we are all going to look back on this time with astonishment one day. So, for school, I was thinking about my grandmother, Grace McDuff, who taught in a one-room schoolroom in eastern Washington state for a year before she married Melvin Belknap.  I did try very hard to get Grandma to talk about this experience but the most she would say was that she boarded in a farmer's house, and that when the snow was deep t...

I'm still well behind on this challenge, maybe even losing ground, but I'm going to keep trying! One of the most interesting things about the census data is the occupation question.  They fill it out for everyone in the household which means that you get a lot of best guesses for the one year old as well as the head of household.  I've noticed that a lot of my ancestors continued to live with their parents long after they had reached adulthood, and sometimes after they had married.  However, everyone had a job, even the unmarried daughters.  Great aunt Minnie worked as a tailor with her aunt Lillian (who apparently supported her ne'er do well husband and her stepchildren).  My grandmother worked for a year as a teacher before she was married.  Others labored on farms or their occupation was listed as "home."  But here I am going to leave some breadcrumbs for my children about their grandparents. My own parents, Cecil and Ruth Prewitt, were very typical...

Things have been difficult here as we are dealing with not just the pandemic but major wildfires on the west coast from Montana west through Washington, south through Oregon and California.  Air quality in Portland Oregon has been in the hazardous level while here in La Conner we are just at "Unhealthy."  Tomorrow it is predicted to be Unhealthy for Vulnerable Populations.  I guess that's progress, but it's small consolation for those who have lost all of their possessions or worse, those who have lost their lives.  Our mantra is always:  things can be replaced but people cannot. I had actually picked a person to focus on for "Unforgettable" when all of this chaos started (the smoke has been a problem here).  My grandmother's younger sister, Myrtle McDuff Mayhew, died very young.  I remember my grandmother, Grace McDuff Belknap, mentioning in passing that Clarence Mayhew, Myrtle's widower. had come to see her at some point.  This was the only time...

Chosen Family.  This could be friends, people who married in, adoptees, or just people you raised without formal links.  In the context of this challenge, it could just be the family you chose to research or write about.  My first  thought was that I would talk about Dillard Hazelrigg Clark who was raised by my 4th great-uncle Nelson Gilderoy Prewitt.  Dillard made good, serving his country in both the Civil War and the First World War.  However, Nelson apparently was a slave-owner in Kentucky and even though I don't believe that ignoring these unpleasant facts gets us anywhere, I don't like thinking about them either.  The ownership of enslaved people has been the worst thing I've found out about my ancestors in this genealogical journey.  Despite this, I am going to attach a link to the story of Dillard Hazelrigg Clark, an honorable man, who was orphaned at an early age and then taken in by Nelson Prewitt  (who may have been a bit chagrined...