The Old Folks Home

[Pozees]

I am still on the lookout for Sussex and Australorps

Your daughter is a treasure.

Papa Brooder had Speckled Sussex last I knew, and he is in CA.

 

[ronott1]

I am still on the lookout for Sussex and Australorps

Hupp's Australorps are Molting. You might want to check with Tiger Creek.

@cubakid Posted on the Australorp Thread:

I guess I'm lucky that here in California I can find show chickens anywhere. I also happen to have a major Australorp breeder as a friend.

He might know where you can get some in California.

 

[dsqard]

SCG, Oz, Wisher, Linda, and everyone else who has been contributing the family stories keep them coming. I think it is wonderful to hear them (yes ALL of them). I wish I had something interesting to add, but we really didn't have many traditions when I was growing up and not many stories of when my parents were growing up. DH's parents had a huge train platform they would set up every year with the tree in the center. On Christmas Eve, Santa would not only bring presents but would finish decorating the tree.

 

[chickadoodles]

back in the mid eighties i spent several days on the microfiche pulling up records of our irish and english ancestors that were sentenced to 7 years jail in New South Wales. Imagine getting a ride to Australia with a ball and chain for swiping bread to feed your family.

just doing the research was an amazing experience

You are so right! My first Bateman ancestor that migrated to the US did so to help his mother feed the other children as their father had just died of consumption. Well he and his brother both got caught stealing and did 6 months in prison for larceny. Go figure! But I love the challenge of the hunt and finding all the records! I have boxes of records that I am now putting into books to give my children to donate to libraries to help other researchers.

 

[chickadoodles]

My dad is the first generation from immigrants from Lithuania. I grew up thinking certain words were English, and finding out in school that they weren't. We just used the Lithuanian word when there wasn't a good English translation.

My mother's side is from Germany, and somehow we are related to Virginia Dare. My mom had a huge genealogy book on her side of the family but she tossed it in a fit of rage a number of years ago (that showed us!). I miss it.

We didn't get too many family stories - but one thing that is all my family is the train platform that we put up for Christmas every year. My father and his father built it when he was a kid, and a lot of it is still original. I've had to replace some of the O track, and when I was a little girl my dad added the HO track and bought me my own train (which still runs). Over the years I've had to replace all the street lights and building lights and rewire due to the whole thing being a fire hazard, but the original O trains from my dad's childhood still run. The front light is burnt out but it still whistles and smokes! My sister smashed all the original PlasticVille houses when she was little, but I still have them, just don't put them up because they look so horrid. I've upgraded to porcelain houses.

It has been probably 15 years since my parents put the train platform up. Last time I drove down to their place I brought it home, and cleaned it up. They visited last year right after Thanksgiving and I put the platform up early, and didn't tell them. They both cried when they saw it.

Anyway, here I am going on and on...

I put it up tonight with some friends, and it still holds the magic it did when I was a kid.





Thanks for letting me share my favorite family memory. Sorry it's not a great story.

That was a wonderful story and it is so nice that you have such a wonderful part of your fathers life to cherish! Thanks for sharing!

 

[Highcotton]

Jobe was a character up until the day he died.  I have wonderful memories of him, myself.  He and Dad were often together and were very close throughout their lives.  Jobe and my dad married sisters (Mom and my Aunt Teal.) so I actually have double first cousins - no Alabama inbreeding jokes needed, I've heard them all.    Dad said that if they were given a day off, which wasn't often, they would go to the creek and seine for minnows.  If they could get enough, they would take them to the store and sell them.  The man at the store would buy anything he could turn around and sell and the children in the family were always trying to get money.  If they could manage to get their hands on .15c they would walk to town.  It was about four miles if they took the back way, through some woods, fields, and yards, and about five and a half if they went along the road. In town, there were several options.  Mostly, they would go to the drugstore, which had a lunch counter.  For .15c they could get a bowl of chili and a coke to share.  Dad said they would sit at the counter if they were clean enough, and would use a whole box of free soda crackers and a bottle of ketchup to make it last longer.  They would put a clean spoon in the coke and take turns sipping a spoonful until it was gone.  Then they would look around a little while before they started back home.  It cost a nickel to ride the bus from town to the road they lived on, but they couldn't often scrounge up an additional dime for that luxury.

On one occasion, when Dad was about 10, he went to town alone.  He had been given money to buy something his Mom needed and a dime for the round trip bus fare. He rode the bus to town, did the shopping for his Mom, but when he came out of the store, there was a young hound dog digging through some trash in an alley.  The dog was emaciated and mangy, but looked to my Dad like he would make a good hunting dog.  Dad went back into the store and used his return-trip nickel to buy some chunks of bologna the man cut from a ten pound package.  Dad used the bologna to lure the dog along.  He had to use the longer road route because it was getting dark and he couldn't navigate the shortcut in the dark, carrying the shopping, and the bologna, and coaxing the hound.  Dad said it was hard, because the dog was scared, and would only pick up the bits of bologna if he put it on the ground and stepped away.  He was making his way home, with the dog, knowing that there was a chance that his Dad wouldn't let him keep it, but was hopeful as the dog showed signs of trusting him more and more with each morsel of bologna.  It was an hour after dark when they reached the bus stop where he would have been getting off if he had ridden the bus.  They were making better time, because the dog was willingly following Dad, now and, would almost take them from Dad's hand, but they still had a mile and a half to walk, down a gravel road.  Suddenly, a delivery truck came around the corner, turned onto the dirt road, and ran over the dog, killing it instantly.  When he got home, he got a whipping for being late and never mentioned the dog.  He said it was the first time he remembered crying after being punished, and it was not because of the whipping.

That's an interesting but sad story. I never imagined the end.

 

[Highcotton]

You are so right! My first Bateman ancestor that migrated to the US did so to help his mother feed the other children as their father had just died of consumption. Well he and his brother both got caught stealing and did 6 months in prison for larceny. Go figure! But I love the challenge of the hunt and finding all the records! I have boxes of records that I am now putting into books to give my children to donate to libraries to help other researchers. 

We have friends her who were Batemans.

 

[Highcotton]

...

My dad is the first generation from immigrants from Lithuania. I grew up thinking certain words were English, and finding out in school that they weren't. We just used the Lithuanian word when there wasn't a good English translation. My mother's side is from Germany, and somehow we are related to Virginia Dare. My mom had a huge genealogy book on her side of the family but she tossed it in a fit of rage a number of years ago (that showed us!). I miss it. We didn't get too many family stories - but one thing that is all my family is the train platform that we put up for Christmas every year. My father and his father built it when he was a kid, and a lot of it is still original. I've had to replace some of the O track, and when I was a little girl my dad added the HO track and bought me my own train (which still runs). Over the years I've had to replace all the street lights and building lights and rewire due to the whole thing being a fire hazard, but the original O trains from my dad's childhood still run. The front light is burnt out but it still whistles and smokes! My sister smashed all the original PlasticVille houses when she was little, but I still have them, just don't put them up because they look so horrid. I've upgraded to porcelain houses. It has been probably 15 years since my parents put the train platform up. Last time I drove down to their place I brought it home, and cleaned it up. They visited last year right after Thanksgiving and I put the platform up early, and didn't tell them. They both cried when they saw it. Anyway, here I am going on and on... I put it up tonight with some friends, and it still holds the magic it did when I was a kid. That is a beautiful railroad set and beautiful mmemories. My mother and her ancestors were Huguenot. My brother has done our genealogy back to Dieppe France on that side. I my reading on his research I have just finished reading about the Huguenots from the early 1500s through 1700s. The lost colony of Roanoke was mostly if not all Huguenots and I am pretty sure that Virginia Dare's family was Huguenot. The Huguenots migrated from France to England, Holland, and Germany and then land was available in the colonies so they settled here. There is an interesting program on the History Channel on America unearthed that investigates where the colonists from Roanoke went. They talked a good bit about Virginia Dare and her family. There are some mysterious stomes found in sites from Virginia down into North Alabama that think may have been left by Virginia Dare indicating where they had gone. Their theory was that the Indians had taken them in..

 

[Wisher1000]

Quote: I know, right? I am not sure why that is one of my favorite stories, I guess it speaks to the little boy my Dad was. Independent, trustworthy, kind, compassionate, resourceful, proud, strong and yet sensitive. Just like the man he became.

Up until Mom died, I only saw my Dad cry once. I was over thirty, and my parents were becoming more and more anxious for me to get married. They wanted, for me, a family, children, security, and the comfort that they had enjoyed in their marriage. On this particular day, Dad was asking me why I was not married. We had talked about several long term relationships that I had been in and why they ended. Finally, when I could not satisfy him with my answers, I told him the real reason. I had always compared every prospect to my dad, and all had paled in comparison. His eyes welled up and he said, "I didn't know you felt that way." He should have, he was always my hero and my champion.

 

[Highcotton]

I know, right?  I am not sure why that is one of my favorite stories, I guess it speaks to the little boy my Dad was.  Independent, trustworthy, kind, compassionate, resourceful, proud, strong and yet sensitive.  Just like the man he became.

Up until Mom died, I only saw my Dad cry once.  I was over thirty, and my parents were becoming more and more anxious for me to get married.  They wanted, for me, a family, children, security, and the comfort that they had enjoyed in their marriage.  On this particular day, Dad was asking me why I was not married.  We had talked about several long term relationships that I had been in and why they ended.  Finally, when I could not satisfy him with my answers, I told him the real reason.  I had always compared every prospect to my dad, and all had paled in comparison.  His eyes welled up and he said, "I didn't know you felt that way."  He should have, he was always my hero and my champion.

That's wonderful.