Today

Most days not much happens out here in the country, but there's always something to see or think about. Today was a quiet, ordinary day on Manville Road and here are a few bits and pieces.... I really am going to attempt Kooking with Kudzu and here's where I'm going to pick it. This nice vine is growing next door at Charlie Ervin's hay shed. You're supposed to pick the young, smaller leaves, and can do various things with them. The first recipe I'm going to try is just dipping the leaves in flour and frying them in oil. Krunchy Kudzu......I know, this "k" thing is getting old already.

Our house looked pretty in the evening sun, so I snapped a shot. You can see Grandpa Peters's mower in the yard, and some of the fence which is going to be redone this week. Big Jake, the Great Pyrenees, came back and it's looking like he wants to live here. So, we're raising the fence a foot. We needed to do it anyway to accommodate gates that the lawn mower will fit through, so the dog is just an incentive. This picture does show a little of the back of the house - the Craley clan walks down past the old mower to go into their apartment.

Tom and I walked down to the old Ervin house to see the calves born the past couple of weeks, but they were too far away for pictures. We had a nice talk with Charlie Ervin's daughter, Charlene, instead. And I almost stepped on this toad - it's a good thing he hopped or he'd have been squished! He was about three inches long while sitting. Great camo, yes?

And another old house on Manville Road is gone. Folks have been working on this property for some time now and I had hoped they were going to possibly restore this home. It had a wrap-around porch and an unusual roofline and must have been quite a show place in its day. Likely the old place was too far gone for restoration, but I'm still sad to see it go. McDavids lived here at one time, but I'll have to research to find out who built this house. This looked to be a controlled burn, and might have been a training exercise for the fire department. Only the chimneys are left now.....and they'll be gone soon, I expect. I wish it didn't make me feel like a way of life is disappearing.

Tomorrow I'm supposed to go to Pigeon Forge with Aunt Wanda, Judy and Nila. Hopefully, this summer cold I've got won't keep me home!

Grandbaby Alert

The only way I can get pictures of my grandbabies is to steal them from Jennie's blog....so if you are a regular visitor there, you'll have already seen these pictures. The rest of you are in for a treat! Well, if you're the kind of person who gushes over sweet little girls with big eyes and wiggly feet, you're in for a treat... Serious Ella at 7 months old

Chloe will be 2 years old on June 4.....can hardly believe that! Tom and I will miss her birthday, but hopefully we'll be going up later that month. Here she's pictured in her backyard with Bearcat and a pretty azalea bush.

Smiling Ella at eight months old. I haven't seen her since she was less than a month old, so I can't wait to see her. Chloe will have changed too, but not quite so drastically!

Ella in her car seat after a trip to the park.

I don't know if Ella was being held here or in the baby carrier....but it's an interesting angle anyway. Chloe looks just a little bit confused.

Ella with iris in her backyard.

And Chloe ready for some fun in the sun in the enormous playstation in their backyard. She looks just a little like a baby from outer space in her sunglasses, but cute as a button, anyway. And I do love that hat. That's all for now......

Ooohhh's and Aaahhh's, How Cutes and How Sweets gratefully accepted in the comment section!

People Are Good

And.....Cindy's not too smart! The word is getting around in Manville, that where Cindy goes, trouble follows.
A couple weeks ago, she led Barbara down into Ridge Hollow to see Grandpa Peters's barn and where the mower used to sit. The two of them had a nice lunch, too, and picked up a foundation stone from the barn for Barbara's collection.

The only problem was that they couldn't get Barb's Honda Element back up the steep and slightly muddy road. They'd get so far and then just start spinning...and spinning......and spinning. So while Barb pulled out her paperback and read, Cindy trudged up the road to find help. Help was found in Kenneth Blankenbeckler, the husband of Glenna McDavid, and his grandson, Jonathan, who came with their tractor to drag the stranded adventurers out of the hollow. Tiger, above, oversaw the operation and provided moral support.

People are good. And the less said about Cindy the better.

Floatin' and Boatin'

This is how we spent Saturday of Memorial Day weekend. We loaded up the inner tubes and the cooler and spent the afternoon on Copper Creek. Most of the creek is pretty shallow, but it's deep enough to cool off.

Cait takes a break from tubing to look for rocks.

Tom feeds himself and the minnows. (I was in the rubber dinghy when I took this picture which is why it's a funny angle. I spent most of the afternoon in the dinghy.)

Alex in her tube (also taken from the dinghy)

Cait with one of her finds.

Alex stole my boat.

That stinker......

Nothing to do but take pictures.

Nadja and Mike look for cool stuff. Tom made these little screen boxes - they must have a name, but I don't know what it is.

At the end of the day, five of us decided to float down to the swinging bridge on Double Ford Road. Mike was elected to drive the van and meet us there. We floated about a mile or a little less and it took us maybe an hour. It was fun and not too alarming. At one point we had to crawl over a tree that had fallen across the creek and somebody....um...um...one of us....um...um...a person had a little trouble getting over and accidently (!) kicked Tom off the tree and into the water. Backwards. Who?....You want to know who?.....Well, it really doesn't matter, does it?

Nadja and Alex were the first to reach the bridge and Mike snapped their picture. You can just see Cait way back there. Who knows where Tom and Cindy were. You've got to remember they're old - they do everything slowly.

This beautiful fellow lives on the farm at the first ford on Double Ford Road. It's a neat place to go, even if you're not in a boat.

I apologize to my Facebook friends who've already seen these photos. I just wanted everybody else to see them, too.

Roses Are Not Always Red

I had to post these because they're just so darned pretty. This rose bush is underneath our picture window and I've really enjoyed it. This is our first spring/summer in our house and we're having fun seeing what pops up.

Poke Salad Cindy

The other week when we were visiting our neighbor, Charlie Grizzle, he asked if we had ever eaten poke. When I said no we hadn't, he sent Doris into the house to get a little bite for us. You just parboil it, he said, then cook it with some oil, and it's as good as spinich. It was tasty, better than spinich, I thought, and said so. I shouldn't have been surprised when Charlie stopped by a few days later with a big poke full of poke. Charlie's like that. It was so pretty and green - I couldn't wait to start cooking. The smaller leaves are the best, Charlie said, so I sorted through them, shaking out the bugs, and discarding big and wilted leaves.

Then I washed it all thoroughly, drained it, and put about half on to boil.

The rest I put into the steamer, thinking that I'd try it both ways, and see which was best. The poke in the steamer was done first so I piled on the butter and salt and ate it right up. Boy, was it good.

The poke in the pot had boiled down considerably, just like the spinich it resembles, so I drained it and put it in the fridge. Tom would enjoy it with his supper.

I had some time that afternoon, so I thought I'd read up a little on poke, and I googled it. All of the articles started off with this: Poke Is Poisonous. Well, golly gee, I thought, then why the heck do people eat it?! Turns out, poke should be cooked twice, and the water discarded, before consumption. It is poisonous, somewhat at least, but boiling leaches the poison out of it, and after cooking twice, it is safe to eat. And also full of nutrients. Hmmm....I thought. I just ate steamed poke, not boiled once, let alone twice, thinking it would be more nutritious. In fact, it was more poisonous. EEEKKK! How long's it gonna take me to die??!!

Well, needless to say since I'm writing this, I lived. The steamed poke really was delicious, much better than the poke cooked twice, pictured above, and I didn't suffer any ill effects at all. One article I read said that if you avoid the red parts of poke, you shouldn't have any trouble. Still, if I venture into poke land again, I will avoid everything red and cook it twice. At least.

Next time - Kooking with Kudzu! (I've already googled this one!)

At Long Last, Rachel

For the longest time, Rachel was a mystery. Her name appeared on Jerry Penley's website - Rachel Vaughn, the first wife of James "English" Penley, and mother of my grandfather, John T. Penley. James and Rachel were in the 1880 census posted on the Latter Day Saints wonderful (and still free!) website, living in Scott County, with their oldest son. Don Lane, that dear man, searched records I could not access and found a Rachel Vaughn, age 7, in the 1870 census, living with her parents, Hugh and Marilla, in Washington County, TN. Was this our Rachel? There was no way to know for sure.

And then, some years later, Daddy's sister, my Aunt Lovely, sent me a copy of the above photo. She had gotten it from the descendants of James Willie, the oldest son of Rachel and English, who still lived near Chimney Top mountain, where the Penley family had made their home. They knew nothing more than this picture was of Rachel and English, with James Willie, Evaline, David Martin, and John Thomas, my grandfather, the baby on his mother's lap. Rachel was still a mystery, but at least now she had a face. And then a couple of weeks ago, Barbara and I made an afternoon visit to Greeneville, Tennessee, just to look around and have lunch. On our way into town, we passed by this genealogical library. I had heard of it, and planned to visit someday, after putting my notes together and figuring out just what I wanted to look for. But as we were lunching, Barbara suggested going back to the library, and so we did.

I had nothing with me - no notebook, no dates, nothing to reference, or even a tablet to jot anything down. We went in, signed in, and I told the very helpful librarian the only thing I could - I'm looking for Vaughns, Hugh and Rachel, father and daughter.

The very first thing she handed me was a copy of the book "Historic Greene County and Its People," and it was opened to the page where this picture appeared. The accompanying article was about Hugh Berry Vaughn, his wife, Marilla, her mother, Rachel Green, and members of their family. It included mention of Hugh and Marilla's daughter, Rachel, married to English Penley. It also mentioned Rachel's siblings, Catherine, Martha, William, Silas, and George. The article was attributed to William's only surviving daughter, LenaVee Vaughn Moore. She was Rachel's niece, the granddaughter of Berry and Marilla. Another article in the same book referred to Betty Moore Blake, Lena's daughter, and her sons, Kevin and Travis. The only Blake in my phone book was Kevin, and so I made the call. Yes, indeed, he was Betty's son, and he gave me her phone number. And so last week, I visited Betty, and the mystery of Rachel was solved.

Betty has worked on her family history since she was a young woman. The documents she has collected on her Vaughn and other family lines are astonishing. The stories she has written down to preserve are amazing. I hoped at some point to find some little piece of information that would tell me something more about Rachel. What I've stumbled across is a priceless treasure trove - diligently collected and saved by a kind and generous woman, who was thrilled to meet a cousin as interested in this search as she. In all my dreams, I never imagined meeting someone like Betty.

One of the wonderful things she told me was that Hugh, Marilla, and Rachel Green were all buried just up the road from her home. I had passed the church and the cemetery on the way. And so, of course, on the way home, I stopped to find them.

The gravestone of H.B. Vaughn is the first of these three pictures. Directly above is that of Marilla Green Vaughn, his second wife. Below is that of her mother, Rachel Green, who never married, and for whom our Rachel is undoubtedly named. Marilla was her only child.

The name of Marilla's father has not been discovered. I feel certain that if it could be found, Betty would have tracked it down. Still, this is something I can carry on, and use the internet - something Betty hasn't used in her work - to try to connect with someone who has an answer to this new mystery. I'd like to do this for Betty.

Here is a picture of the stone of Betty's grandparents, William Vaughn and his wife, Rebecca. With them lies their daughter, Lula, who died at the age of five.

William Vaughn, Rachel's brother, is pictured above, the tall stern man on the right. His only surviving daughter, LenaVee, is on the far left. The folks in between are Weems, mother and son, who often walked to church with the Vaughns.

This picture is also from Betty's collection. It shows Rachel's half-sister, Martha Vaughn Taylor, her husband, Allison, and their numerous children.

This gravestone is amongst the Vaughns. It marks the final resting place of the first wife of Silas Vaughn, Rachel's younger brother. Silas and his family later moved west.

There is much more to write about Hugh, Marilla, their children, their parents, and the life they lived in northeastern Tennessee. But at least I've made a start - and for now it's enough just to know that Rachel has been found.

Buladean, North Carolina

In the description of this blog, I refer to my Mother's family, but Dad's folks are from this area, too. His mother, Cynthia "Jennie" Forbes was born on Iron Mountain, outside of Buladean, NC. My cousin Barbara and I drove over that way last week to meet up with some Forbes researchers in Bakersville. Glora Belle Forbes Jamison published a Forbes family history this January and I wanted to meet her. Her branch of the family is currently in Utah and Glora, her husband, Sherwin, her sister, Joan, and her niece, Melody are making a two week trip to do some genealogical digging along the way. While in the area, I wanted to look for the cemetery where my gggggrandparents, William Gutridge Garland, and his wife, Bridget Hampton, were buried. My Grandma Jennie's grandmother was a Garland, and that's how I am descended from these folks. As you can see, William served as a private in the North Carolina Militia in the Revolutionary War. The new stone has been placed next to the old stone which still marks William's grave.

I've stood beside numerous graves of my ancestors since Tom and I started coming back to this area. I wish there were words to describe the feeling that comes over me when I find them. The best I can come up with is longing - I long to know them, and for them to know me, too.There are both old and new graves in this cemetery, and as is most often the case, the setting is just beautiful.

There are two very large, and probably very old, cedar trees in this cemetery. Both of them are located near Garland graves and I suspect were planted long ago by loved ones.

A large tulip poplar was in bloom by the cemetery fence and I had to take a picture. They are so lovely and unusual.

This old mill is located on the road into Bakersville from Buladean.

And though the wheel is gone, the water still rushes by.

Pictured above are our Forbes kinfolk from Utah, Idaho, and Missouri. Melody is in front, her mother, Joan, to the right, Glora directly behind Melody, and Sherwin to the left. We picnicked and talked in a little park across from the Mitchell County Administration Building where many old records are kept. I'll be going back there to do some digging of my own.

On the way home, Barb and I crossed over Roan Mountain, and stopped for a rest and a snack beside this pretty creek. It was a great day!