My Thoughts

As my 46th birthday looms silently in the very near future, I take a look back at the year of being 45 with nothing short of confused anger.  This has been a horrible year, and for the last couple of weeks, every memory collides. I wonder if some of this owes to a midlife crisis.  What was happening for my female ancestors when they faces the end of their 45th year? 1993.................. The year my mother was 45.  All three of her children were grown with families of their own.  I was pregnant for the first time.  My mom had 5 grandchildren already and was still married to my father.  They would be divorced 4 years later.  Both her parents had already died.  1993 was a time between the Gulf War and 9/11, a time when things in Early, Texas were still somewhat safe, protected and completely oblivious to a world outside of itself. "Got Milk?" became the newest ad campaign slogan; "Schindler's List" won the Academy Award for best picture and t...

Life has been so crazy lately, and as the days lengthen into summer, I spend more time looking out my windows into the Texas sky pondering my life.............where it is, where it's been and where it may go.  I used to think that I had all the answers, that by having a clear vision of where I wanted to go I would eventually get there.  I just don't believe that anymore. With each new obstacle thrown into my way, I want to throw in the towel and give up.  For some reason, I just can't.  Maybe it's the promise of something new that always guides me, or maybe it's the shining faces of my daughters when they were younger.  I made promises to them when they were born, promises I cannot break.  Giving up is just not an option. Always I think about Jack and Rose struggling through so much to survive the sinking of that historic boat.  Yes, Jack died, but in his sacrifice, in his faith, someone else survived. ---------------------****-----------------...

Surely, it cannot be said enough that Autumn is my absolute favorite time of year.  Today is the first day of Autumn, and here in Texas, it will be around 90 degrees.  We had a hint of Autumn last week with cooler days and drizzly rain, but this week the temperatures shot up again.  I anticipate boots and scarves, and not with much patience.  As much as I attempt waiting until October 1 to actually begin my Autumn decorating and cooking, these last few days of September offer little excitement for me.  So, perhaps getting an early start is not a bad idea. Since completing graduate school earlier this year, I feel somewhat lost.  Those J.R.R. Tolkien quotes "Not all who wander are lost" on pinterest continue to offer some solice to my fear that I have somehow become a horrible statistic.  Why is it that at this juncture in my life I feel the most lost?  Truly, completing a goal should provide contentment, not confusion.  Yet, I made a cons...

When I would think of my 4 grandparents, Berneice, Leo, Gladys and GJ, I always had a specific ethnicity attached to each one.  Berneice was Swedish, Leo, German.  Gladys was Native American and GJ, Irish.  Like many other Americans, the reality of my ancestry is a collection of different ethnicities and nationalities, and if you go backward far enough, the truth of what I had always thought then becomes true and verified.  Each family line presents its own unique research complications.  When I began this tribute to my 2nd great grandmothers, I did not intentionally postpone Charlotte "Lottie" Blomberg.  As it happens, if I had began this project with Lottie, I probably would've given up and not attempted the others.  What I have found through this project, however, is a strength of character and fierce determination in each of these women that I see in myself and in the eyes of each of my daughters.  I truly do not think it can be said enough t...

The true fragility of life became very apparent this week with the death of my 3rd cousin, Trinity Liebhaber who was only 2 months old.  Her family was involved in a very horrible car accident on Mother's Day.  So many times I have added my standard cherub icon to those family members in my tree who died as a child.  Even though my curiosity wanted more information, so often, there is just a blank space in that family line without explanation.  I thought about Trinity today.  A hundred years from now when someone is looking backward to figure out family histories, will information be available documenting the reason for her short life?  My work on the sixth of my 2nd great grandmothers has finally materialized into something comprehensible enough to document. Mary Edna Caldwell (Turner / Fry) was born February 28, 1846 in  Ouachita County, Arkansas.  She was the daughter of George Washington Caldwell and Elizabeth Shipp.  Mary Edna's mother...

Bennie Hall was born in April 1865 in Cass County, Texas.  The Hall family had settled into the Northeast Texas area approximately 15 years earlier as verified by 1850 Census records for Bennie's father, Benjamin Franklin Hall.  Prior to the move, the Hall family had resided in Georgia.   Bennie married Daniel Hardy Holt in 1883 in Cass County, Texas.  The couple had 10 children:  6 girls and 4 boys.  Bennie and Daniel slowly moved eastward before finally settling in Hazen, Arkansas.  The first 4 children were born in Cass County, Texas while the remaining 6 were born in Arkansas.  This movement to Arkansas is consistent with the Holt family migration patterns.  Most of Bennie's siblings remained in Cass County and are buried there.  Bennie died in 1926 in Hazen, Arkansas.  Within three months, her husband died.  In the next year, her son Seth and daughter Erma also died.  The reasons for families to move into Texa...

It's cold here in the South today. Getting up and around to get my girls off to school, I am beginning my first day off this week with some winter weather cooking planning. On today's agenda, red beans and cornbread. I also making some bread pudding so that the oven can chase the chill out of the air. As I "cleaned" the red beans to add to the pot , the words of Annelle rang in my ears. "This is in the freezes beautifully section of my cookbook, and I wanted to bring something that freezes beatuifully." Steel Magnolias is one of my alltime favorite movies..........it defines completely what being a woman of the South is all about. I can identify with each of these ladies on different days and at different stages of my life. More and more, I feel like Ouisa or Clairee. The world has changed a great deal in the last 21 years since the movie came out. With a confused and defensive approach, I want to spell out what I feel it means to be a woman of ...

Original date:  December 9, 2010 By far one of my favorite songs, "Carol of the Bells" brings to mind crisp cold air and lights reflecting off the snow. In Texas, we do not see these things very often; in fact, in my lifetime, I can recall only 2-3 times that all these magical elements came together. It was not at Christmas time either. The closest experience in Texas I remember is standing in line in Burnet to enter Bethlehem . The smells from inside the walled city filter outward - wax, hay, baking bread. When I close my eyes and take a deep breath, I can almost transport myself to a Norman Rockwell ideal. My brother asked me last night if I liked Christmas or something........maybe it is the decorations, the constant music and only watching Christmas movies on cable. It is more than that, too. It is the reading of the Christmas story in Luke, the advent symbols, the holly and ivy..........and mostly thinking about how one small precious baby came into the world to sav...