Tag: ancestry

  • Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Time Moves On, But Human Nature Stays the Same

    Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Time Moves On, But Human Nature Stays the Same

    From the 1866 diary that inspired my first novel: Sunday, May 20, 1866 Milton, Lizzie & I went to Elmgrove to meeting. Got there before the Sabbath school closed. I read the 46th Psalm at the close of school; several were at meeting, no preaching.  After meeting we went to N Gause, took dinner, then…

  • Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Weather Delays

    Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Weather Delays

    On Wednesdays, I try to share passages from the 1866 diary of my third great-aunt, Mary Jane Edwards, whose journal has inspired my first novel: “Tuesday, May 8, 1866 This morning we undertook washing and during the day we succeeded in gathering the clothes into the rinse.  As it was rainy we did not put…

  • Reconstruction Diary Meditations: Words of wisdom in stressful times – from 1866!

    Sunday, March 11, 1866 We looked for the Ohio teachers on the morning train but they did not come & no word from them. We received a letter from home; they are well as usual. Change is going on among our friends & acquaintances: some are married, some are consigned to the tomb, since our…

  • We were on a quest

    The single-lane gravel drive through the line of trees gave a shady respite to the heat of the June day.  We snaked the car up the hill. According to the ochre-colored map, we had turned off old US 40 in the right place, but there wasn’t a tombstone in sight. In fact, as our tires…