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Yesterday I hunted around Oakview Cemetery in Royal Oak, Michigan for the graves of my ancestors after the nice office lady pulled out all of their cards and marked their spots on a map.

It sounds easy but the maps’ major focal points were trees and in one instance, the tree had been removed.

Nevertheless, I found everyone I was looking for:

William Arthur Ellison and Anna Elizabeth (Van Buren) Ellison — Section I, off the drive between I and J, midway of section, approx. 5 rows back from drive, tree on map is no longer there.

William and Anna were married 18 SEP 1889 in Boyne Falls, Michigan. They had six children, among them my great-grandfather Harold Delmont Ellison. Harold married Alice Baines on 29 MAY 1917 in Highland Park, Michigan. Harold and Alice are resting in Section M, approx. 1/4 of the way down the drive between sections M and L (M is bordered by Rochester Rd) and they are about 4 rows back from the drive, under a tree.

Harold and Alice had 8 children, one of whom is my grandfather James Arthur Ellison. Since I know where Papa is, I don’t have the section number for you. But he is buried where the military flags are displayed in a group, approx. in front of the Marines flag.

Across Rochester Road is another small cemetery — Royal Oak Cemetery, but also partly known as St. Mary’s Cemetery. In this cemetery are Alice’s parents James and Elizabeth Baines. I have to get into the city and ask for the graves’ location — it was after 5pm when I did this yesterday. One of the Oakview employees told me that Frentz and Sons Hardware has a book of everyone buried at Royal Oak Cemetery and where they are.

Also at Oakview are Ethel Tasker Ellison’s parents: John T. Tasker and E. Dorothy (Fry) Tasker:

John and Dorothy are also in Section I, but along the drive between Section I and the Columbarium. They are behind a large tree and about three rows back from the drive. John and Dorothy were married 2 AUG 1908.

There is a large effort amongst genealogists to photograph and enter graves in the computer archives. I will enter these graves into the project.

Sunday I worked on my genealogy research. I have been doing genealogy since I was twelve — you do the math.  I’m stuck right now on documenting the fact that one of my Ralston ancestors married a Cherokee woman and her DNA entered my line circa 1776. I’m also stuck on figuring out my great-great-great grandmother Nancy Agnes McLane Ralston who may have been American Indian or she may not have and/or she may have been adopted by the Mechling family or she may not have. She remains a puzzlement.

So I worked again on another branch of my father’s family. Nellie Mae Eastman, my great-grandmother, married William Alfred Ralston in Maquoketa, Iowa and from this union my grandfather Ivan was born in 1902. William was listed on the Iowa census as 1/4 Indian and he told my grandmother about his Cherokee ancestry.

It took awhile to ascertain who Nellie Mae Eastman’s grandparents were but then it all started to connect rather easily- thanks to ancestry.com.

Nellie Mae’s ancestor was Roger Eastman — he sailed on the Ship ‘Confidence’ in 1638 from England and settled originally in the Massachusetts Bay Colony. 

Eastman Family: http://www.angelfire.com/ky3/caroln242/index3cover.html

and http://books.google.com/books?id=mNwRhOz28XgC&pg=RA1-PA7&lpg=RA1-PA7&dq=Roger+Eastman+Family+history&source=bl&ots=DWsD9R_lch&sig=STLuZnAVj_K0RrKXhNT1Rcj9-K0&hl=en&ei=s_luSrDXOY-kMO7MjeYI&sa=X&oi=book_result&ct=result&resnum=8

The Eastman’s helped to settle Salisbury, MA before moving on.

Since 1638, we Eastman’s have been living in America. And this brings me to wisdom teeth.

Yesterday, my daughter and I went to our annual dentist check-up. We don’t have dental insurance, never have. I asked my dentist how he is doing since the economic crash. He said he was very busy in June and early July when the auto industry workers found out they were losing their dental insurance and everyone came in to get everything they needed done. Now it has begun to slow, he has laid off everyone but one employee a day in his office and he foresees the Holidays as being very very slow.

It is a wonderment to me how we end up where we end up in life and I’ve been a tad resentful lately of the auto industry. My father’s family ended up in Michigan from Iowa because of the auto industry. After WW One my grandmother’s brothers, all veterans, came to Detroit to work on the trolley system in the booming city. When my grandfather died of colon cancer in 1939, my grandmother followed her family to Detroit where she could get a job, she being a single mother. She worked for General Motors until retirement and got my father a job there. He worked for Detroit Diesel Allison and then when Penske bought DDA, he gave up alot of his GM benefits and switched to Penske. He was smart.

So, here I am. Stuck in Michigan because my father’s family gave over their entire working lives to the auto industry. If we wanted to leave, we couldn’t. No one will buy our house.  Or at least not for what we need to get out of it.

And I love Michigan. It is my home. My children are here and growing up here can be a good thing, depending. We have very good colleges here. It is the best place to camp and boat.

My husband’s family is stuck here also, most of them. His grandfather left Kentucky to come up here during the auto boom.  Fortunately, they are all landscapers and not directly dependent on the auto industry.

I’ve gotta have my wisdom tooth pulled out. It is causing me pain and angled funny and hasn’t provided an ounce of wisdom to me whatsoever. And in this sense, I am like my Michigan. We simply need to pull that auto industry right out and let the bleeding hole left behind heal. It is causing us pain and it is angled against our future and it hasn’t provided our state with an ounce of wisdom.

But if Roger Eastman hadn’t come to America in 1638 and my Cherokee grandmother hadn’t married a Ralston and if the rest of my ancestors had changed just one thing, I wouldn’t be here. The auto industry brought my father to Michigan and that is where my mother’s family had lived for a very long time. No auto industry — no me. And, more importantly to me, none of my kids would be here. And it is my kids who always make all of this worth it.

This week I took my second class in home preservation. Not the kind of home preservation where you storm into the bank and make them stop all the foreclosures in your neighborhood so that your own property value doesn’t fall into the black abyss of no return.

Rather, the class covered how to can fruits and tomatoes in a hot water bath and the week before was how to can jams/jellies and how to freeze vegetables and fruits. Why take these classes?

1. It may be the end of the world and I’m gonna want some fruit.
2. It is kinda stupid to grow food and throw away what you can’t eat. Like investing in the stock market.
3. You never know what they really put in those cans you buy at the grocery store, especially anything from China.

A long time ago, I canned some strawberry jam. Otherwise, I have mostly frozen my garden produce or stored it. Last summer I tried to make refrigerator pickles that were put in jars, but stored in the fridge. These jars of pickles became fizzing stink bombs, needless to say, no pickles for us.

It is not that hard to make your own jams/jellies and can your own tomatoes and fruits. There is also pectin now for freezer jam and last weekend, I made 5 jars of blueberry freezer jam. It is much cheaper to make your own jam.  Even if you have to buy the fruit. For instance, I needed 5 cups of crushed blueberries, the pectin, and the fancy twist-on-caps freezer jars. I spent 8.69$ to make 15$ worth of jam and next year, I will not need to buy jars again. Hopefully, if the bees ever make a comeback, I will grow enough blueberries again to produce jam. It’s not looking good this year for blueberries here.

Our teacher shared many enlightened stories in case we were mentally impaired. For instance, canning in a hot water bath is never done in the bathroom. The bathtub is not where you work at. What a revelation! We also learned not to use Alzheimer inflicting aluminum pans and instruments when canning tomatoes after we did so in our hands-on classroom. I mean she actually made us use an aluminum pan to make salsa in. I could feel the aluminum robbing my capacity to remember what I was learning as I breathed in the salsa fumes cooking in the pan.

I am going to work on adding to my horde soon. Apricot jam. Blueberry Jam. Peaches. Pears. Tomatoes. Canned to store on a shelf. Hopefully, raspberry jam from my patch, but I’m worried about not seeing a lot of fruit.

Do you ever wonder if there is some kind of mass conspiracy to prevent us from being able to grow our own food? I mean, what is it with the weather? I truly have no idea what will grow in my garden this year because of this freaky weather. And how about GMO seeds- seeds that grow produce that have sterile seeds and cannot grow without being sprayed with cancer inducing pesticides? And what has happened to our bees? No bees, no pollinization, no fruit/vegetables.

When you work your tush off planting non GMO seeds and hoeing and weeding and siccing the chickens on the slugs and snails that are taking over the world and spraying NEEM oil and picking the bugs off by hand and there is not much food produced as a result, there is something going on. Don’t you think?

I figure if the aliens invade, or if they declare Martial Law, or if hyper-inflation brings out the wheelbarrows to haul our dollars in, my family and I can hide in the basement and eat jam out of the jar.

Below I have copied and pasted the letter I put in my mailbox today to President Obama. It was inspired by his speech at Camp Buchenwald, the Nazi concentration camp, this morning. My letter addresses my concerns about the treatment of the Native American in the United States of America:

June 5, 2009

Dear President Obama,

I continue to be proud of the involvement I had in the campaign here in Brandon Township to elect you as President. Every time I hear you speak, even when I rarely disagree, I feel proud and confident of having left the Republican Party to campaign for your election.

I felt especially proud of my country having elected you for President as I watched you speak at the Buchenwald Camp with Elie Wiesel this morning. The horrors of the Holocaust have always pressed sorrow upon my heart since as a young girl I read “The Diary of Anne Frank”. I now have family who are Jewish, a sister-in-law and her three children, and I love them very much.

But, I am writing because it is time for you to do in the United States what you did today in Germany when you recognized and spoke about the Holocaust there, honoring the victims and expressing all of our hope that no such thing will happen again. You honored Chancellor Merkel’s bravery for looking into Germany’s past and now it is time for America to focus on the log in its own eye. And I am speaking about the past and present plight of the Native American in the United States of America.

A memorial should be erected along the Trail of Tears. A memorial should be erected on the spot where Chief Tecumseh of the Shawnee died valiantly, fighting for his people’s rights. America should erect memorials all across our country honoring and remembering the tribes and their ancestral homelands and we should be brave and look into the horrors we inflicted upon the American Indian in our excessive greed for land and our government’s attempt at ethnic cleansing. And then I wish that you would travel across the United States and stop at each place and the survivors should be there because the American Indian has survived despite all of our white ancestor’s efforts to wipe them out. It is time for the racism against the American Indian to end. This racism is prevalent in our culture, in everything from children’s books to Steve Cattrell on The Office telling everyone to sit “Indian style”. This racism is evident in the poverty on our reservations, such as Pine Ridge Reservation and we should be totally ashamed of ourselves for letting anyone live like that here in America.

I am of English, Irish, Scottish, Cherokee, Inuit and most likely, Shawnee descent. My mixed-blood great grandparents were so tired of the discrimination they faced that my great-grandfather distanced himself from his family and never spoke about who his people were. It is only through a great effort amongst the cousins to gather historical documents, family stories and DNA testing that we are beginning to know for certain of which tribes our ancestors were from. Many people in America are like me, of Native American ancestry. But I am white – raised white with all of its privileges and benefits.

It is time we look our own Holocaust in the eye, bravely and without blinders, and without justification for our cruel actions against the American Indian. It is time for each American child to be taught the truth about American History. I am 45 years old and just learned that Thomas Jefferson, one of my childhood heroes, made a great and concerted effort to virtually wipe out the Shawnee Indian from the face of this earth, whether through small pox or war, he wanted them gone. He is no longer one of my heroes. Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket and Shawnee Chief Tecumseh and Cherokee Warrior Dragging Canoe and any other American Indian who fought for their rights are my heroes. And it is time we recognize them fully. It is time we honor and recognize the significant contributions the American Indians have made to our country and continue to make.

Let us be honest about our past Presidents and I am hoping that with you, we can finally be proud of how the United States cares for and treats our Native people. It is time to make things right and honor the treaties and do what we can to be fully accountable for our wrongdoings against the American Indian.

Sincerely yours,

 Jennifer Ralston Porter

Native American Gardening: Stories, Projects and Recipes for Families was written by Michael J. Caduto and Joseph Bruchac. Caduto is a well-known gardening expert and Bruchac is a prolific and talented children’s author of Abenaki  and European descent. The book was published in 1996 by Fulcrum Publishing.

The book has a few stories from the Tuscarora, Zuni, Lacandon Maya, Arikara and the Tutelo. “The Bean Woman” a tale from the Tutelo was my favorite as Bean Woman must find a suitable husband and she finds him not in Mountain Lion Man, or Deer Man, or Bear Man but in Corn Man. Bean Woman and Corn Man become intertwined for as Bean Woman said, “The Great Creator made us to be with each other.”

It is in this book that I was taught to fully comprehend how planting pole beans at the base of corn feeds the nitrogen-needy corn with the nitrogen heavily produced by beans. When I went to Conner Prairie Museum in Indiana last summer, the Leni Lennape gentleman took the time to show me how to plant my beans and corn the Native way. The corn is planted in a circle and when it grows several inches high, the pole beans are planted around the corn. The pole beans then climb and intertwine themselves around the corn. He had planted seeds that had been saved for many many generations and his corn was enormously tall. He then had his squash nearby.

In the book, squash, corn and beans are called the Three Sisters. Squash is planted amongst the corn and beans and its large leaves keep weeds to a minimum and its prickly vines keep raccoons and other animals from walking amongst the corn. So, I had already re-designed this season’s garden to plant my corn, beans and squash as the Leni Lennape do. Native American Gardening gives excellent instructions on how to plant a Wamponoag Three Sisters Garden and a Hidatsa Three Sisters Garden. I am going to use the mound instructions when planting my corn and beans and also I will try and see if I can honor the Four Directions when planting the seeds. I will also relocate my sunflowers to line up against the North.

My daughter and I will use the directions on how to dry gourds and create rattles, storage jars and birdhouses with them. We will also make corn husk dolls with the excellent directions in the book.

The book reads a little choppy, but it’s not annoying. There are good sections on storytelling, buying Native seeds and harvesting and storing seeds, starting a garden from scratch and traditional Native food recipes. Often, we are reminded to plant extra crops for our friends the animals and for the insects. I am planting as much as possible to try and share with my local food bank also.

Sources for Native seeds: http://www.nativeseeds.org/Home

http://www.seedsofchange.com/garden_center/browse_category.aspx?id=123

The writing of the book is aimed at the entire family, and there is a good list of do’s and don’ts :

1. Don’t dress like Indians. But do study Native customs.
2. Don’t use words like “savages”, “war-loving” and “primitive”  or “squaw” to describe American Indians.
3. Don’t say “sit Indian style” or “walk Indian file”.
4. Don’t talk about American Indians as if they existed only in the past.
5. Don’t talk about Native Americans as if they are all of one large culture. Each tribe is unique and different.
6. Don’t belittle sacred ceremonies and beliefs. I would add, make sure you ask before you borrow a tribe’s story also. Many stories are sacred.

If you’ve been reading my blog you know that we have been waiting for DNA results back on a Male DNA 12 marker test. Surprise, surprise, the results indicate Cherokee blood. This is very surprising as it means we have a male Cherokee ancestor, and all we’ve previously known is that Nancy Agnes McLane Ralston was Native American. It may be that Nancy’s husband, John Ralston Jr., was mixed-blood. A family story says his mother Elizabeth Sharp Ralston was held captive by Indians for four years and the result was John Jr. born in 1807.

I would very much like to know if we can determine Nancy’s tribal identity and we can only do this through a female line. I am from one of Nancy’s sons — Millen Ralston.

I am hoping to find a female cousin, to have a simple mouth-swab female DNA test and to finally lay to rest who was Nancy Ralston.  Please check the information below to see if you are related to this family and if you can help me locate a direct female descendant of Nancy’s.

John Ralston Jr married Nancy Agnes McLane

Butler County, PA 1834

Both of them died in Jackson County, Iowa

Nancy d. 24 May 1905

Daughter Susan b. Butler County, PA 1840 married Daniel Shirley II Mar 1854 (Divorced 1867)

Did Susan have all boys?

Orlando, Frank, Roy and William Nelson

Daughter Caroline b. Butler County, PA 1842 married John Sawyer 24 AUG 1862 went to Nebraska

Caroline’s daughters:

Mary Parkis (Charles) Osceola, Nebraska

Viola Hight (Thomas) Norfolk, NB

Nora Record (Sigal) Arcadia, NB

Luella Ross (Ellsworth) Boyd, NB

Lilly Holcomb (Earl) Arcadia, NB

Daughter Elvira b. Butler County, PA 1844 d. 1885 married Edward Albert Sutton

Elvira’s daughters:

Jennis (?)

Maude

Tressie

Daughter Mary Jane b. 26 MAR 1846 d. 18 JUL 1896 Doniphan County, Kansas married Calvin Ball in 1863 Cedar County, Iowa

Mary’s daughters:

Ida Ball b. 1864  Jun 1870 was in Richardson County, Nebraska married Mr. Chambers

Edna b. 1878

Daughter Margaret b. PA 1851 married Mr. Stahl

Daughter Arozine/Arezma b. Iowa 1854 d. 26 DEC 1876 Jackson County, Iowa

Our company Landscape Artisan took third place in last night’s prestigious 2009 Detroit Home Awards show for Landscape Water Feature.

It was designed by Jeffrey White and built by Landscape Artisan.

Here is the winner:

Rep. Marie Donigan emailed me today. She said that if I wanted to understand why she introduced legislation to name parts of US-127 after Ohioan Annie Oakley that I would have to talk to Annie’s relative, someone who lives in Michigan.

She also informed me that the legislation hadn’t been passed by the Michigan Senate. Making it ironic that she would ask why we are talking about legislation that could still pass and we still have a say in the matter. I guess since it was dropped we should all drop why it came up in the first place.

I phoned my State Senator’s office and was informed that the Annie Oakley Trail bill never made it out of the Senate Transportation Committee. The legislation would have to be re-introduced and passed for it to become law. I voiced my concern that this never happen.

Well, Golly Ned, someone in our legislature has some sense!  Now, I don’t have to call Lenawee and Gratiot County Departments of Transportation and ask them how many taxpayer dollars would have been spent erecting signs and changing maps and websites to honor Annie Oakley of Ohio when Rep. Donigan herself cannot explain to me what Annie Oakley’s lasting contribution or continued presence in our state was.

I am so glad our Michigan House of Representatives took the time and money to write that legislation and vote on it. That and the following: House Bill 4534 Ride Your Motorcycle to Work Day, Senate Resolution 65 To Commemorate An Official State Children’s Book, House Bill 4599 To Name A Road after a Term-limited Legislator. And yes, I write children’s books but how can we decide on just one and who decides and why do we need to do this?

I guess it is too much to ask for them to spend ALL of their time trying to solve our problems, like unemployment, childhood poverty, the schools, the exorbitant costs of Michigan colleges and universities, our crumbling infrastructure, the suffering that goes on in Flint and Pontiac and Detroit. Any thing else?

Gene Park, an elder in the Piqua Division of the Shawnee Tribe,  http://aiac.alabama.gov/tribes_piquaShawnee.aspx was kind enough to send me a very interesting article about the great Shawnee Chief Blue Jacket. It has been told to me by cousins that some of my ancestors may have been in Chief Blue Jacket’s tribe and so Gene has been helping me to arrange a male DNA test for my brother to determine our ethnic heritage. The test on me would only be able to look at my maternal side. I am so very excited at the possibility of getting some answers about our ancestors.

The Ohio Journal of Science article that Gene sent me lays to rest the controversy over whether or not Chief Blue Jacket was a Shawnee or a Caucasian. I had read recently in a very good book The Shawnees and the War for America by Colin G. Calloway that Chief Blue Jacket was Shawnee and not an adopted white captive. Calloway presents a convincing argument and details the accomplishments of Chief Blue Jacket, often overlooked amidst Tecumseh’s fame.

I had also recently read a number of books, including children’s nonfiction, in which the legend that Marmaduke Swearingen was captured by the Shawnees and then raised up to become Chief Blue Jacket was relayed as the historically accurate story of the Chief’s life. That was what I thought was the truth. Even though, as I recently found out, the Shawnees have been trying to refute the legend since it began. I asked Gene what he thought of what I had been reading and he sent me the article.

Scientists studied DNA samples from descendants of Swearingen’s ancestor and from Chief Blue Jacket’s known Shawnee son, George. They were able to conclusively determine that Chief Blue Jacket was Shawnee. See Volume 106, September 2006, Number 4 of the Ohio Journal of Science       http://www.shawnee-bluejacket.com/Bluejacket_Folders/BlueJacket.pdf

If we are related to Chief Blue Jacket, the test on my brother will be able to determine this. It will also tell us what tribe we are from, which is exciting as there are many varied family stories.

The Shawnees and the War for America is an excellent read. Calloway has chapters on Shawnee general history, Cornstalk, Blue Jacket, Black Hoof, Tenskwatawa and Tecumseh, and Removals and Survival. There is also a lengthy bibliography if you are like me and searching for information on the Shawnees.

Gene has recommended two more books for me to read:

Shawnee by James Howard

Blue Jacket — Warrior of the Shawnees by John Sugden

Gene also sent me the link to the Blue Jacket Genealogy website  http://www.shawnee-bluejacket.com/

Thank you, Gene!

Marguerite de Angeli had The Skippack School published in 1939. It is one of the readers in the Sonlight Curriculum’s elementary American history program. I feel it should be removed from the curriculum due to its inaccurate and stereotypical portrayal of American Indians. This reader comes after a series of books told from the white settler’s point of view.

This is unfortunate because if the references to American Indians were edited it would be a nice little story about the Germans who settled in Penn’s Woods in Pennsylvania about 1750 to worship God in their own way. The Indian characters do not advance the story nor enhance the story and are treated as part of the setting.

The Skippack School is the story of the Shrawder family - Pop, Mom, little sisters and Eli. I would guess that Eli is about nine years old, but it is not made clear in the book. The German Shrawder’s settle near German Town and Eli attends Skippack School two to three days a week. He can already speak English though he had just walked off the boat. Eli is a troublemaker, but because of kind, gentle, and patient schoolmaster Christopher Dock, he begins to study and read his verses.

Eli misses school the day he is to read the Scriptures aloud (a big honor) as his mother is away caring for ill neighbors. An American Indian stops by and demands to be fed. He is a Leni-Lenape. He uses words like “Ugh” and eats like a pig. White Eagle makes a comment about Indians owning the land. It is not an accurate portrayal or even semi-realistic.

Eli must sell his handmade bench to replace the glass window he broke at school and Dock takes him to German Town for his first time there. There is a very good description of visiting the printer, if you are also reading about Ben Franklin this description enhances your other readings. There is also a scene of Indian men eating in the village square and being served by village women. Eli is told, “No child need fear the Indians here. They’ve never broken the Penn Treaty.” But the settlers farther west are “having trouble” because the Indians are forming a council to address their issues. Too bad de Angeli couldn’t have recognized it wasn’t the Indians we needed to worry about when it came to honoring a treaty.

Eli learns so much in town, that he arrives home and makes his own little book for Dock complete with a printed wood block design on the cover and colored illustrations. Master Christopher then presents Eli with a beautiful painting with a Scripture and the alphabet. I enjoyed the character of Master Christopher, if only all teachers were like him.

German Town is a neighborhood in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Here is a website where you can go if your ancestors settled in German Town. http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~original13/

Marguerite de Angeli http://www.deangeli.lapeer.org/Life/index.html was born in Lapeer, Michigan in 1889 and won the Newberry Award in 1949 for Door in the Wall. In 1902, she moved with her family to Pennsylvania. When I lived in Metamora and took my young sons to the Marguerite de Angeli Library in Lapeer I would always feel sad as I drove a block or two north on M-24 and saw the For Sale sign in front of de Angeli’s Lapeer home. There is a marker denoting the house. I hope someone bought that house and preserved it.

The Leni-Lenapes are called Delaware  http://www.delawareindians.com/   and despite the Penn Treaty, their lands were taken from them and they were forced west to Ohio and continuing westward to Indiana. Some of the Delaware sided with Tecumseh and the British and fought against the encroachments of the Americans. http://www.munseedelawareindiannation-usa.us/page06.html

The Shawnee often lived with the Delaware and it is for this reason, that some of my ancestors may have been Delaware as we will never be able to prove for certain my ancestor’s tribal identity. They married caucasians and assimilated into white society and we are left with oral history only.

The Delaware were forced onto reservations in Oklahoma.

In Noblesville, Indiana (about 45 minutes north of Indianapolis), you can visit the Strawtown Koteewi Park which used to be a Delaware village in the early 1800’s. The village rested against the shores of the White River. We visited this park and met very friendly and informative archaeologists and park rangers.

http://www.co.hamilton.in.us/parks_details.asp?id=2932

Also in Noblesville is the Conner Prairie Living History Museum http://www.connerprairie.org/

This is a wonderful field trip for homeschool families. There are several historic buildings on site and a recreated Delaware Indian village. A Delaware gentleman was on hand and kindly showed me the garden with corn growing from seed passed down through the generations. He explained that they plant the corn in a circle and when the seedlings are several inches high, they plant pole beans in an outer circle. The pole beans then grow around the corn. The corn was at least twelve feet high. He also showed my daughter a Delaware game played with sticks.

On site we also saw a Civil War reenactor and buildings hosted by costumed interpreters. One of my daughter’s favorite stops was a petting barn where many of the farm animals were not in their pens! The young cow simply rested on the barn floor and enjoyed having her muzzle petted.

If you do read The Skippack School, please supplement with trips such as I described above and with readings about the Delaware Indian. Please try to give your children as much of the whole story as possible.

House Bill 4173 was passed in June 2008 to name portions of Highway US-127 in Lenawee and Gratiot counties, Michigan,  the Annie Oakley Memorial Trail. This was introduced by Rep. Marie Donigan of Royal Oak, my old hometown.

According to the Women in History website Annie Oakley was born in Darke County, Ohio, her parents were from Pennsylvania and Annie died in Greenville, Ohio in 1926 at the age of 66. She met her future husband and beat him in a marksmanship contest in Cincinnati, Ohio.  They joined Buffalo Bill’s Wild West Show in 1885.

Yeah, she was a totally cool and totally awesome woman.

But where is the connection to Michigan?

Okay, I see Lenawee County down by the Ohio border but Gratiot is smack dab in the middle of the lower penninsula.

Here is one connection:

This is Annie Oakley: Pug Rescue Network would like to welcome PRN #219 Annie Oakley is a sweet, 7 year old young lady. She was surrendered when her owner found himself with too many Pugs and no one to help care for them. Annie appears to have had a few litters in her 7 years. She is now out of the puppy producing game as she was recently spayed. She is also microchipped, up to date on shots and had some dental work done. Annie is a bit shy, but is being socialized to help her overcome this. She is also learning that marking in the house is not proper behavior for a lady. Annie is ready to move on with her new life without puppies. She just wants to be a companion Pug now. To snuggle and play. Go for a walk or just hang out. Are you the person or family for Annie? Fill out an adoption application today! 6/17/2008: Annie is a great little girl that is housebroken and ready for her forever home!! Annie would like to snuggle on your couch and has very good manners. She does not jump on you and will sit and wait patiently for a treat. Annie is still a little shy but has came a long ways.Annie could be yours just fill out an adoption application! Update: 7/2/2008 Annie is doing great! She is not having any accidents in the house and is getting her confidence going. Could you be Annies forever home? Please submit an application and Annie could be yours. As you can see Annie is about 16 pounds of pure joy!! 

• Pug Rescue Network
• Walled Lake, MI
• (248)432-0102

I found Oakley, Michigan. It is in Saginaw County.

I went to Rep. Donigan’s site and couldn’t find any information as to why she thinks parts of a Michigan road should be named after Annie Oakley. I guess I could contact her.

Is there a Sojourner Truth memorial highway? The abolitionist and women’s suffragist moved to Michigan, died here and was buried here in Battle Creek, Michigan. Yes:

“1976 — As part of the nation’s bicentennial celebration, the Calhoun County portion of state highway M-66 is designated as the “Sojourner Truth Memorial Highway.”

That’s good. There is also a Clara Barton Memorial Highway:

http://www.legislature.mi.gov/(S(rsynph45uzt42a55lr2exe55))/mileg.aspx?page=getobject&objectname=mcl-act-142-of-2001&queryid=2481172&highlight=

I went to Clara Barton Junior High School in Royal Oak (it used to be Royal Oak High School) and then they tore it down to build a senior citizen complex. Rep. Donigan is probably glad to learn that I don’t live in Royal Oak anymore as I’d be a pesty constituent. I do have family in high places there, though.

Here is a website with famous Michigan women: http://hall.michiganwomenshalloffame.org/  Annie Oakley isn’t on this list.

From the Michigan Women Hall of Fame site: “Cora Reynolds Anderson was the first woman elected to the Michigan House of Representatives, serving one term from 1925 to 1926. She is also believed to be the only Native American woman elected to the Michigan House or Senate, and remains the only woman ever elected to the State Legislature from the Upper Peninsula. “

Is there a Cora Reynolds Anderson memorial highway? I couldn’t find one.  Should there be one, looks like it.

So, what’s up Michigan legislature with the highway naming?

Somebody explain Annie Oakley’s connection to Michigan for me? And don’t validate this by saying there are other memorial highways named after persons of national importance because those person’s life work had an impact on Michigan, such as Martin Luther King Jr and Cesar Chavez. What was Annie’s impact on the lives of Michiganders?

From the site http://www.annieoakleyfoundation.org/ : “Hundreds of inquiries about Annie’s early life led us to encourage Governor Taft to rename US Highway 127 as the Annie Oakley Memorial Pike. It passes where Annie Oakley’s girlhood home stood until the early 1950’s when it was razed for road improvements. Personal testimony before the Ohio Senate and the House of Representatives let to the unanimous approval, and Govern Taft’s signing, of House Bill 481. The Dedication Ceremony was held in Greenville, Ohio on July 28, 2000. “

Looks like Ohio already remembered their famous woman, Annie Oakley.

If you ever get the chance to visit Gettysburg, Pennsylvania, you should do so. It is the town in which the Union army desperately defeated the Confederacy in the Battle of Gettysburg in July of 1863. The Confederates were on their way to Washington, DC but the Union quickly caught up with them.

A view from Little Round Top

 What is so striking about visiting the battlefield is the overwhelming sense of loss (51,000 Americans died there) that simply hangs in the air and permeates your mood. You can feel the sadness all around you.

View of the Battlefield

I was also unprepared for the size of the battlefield and the miles it stretches upon. The battle occurred within the town also and this was a frightening thought upon seeing that the row houses were built right up against the road the soldiers passed and fought on. Many houses from the era remain.

We did not spend enough time in Gettysburg. We tried to do it in one day. I recommend a long weekend. I also recommend avoiding any hotel that sits right on the major thoroughfare, Steinwher Avenue/Baltimore Street if you are a light sleeper as you will hear the trucks on this busy road. We stayed at the Gettysburg Travelodge and wouldn’t stay there again. Not only was there heavy street traffic noise but someone tried to get into our room at 1:30 in the morning, not accepting their key just would not work. The free continental breakfast was just plain bad.

On Little Round Top

 We made sure to climb aways up Little Round Top to see where the 20th Maine Infantry soldiers had defended their positions against all odds as immortalized in the Gettysburg movie with Michigander Jeff Daniels playing Colonial Joshua Chamberlain. It is near here that we had our paranormal experiences.

On Little Round Top

If I had known we could leave a little flag in honor of my ancestors who fought for Michigan, I would’ve done so. Here is just one flag left for the 20th Maine.

Below is a photograph of a soldier’s fortification on Little Round Top. I was especially drawn to this area and felt especially sad and I knelt down as if I were a soldier and took some photos. One is above the Maine flag photo. The other below. You can see quite a large orb in the left side of the photo.

 

Somebody explain to me how Joe the Plumber makes 280,000$ a year running his own small business. See, when you own a small business you pay taxes on your net income. Not your gross revenues. You pay higher taxes if you are a DBA, but that’s Joe’s fault for not getting good accounting advice. If you are DBA, you will pay self-employment taxes but not on your gross receipts.

So, this Joe the Plumber is telling America that after he pays for all of his materials, his trucks, the place he keeps his trucks, the gasoline that goes in them, his liability and commercial vehicle insurance, his employees and all the payroll taxes, his health insurance premiums, his tools, his office expenses, and all his other small business deductions that he puts in his pocket –$280,000.00!!!

And he wants us to feel sorry for him because he can’t manage all that money well enough to buy the business he wants to buy? What?

What would he have to gross as a plumber to take home 280,000$?

We are a small business. My husband is Bob the Landscaper. Let me just say, our net income falls well below the 250,000$ mark.

We pay taxes on our net income. We would have to gross three times our current gross revenues to even begin to worry about Obama’s tax plan.

It makes me wonder what Joe the Plumber charges per man hour?

Joe the Plumber is a whiner. Most Americans make a mere fraction of what he makes. We feel blessed to make what we have been making.

We made a special stop at Hershey, Pennsylvania on our way to Virginia. I am glad that it was only a stop and not a trip in and of itself. We did not “do” Hersheypark; we just had some golden tickets and wanted the chocolate.

We stayed overnight at the Comfort Inn on Mae Street in Hummelstown, PA, only a couple of miles from the factory. We paid a special AAA coupon rate and that was all the hotel was worth. There were dead bugs everywhere. In our room, in the pool. When I complained, the front desk claimed they were stink bugs that suddenly appeared in Pennsylvania. When I didn’t really accept this, she said “That’s Pennsylvania. Got bugs here. We’re trying to do something about it.” I pointed out that when they are dead, they can be swept up.  The soundproofing is also poor there, if you don’t sleep well when travelling as we do.

So, we stood in line in front of a large group of touring seniors, a line that continuously shifted in front of us – the seniors literally walking in front of us and blocking the factory doors. This freaked my daughter out. Having been taught to wait her turn, not take cuts, etc.

 When the doors opened and the seniors crawled through we made a break from the crowd and used the restrooms instead. The factory tour commences down a long dark tunnel and it is free and when you are ready you walk down that tunnel. We watched the herd disappear into the dark then went and did something that cost us $9.95 (that should’ve cost 5$).

Our daughter had her picture taken, got a paper factory worker’s hat and an orange plastic container and she stood beneath a chute that was going to drop out Hershey Kisses.

The kisses come out of the chute in a millisecond and spill all over. This would cause anxiety in any of my children ages 8 and under. I can hear them crying in my memory about losing their kisses. Otherwise, the older kid scoops the kisses up and puts them in their orange container and gives this container to a Hershey guide who has the child do a silly dance and then gives the child her ID tag and a plastic wrapped orange container with a few Kisses.

Eeeh, can’t we do better than this Hershey?

 We walked down the dark tunnel, not knowing what we would find. Well, there was an explanation of how cacao grows in the forests, using video and murals.

 Then, we walked down some stairs and were greeted by Hershey guides. The tour is a ride, much like a Disney ride.

We walked across a swiftly moving floor and hopped into a four seater amusement ride car.

Then we toured a fake factory. A narrator explained how the chocolate is made.

 After the “tour”, we went into the huge store. We stocked up on big candy bars as they were significantly cheaper than we could ever find them in a store. The entire time spent at Hershey’s Chocolate World was less than two hours. Not yet ready to eat lunch, we beat it out of there and headed on our way.

My husband took the leap and started his own blog. With almost three decades of experience in the Green Industry, he has a whopping amount of expertise in landscape construction.

You can ask him questions and get advice on his blog about your landscape projects.

Visit Bob at:   http://landscapeartisan.wordpress.com

Thanks to fellow critique group member, friend and author Beverly Stowe McClure for awarding me with a Brilliante Weblog Premio Award 2008. Beverly is the author of several YA books, including Listen to the Ghost (which you can read my post about).

Thanks again, Beverly!

No blueberries this year! First-year raspberries coming in, but in handfuls. Enough to sprinkle on a bowl of yogurt.

Lots of zucchini and yellow squash. Thinking of freezing it in cubes for vegetable chili.

Still freezing pounds of green beans.

Two holes dug under the fence. Coons? Corn will be ripe in about 2-3 weeks. Things seem to be growing slowly. Will put masking tape around the corn cobs soon so coons can’t eat them.

Harvested then dried my own snow pea seeds then planted four to see if they’d grow or if they were GMO seeds. Next year, will make sure I know where the seed came from. No Monsanto seed for me! One of my seeds sprouted - 25% germination rate.

Having a problem with the potatoes I grew near the roots of an Oak tree. They are withering and failing to produce much while others are flourishing.

Picked my first bowl of snow peas. Brocccoli not doing well, even though I purchased plants. Tiny heads and they have been flowering. Not enough to freeze, only a serving or two to eat fresh.

Still have strawberries to pick today. Still have lots of weeding to do and then mulching.

A male rose-breasted grosbeak has perished and was stiffly on his side in my potato row. I found him yesterday and could see no evidence of disease or injury. West Nile Virus? The neighbor’s cat? Why there? Did he land and hop around in my garden and then suddenly keel over?

My entire property is overrun with slugs and snails this summer. Piles of them everywhere and in all of my gardens and flower beds. We are hand-picking them and removing them to the woods and spreading diatemaceous earth. Did the grosbeak eat a powdered slug?

There is a large garter snake making her home in my garden. I don’t mind if I see her before she slithers away, but otherwise, she startles me.

 We took a ten-year-old and eleven-year-old to the Flint Youth Theatre last night to see Al Simmons. We all enjoyed Al’s slapstick humor, yes, even the pre-teens who patiently waited in line after for an autograph. Then went on his website to print song lyrics when we got home.

Al Simmons did an especially funny routine with a variety of hats that he invented. He does a lot of punning and general fooling around and he draws in the audience. He did an especially good job of making everyone in the audience laugh at one time or another, from the littlest kids to us old buggers. There were even teenagers laughing and participating in the song movements.

He travels around the country so take your kids or grandkids to see him if you get a chance. It is the same price as a movie ticket.

Coming up is Lois Lowry live-in-person on April 6th– meet the author, see The Giver production and have dinner with her. I am so excited – we are going to the whole event on Sunday, the 6th. Don’t miss it!!

These are my Irish Great-Grandparents: William Edward Butler and Bridget Carroll.

William was a first generation Irish-American, born in Iowa in 1866 to Tobias and Bridget. His parents immigrated from County Tipperary and spent some years in Illinois. Tobias worked on the railroads. William was born in Iowa.

Bridget immigrated to America in 1886 on the Cunard Lines, passing through Castle Gardens, NY. She was only 18 when she took the big boat ride all by herself. She brought a pair of brass candlesticks and they are sitting on my hutch. The Carrolls are supposed to have lived in County Armagh. Bridget’s father, John, was a tailor and I have his homemade scissors. I have to do better research on exactly where they lived because my grandma has left me with some conflicting information, or the Carrolls traveled between County Armagh and County Down. John Carroll married Mary Ferrigan around 1860 and the Ferrigans were supposed to have been Scots-Irish who fled Cromwell.

Here is my spunky Irish grandmother, Marjorie Josephine Butler.

Irish grandmothers make mouth-watering liverwurst sandwiches, they tell the best stories and give the best back rubs. They sew, and knit, and crochet, and tat, making clothes for all your dolls and covers for your toilet paper, your toilet lids and even your clothes hangers. They worry to their dying day that just because you didn’t end up Catholic you won’t go to Heaven someday. They teach you that even when life has got you down, you should just pour yourself a glass of Bailey’s Irish Cream and laugh about it. There is always something to laugh about. The best part of life is the moments we have with those we love.

Happy St. Patrick’s Day!

Sunday afternoon, we drove to Flint to see the Flint Young People’s Ballet Theatre adaptations of Snow White and Little Women. The Snow White adaptation was done very well, the dwarves being especially amusing. The Little Women adaptation was very slow in places and we often felt we were simply watching ballerinas standing or sitting and doing nothing in particular. So, I’m not so sure Alcott’s story is suitable into translation as dance. We did think all of the dancers did a really fine job and Sarah especially watched for tips on how to improve her own techniques. A word of caution if you go to the University of Michigan Flint Theater on a Sunday, parking is in the open lot down the street — not in the nearby parking garages (we drove around in circles for about 15 minutes to figure this out) and it is free even though you must pull out a ticket to open the gate.

The story of Snow White is thought to have been first published in a collection of folk tales between 1812 and 1815 by the Brothers Grimm and first published in English in 1823. Why seven dwarves? Because the number 7 was considered a magical number, think of all the 7’s in the Bible. Disney’s Snow White movie came out Christmas 1937 and was the first feature length cartoon. This movie had a profound impact on me. There was a little white church on a road we drove by often when I was a child and I insisted that it was really Snow White’s house.

Jacob and Wilhelm Grimm were born 1785 and 1786 in Germany. Jacob was 11 when their father died and three years later they were sent to live with an Aunt. Possibly the source of their fascination with wicked caretakers? They became librarians in 1808 when their mother died, providing for their younger siblings. By 1812 Children and Household Tales was published — a collection of folk tales. The first of many librarians to provide the world of children’s literature with its best books. Wilhelm died in 1859 and Jacob in 1863.

Lousia May Alcott wrote Little Women in 1868. It always bothers me when I read that Little Women was simply based upon Alcott’s own experiences growing up. It implies that the story is autobiographical in nature and until recently, I thought it was. But the truth is, Alcott just used what she knew from her life, her sisters and her parents to create a fictional story, no differently than any other fiction writer. There are important differences between her real life story and the one she created in Little Women.

In one of my other posts (Literary Musings) you will see mention of a book (Susan Cheever’s American Bloomsbury) that details Alcott’s experiences growing up in Concord, Massachussetts with Ralph Waldo Emerson, Henry Thoreau, Nathaniel Hawthorne, Herman Melville. Alcott grew up very poor and this in turn motivated her to write, to try to support her family herself.

Louisa’s father Amos Bronson Alcott was a transcendentalist philosopher and education reformer and moved his family to Concord to live on Emerson’s property after his Temple School failed. He did not serve in the Civil War. Abigail was his wife. Henry David Thoreau also lived there and became one of Louisa’s teachers and he is the person she modelled her character Laurie after. Thoreau never married and died in 1862.

Louisa too never married. She was not even that young during the Civil War, her birth year being 1832. In 1858 the Alcotts moved to Orchard House  and it is there she wrote Little Women. During the Civil War, Louisa served as a nurse in Washington, DC. She had to get special permission to do this as she was a single woman. There she became ill and never fully recovered. During her years after, she was treated with mercury and this poison ended her life in 1888, just two days after her father died. She is buried in the Sleepy Hollow Cemetery in Concord.

Bronson and Abigail had four daughters: Anna, Louisa, Elizabeth and May. Meg was modelled after Anna. Anna didn’t marry until 1860 and it was her wedding that was fictionalized in the book. In 1877 with Louisa’s help, she bought the Thoreau house in Concord.

Beth was modelled after Elizabeth, but Elizabeth was not the youngest daughter. She was born in 1835 and died in 1856. She did contract scarlet fever from a poor family her mother was caring for, and recovered. Two years later, she died.

Amy was modelled after May. May was a prolific artist and studied art in Europe with funds from Louisa. Louisa published her first book Flower Fables in 1854 and was able to provide for her family like her father never had been. May married in Europe then died soon after giving birth. Her daughter named Louisa was raised by her Aunt Louisa.

Louisa May Alcott was a successful children’s book author and was adept at translating her life experiences into deeply moving fictional stories. We do her a disservice when we present Little Women as nothing more than a re-write of her life.