Friday, December 16, 2022

To Remember Dad's 103rd Birth Anniversary, Something Different


 My Grandparents on my Dad's side were both "bonus babies", kids who were born to much older parents, long after they expected to have children.

My Grandfather was born in the area of Termini Immerse, Sicily in 1885; he arrived in the US as a toddler in 1887 in the company of the lady shown above: his older sister, and her husband.

We don't know if his parents made the journey to America. Maybe his mother did.

So the photo shows Bernadette, who raised my Grandfather along with her own children.

She was about 20 when my GF was born, so that means my Great Aunt was born about 1865.

She passed away about 1926--my Dad likely did not remember much about her--and is buried in one of the cemeteries west of Chicago, along with her husband, a young daughter who died young. And a mysterious, unmarked grave nearby of Anna Battaglia, who may be her (and my GF's) mother.

Saturday, December 11, 2021

Scenes from a few years back: some town in Wyoming. Reminding myself that I much prefer the mysterious and lovely forests of the Eastern US.

It's just me: I was a child of the East, Northern Virginia, Northern Kentucky. Road trips through the Appalachians.  

Especially appreciating Pennsylvania these days.











 

Wednesday, December 1, 2021

My Approach to the Winter Solstice


 The late autumn and early winter season is challenging. 

Most discouraging is the steadily diminishing light.  The sun at the oddly oblique angle: cold sunlight, lacking warmth, yet in your eyes.

After many decades, I have worked out a system with myself: from late October to Dec 21 is the worst; just get through it somehow.  

Immediately after Dec. 21, my spirits perk up--I mean: the next day.  "It's practically Spring" I have said out loud. Others don't believe it, but I don't care.

The prospects for planting, the colors of flowers, again. Seed catalogs?

A few years ago, I nurtured butterflies in summer. It is a messy activity, so I have stopped doing it.

The Swallow Tail above was one of "my kids" from that era: perhaps its descendants will visit our yard again next summer. 

After Dec 21.

Thursday, October 21, 2021

Rumor Has it I have Abandoned the Blog

 


No.

We traveled.

We met our Grandchild

I have kept active in my yard/garden all spring and summer.

I have walked and ridden my bike all summer.

The days are shorter now; that is a challenge this yard. I have grown accustomed to the activity in the yard.

We began the process of clearing out the house. Not urgent now, but better to do this things when we have a choice.

I am growing amaryllis plants from seeds that I hybridized, while I was plant sitting for my neighbor. I must have 20 plants; they are doing well. It takes them 5 years to bloom: I'm using them to motivate the instinct to survival. Glorious Amaryllis to counter balance dystopia and malicious Principality?

And I'm still reading the Lincoln books. Volume 2 of the Prairie Years almost done.

He was a complex guy.

Monday, July 26, 2021

Abraham Lincoln - The Prairie Years - Vol. 1 - by Carl Sandburg

 Lincoln and Illinois used to go hand in hand; not so much now.  Sandburg was born in Illinois in the later 19th Century when Lincoln Legends were everywhere. So it was natural that Sandburg could write a very good book about Lincoln. This is not a biography as much as a narrative history. It was published in 1925.

Forced to read other Sandburg in high school, I didn't enjoy his work; I almost skipped reading this book.

Lincoln was as interesting and nuanced a character as we could find; it's a good thing he was so famous, since his life is very interesting to read about.

He was self-taught and a life time learner; though he received some encouragement as he grew. His father did not encourage his learning to read, etc. --it took time away from the heavy farm work--as a boy and young man, Lincoln excelled at these things.    "Lincoln Logs" and "rail splitter": no kidding. William Faulkner told the story of a farmer in MS with 5 children that he taught to work very hard---just not for him; he was so hard on his kids they all left him to tend his farm alone in his old age. Lincoln's dad was bit like that.

The narrative is chatty and gossipy: Lincoln's mother, Nancy Hanks, was born out of wedlock, which may have resulted in the entire family moving west from Virginia to Kentucky soon after her birth (late 1700's); her mother did as she pleased until she finally settled on a husband she loved. Nancy was sent to live with a relative. Nancy was uniquely strange and mystical, solitary, religious; she died young when he was a child; suddenly from an infectious disease. A few years later, his sister died in childbirth.

These were hard losses. Fortunately, when his father remarried, the lady was kind, encouraging and comforting. As a teen, Lincoln chopped wood, cleared acres, helped on farms---and wrote letters for people for money---he had taught himself to write so well he could market the skill. 

All his life, he hand-wrote his own letters to hundreds of people. Even to the current time, examples of his work are sometimes found among  family papers in dusty old attics. When this book was being researched (1920's) those letters were everywhere: libraries, museums, personal collections. 

Also, when Sandburg did his research, there were still many people living who had known Lincoln in life; that's why the book is full of all the juicy nuggets, it seems: people would remember some incident concerning Lincoln as a child, young adult or as a circuit lawyer in the 1840-50's.

Notes made after completing the book:

Lincoln's mystical, slightly strange mother who died young, leaving him when he was about 9, went about her daily chores reciting Bible verses and scripture to the children. It was his foundation of moral teaching. He was a highly moral man, spiritual; but seldom went to church. He was regularly criticized for this, yet had a solid reputation as Honest Abe right from the beginning.

Lincoln was a Stud when he was young. 6 ft 4in and the strongest young man around. Not a bully, but the one the other boys called when they needed help with a bully. He had a following right from the start this way, his club. 

He worked harder than anyone else, too. His moral fiber was secure; he did not drink though he was not a Temperance Man. He piloted a flatboat on the MS River  to New Orleans, taking a steamer back. Then he settled in Salem IL. He had seen a certain girl there.

His love life? Back in those early days in Salem he fell in love with Anne Rutledge and she with him. They were engaged. It was perfect. Then malaria came to town: within days she was gone  "into the silence". Lincoln nearly went mad with grief. He was already full of gloom and abandonment from the deaths of this Mother and sister and others. He was obsessed with death. Friends helped him through it and he pulled himself together somehow.

Later in Springfield he endured a difficult courtship with Mary Todd, which led to marriage, after some break ups and make ups. Mary was rich and politically connected. Friends thought they would work as a political couple, and they did. He was the public face and she worked behind the scenes. She was educated, smart, social---and she was also the child of a mother who died young. She had abandonment issues so severe she could not get along with her step-mother. As a child in Lexington KY, she had to be boarded at her school, two blocks from her home. 

The couple was united in their love for their children---and only one survived. The line was not prolific; if memory serves, the last direct descendant of Abe and Mary passed away about 1980?

At the current time, with our world falling apart, it seems sometimes, just like Lincoln's was, it comforts me to read a book like this. They writing style was excellent. I'm read a first edition; copies of these are hard to find. Other editions are condensed and abridged, but the original was great.

Wednesday, June 30, 2021

Art Museum in Muskegon, MI---a couple of years ago








 I have lived on the shore of Lake Michigan (off and on) for 60 years, but never took a boat trip across the lake; a couple of years ago we did that; and explored the town. We found this The Muskegon Museum of Art. It's a small, convenient museum--perfect of an afternoon.  

Old-time, pre-pandemic fun!! 

To Remember Dad's 103rd Birth Anniversary, Something Different

 My Grandparents on my Dad's side were both "bonus babies", kids who were born to much older parents, long after they expected...