Matrilineal Monday - My Grandma's

Today I have been thinking a lot of my Grandmother's and their Mother's....I spent the day in the kitchen canning 17 jars of chicken for our food storage.  Well what does canning have to do with your Grandmother's you ask?!?!  Good question :)  I keep wondering if my Grandmother's canned at all.  It may seem like a silly thing to you but it goes back to what I have been talking about in some of my older posts about putting ourselves in the same footsteps as our ancestors.

I know that my Grandma Wavel Adamson canned, as I can remember eating her canned pears and peaches.  Did she learn about canning from her Mother, Bertie Pattee? I think I will call my Dad tomorrow and ask that very question.

In today's world, some women would be offended at the thought of spending their day in the kitchen with an older family member.  Why that is positively medieval...right? To do such a domestic chore as canning and spending the day learning such a chore from someone so much older. Young people sometimes find spending time with the older members of their families a dull and dreary day.  How sad that way of thinking makes me.  I quite look forward to the times I have teaching my own daughter and someday hopefully my granddaughters (WAY...way in the future) the things I have learned and spending time talking together.

I am currently teaching myself how to can.  I have resources such as books, internet and the occasional advice from friends.  And while I find this new education very satisfying.  How much more special it would have been to have a Grandmother around to teach me. 

I know that my Grandma Adamson canned...but what about my Grandma Timbrel, Helen (Burrows) Timbrel.  And if so did she learn from her mother Elma... Chances are that they probably did do a little canning but to what extent? As I work around the kitchen I always wonder these things.  Oh to be older and have more memories.  I wish I could have learned at the knees of these beautiful ladies.  So please if you have these types of memories treasure them and think of them often, they live on inside you. :) And if your of the older generations, share your knowledge (even if it's not in the kitchen) with the younger generations...no matter how much they resist...someday they will treasure those memories.

So thankful I still have the chance to make memories with my own Mother...last fall she helped me when I was learning how to make freezer jam.  And she is always up for learning when it comes to canning.  I think she spent most of her time with her Grandma Elma at the sewing machine. When she was very young, she would make all her own clothing. They did a lot of sewing together.  What precious memories she has of those times.

Now go make memories either with your grandchildren or with your grandmother...depending on where you are in your life... :) And treasure each and every moment...because life is beautiful and so very short.

The only picture I have of both my Grandmother's together Wavel G. Adamson, Helen M. Timbrel

Wordless Wednesday- George and Bertie Pattee

Love this photo of my Great Grandparents George & Bertie (Duel) Pattee.  We believe this is a photo taken shortly after they were married. 

George Lindsay Pattee married Bertie Free Duel on Aug 11, 1891 in Medicine Lodge, Barber, Kansas, USA.

Duel Family

One of the biggest problems with getting sick...well besides the sick part...is my inability to function and write.  I love my work and love writing about it.  But when you are not well, that all gets put on the back burner.  I have a ways to go till I am fully well but I am going to work on being better at getting some work done on the computer even while I am down. :D No worries though I will be up and at 'em in no time at all.

So that is this week's excuse on why I haven't posted in a while.... lol ;)

Two weeks ago, after my last post on William Tribble and his murder, I heard from a "cousin" that I have not met before or even knew of.  His name is Rick Hall and he contacted me with some information on the murder of William Tribble.  He is related through Margaret (Duel) Tribble's brother George Alvin Duel.  George Alvin is his Great Grandfather.  This makes us third cousins. Rick was able to provide me with some more newspaper articles on the death of William Tribble and the following trial of V.H. Albright.  Such a sad tale. Mr. Albright was found guilty of the murder of William Tribble and sentenced to just 4 years! That is crazy to me, for the murder of another person but times were different then.  I think Mr. Albright might have appealed his verdict and it might have gone to the Supreme Court but more research is in order, for me to tell you how much time Mr. Albright really did serve in the en.

Rick has also been so generous in sharing some amazing photo's with me.  And we are planning on working together to break down brick walls.  One of the photo's he shared with me I already had BUT I had a photo copy of a photo copy.  That picture was posted on ancestry.com by another cousin related through George Robinson Duel's first wife.  They had two daughters together and then for some reason George left her and she remarried his brother.  There is more work for me to find out what happened there.  Well, so the photo I have was a good photo just not very clear.  Then I received the one from Rick and it is very beautiful. 

Beautiful! Right....  George and Amy Duel are front right side.  Above them are their daughters Margaret (second from the right back) and Bertie (far right), George Alvin Duel is back far left.  I am not sure which one is which of the other three boys but they are Dexter, Heenan and Manford. 

While researching Dexter, I met one of his descendants and am hoping that she will be able to tell me eventually which one is Dexter.  She is working on getting some family photo's that her Grandma had.  I hope that she is successful, as she wants to preserve them.  I am a full believer in sharing family photo's so that no matter what happens, there is always a copy floating around.  See a photo I have posted and want a copy? Feel free to take it or email me and I will send you one. :D  Preservation is key to these precious gems.

When I did have time, I have been working on George Robinson Duel's children.  I did spend a little bit of time on his first two daughters with his first wife Sybilla.  And I had just moved on to Dexter (while waiting to hear from the Stillwater Library) when I heard from Rick.  In what little time I have had on the computer that has been the focus of my research, Dexter and his children.  Tonight, I got a little side tracked but I will tell you all about that in another post. :)