Treasure Chest Thursday: A Mate For The Bulldog

The frosted glass bulldog on the right was my father's and in the family probably since around 1915.  We once had a black one that my mom had picked up in the 1950's. I laid claim to the frosted one after my mom's passing as I remembered it since my early childhood.  I've looked for a match in countless shops for years with no luck. Last weekend we spent the afternoon back at the antique emporium where I had found 1953 Rockville city directory. About half way though and a hundred glass cases, there it was ! A perfect match! It wasn't black but a very nice green color with the light on it. It is an exact match right down to the same rough edge on the right ear. And yes the search will go on for the black one. 

Well I Guess Washington Didn't Stop Under our Tree

While surfing the web awhile ago, I landed on the town of Plymouth Ct web site. On the history page, there was a little story of General Washington stopping at David Smith' tavern and I said to myself that we had a David Smith in our tree. I went up the hill, to the library in Plymouth, to see what I could find and it wasn't much, just a picture of the tavern. I didn't have sources for this line so I needed to find if this was our David. My best bet would be looking though " Families of Ancient New Haven",By Donald Lines Jacobus. 
So on Monday, while the grandkids were in school I went over to the Kent NY library which has a copy. Its a new facility and has a wonderfull
genealogy research room. It's packed with books of the Putnam and Duchess county area, but also has quite a few CT related books.
 I took a lot of notes on  two David Smith family groups which stopped short of getting me to our neighborhood. I now have the source notes to help fill out the tree if  I find the connection to our Gideon Smith whose daughter married into the Barnes line. At the end of one of the family groups, a note mentions to see "Timlows Sketches of Southington, Conn. for children. So its off to find a copy and a search of World Cat and Archive.com revealed nothing, but good old Google gave me a hit. The actual name turned out to be " Ecclesiastical and other sketches of Southington, Conn."  and Google  has a copy on line. It was written by a local minister and contains local family genealogies. In most cases he did not follow a family once they moved out of town. I believe I have the correct family group now, as I found a Gideon, 6 Aug. 1763; d. in Burlington.  It looks like our Smith line traveled through Southington Ct. and not though Plymouth. So George was in the neighborhood, just not under our tree.
 And so the quest  goes on, looking for those Bits and Pieces !

WORDLESS WEDNESDAY: 6 WEEKS TO SPRING!

Wordless Wednesday/ 5 months to go!

Happy 101 Award

I've been sent the Happy 101 award by two of my favorite bloggers, Lucie Consentino at http://lucieslegacy.blogspot.com/ and  Linda Hiser http://lindasflipside.blogspot.com/. In order to accept I must list 10 things that make me happy and pass the award along to 10 blogs.
 Things that make me happy are the simple blessings of life.
 1.My Bride of 42 years
 2. My two daughters
3. Both of my son in laws
4. The 5 grandchidren of course and the amount of involvement we have in their lives
5. Enjoying our time up at the lake with friends and family
6. Catching a fish or not.
7. My new iTouch
8 Helping a friend with a home repair
9. a good cup of coffee while I run through my Google Reader List
10 Good health to enjoy my retirement.

As far as as the 10 bloggers go, my favorites have all received the 101 at least once and I'm not going forward this. I did go over my list so if I missed you pick up the award and tell us what makes your happy list.

2010, ANOTHER DECADE makes EIGHT !!

 As I sat with 2 of my grandsons (ages 10&8), sipping sparkling white grape juice, the announcers said 2010 was the start of a new decade. I thought to myself,"if I just make the next 10 minutes I''ll have lived during 8 of them". I wondered how much change they would see as they enter their 2nd decade. I know as I think back how much change I've experienced since the early 1940's. I don't mean just in technology, but in the stages of our lives.
 So I'm  thinking, one reason for my starting this blog was to relate some of my life, whether the grandkids want to hear it or not. I know some do or will, for example my 8 yr old grand-daughter I'm told spent an hour or so reading my blog a few weeks ago. And just today, my 8 yr old grandson broke in, as I was relating a family joke on our origins, and told with great glee how he told a friend the story.
And so all will not be lost and my my efforts not in vain.
 Speaking of vain, when I blog about these different decades, its about our families history really and not of myself.  I'll have to be careful as to protect the living so perhaps much will be just brief high lites.
 Just think, I started out in the 40's with just a radio and now I'm starting out 2010 with an iPod Touch.

Mike has arrived in the Gulf

My son in law has arrived at the Al Basra Oil Terminal in the Persian Gulf.
He will be responsible  for  the upkeep of the facilities. It's about 15 miles offshore and I don't think it will be that pleasant (it's a 1/2 mi long hunk of steel). His deployment is until Aug 2010.
Tomorrow we will be going to spent Christmas  with our daughter and the grandkids. My other daughter will join us on Christmas day. Hopefully we will be able to connect with Mike via Skype.
Merry Christmas to All