The Weekend in Brief Review

My favorite parts of this weekend:

*Going to mass Thursday morning, all alone (meaning no kids with me, in this case--the church had other people in it). Fr. John, at the end, said the three things he was thankful for this year were his baptism, his priesthood, and his assignment at St. Pius V. Things like that are why I'm so glad he is at our parish. He's really good at cutting through flourish and BS and just saying what needs to be said. It's not an easy parish, for sure, but there are reasons why those of us who attend and belong there do so, instead of crossing over to St. Margaret's (just as close to me geographically, really) or head down to St. Cronan's or up to College Church. We're here for a reason, and it's nice to hear sometimes that other people like being here, too.

*Going downstairs after mass on Thursday morning and doing the math required to cut 126 slices of pie without going over and without having too much left over. This is my job on Thanksgiving and Christmas "cooking for the homebound with Sr. Dorothy Ann" (she should have a show on Food Network). I was the math teacher...and so I calculate what should be done pie-wise, since it is a variable that changes every year, as opposed to how many cans of green beans or how much instant mashed potatoes we need. Then I stood at the counter and sliced and served all that pie into the cold pack containers. I smelled like nutmeg and cinnamon and walked away having gotten to know a reasonably new parishioner, Doug, who had made, like, half the pies we cut, from scratch.

*Standing in the serving line filling the hot pack containers, between Doug and Mary, laughing light-heartedly at the stuffing and the green bean situation and having a nice time while we did this project. There are many service projects I have worked on and work on and will work on, and, frankly, this one has the most instant gratification for me. I get to spend the morning with people I like, who like me, we munch on homemade bread, apples, oranges, cut ten thousand pies and send it all out the door for lunch on Thanksgiving (we repeat this on Christmas Eve and on the Saturday before Easter). It's a different crowd than my other parish interactions--Sue, Mary, Alice, Dottie, Tom have been there every time but I don't interact with them in other ways for the most part. Dorothy Ann is great at giving everyone a job (she is keen about making sure people feel useful): Dottie is gravy, I am pies. Bibi makes the bread, Tom does dishes and keeps the hot line moving. And so on. It gets my holiday off to the right start.

*Eating at my parents' house, the best turkey I have had in years. They brine it overnight and it is yummy. My dad made cornbread pudding alongside instead of dressing, and that was amazing, too. More pumpkin pie. We stayed civil and peaceful and all was well.

*Sleeping in at my mother-in-law's house Friday morning. Kids played with cousins and I dragged my feet getting the day started. Then after I finally got my stuff together, Mike and I took a walk down to the Wonder Market for something to drink and then over to Mack's for lunch. It was good to get out on one of the last nice days and move a bit.

*And then come back to the house and take a 3 hour nap.

*Staying up late with Mike's brothers and their girlfriends and my mother-in-law and Mike watching mindless TV. In this case, AFI's top ten films in ten different categories. Seriously, where attention spans go to die. But we second-guessed their choices and put in our own opinions and I knitted my rear end off.

*Getting church ready for Advent today. Finding the ribbon that we thought was lost. Watching Sr. Cathy work her magic with draping fabric. Just being with Cathy and Mary and coming down from the weekend to something very normal. Hoping that it looks ok from the parish's point of view. And having Joe hand me a bulletin so I could read it before anyone else.

*Tonight, it's the neighbor's party up the street. We're going in shifts this year instead of a babysitter, mostly because it's the holiday weekend and I didn't want to push my luck with my babysitter. And so it begins.

Gardening is Patriotic.

Mike left this up for me the other day, thinking it would interest me. He knows me well. War Vegetable Gardening from 1918, which is a google books scan of a publication designed to get folks to plant their own dang food and leave the railroads free for the war effort. Reading through it, it's probably the best basic gardening text I've seen--although I think I'd avoid using something called lead arsenate on my vegetables. And I could have used some more tips on how to grow watermelons--they basically say "don't bother this year unless you've done it before." But their tips on squash vine borers are the same as my neighbor gave me a few years back--Ann is our resident gardening expert.

It's also a home storage guide, including how to turn your urban cement-floored basement into a root cellar. I'm not there yet, mostly because I don't grow anything that stays--no carrots, potatoes, hard squash--but maybe someday. It was well timed, to read it, because after this year's harvest of green tomatoes, I was thinking I'd better just throw in the towel and grow parsley and hot peppers. Admit that I'm not good at this.

It doesn't matter that I'm not good at it. We took down the mulberry tree last month and there is sun back there now. I can make garlic grow anywhere, and green tomatoes are useful in their own way (and, with more sun...). I've had success with all sorts of greens in the past, and anything in the nightshade family seems to agree with the soil back there. I could try a vine again, couldn't I? Wouldn't it be great to manage to have fresh cucumbers?

Sigh.

There's a part of me that knows that growing my own food is important from a conservation angle, too. I don't have much space, and I do support a CSA, but if I could also manage to bring other plants to life? Isn't that promoting good use of the earth? It's not like I'm obsessed with manicured lawns or something like that. I'm allergic to grass. I hate mowing. The kids have their area for play, and the caged garden area is already built. Planting it with only parsley and (squirrel proof) hot peppers is wasting it.

But I must be realistic. This past summer, I had morning sickness forever and the garden suffered greatly. Next year, I will have a newborn at planting time and a full-fledged baby at peak weeding-fertilizing-tending time. I can't commit to planting heirloom seeds in my kitchen on my due date and coaxing them into strong healthy seedlings. It isn't going to happen. It's going to be 4 or 5 tomato plants from Home Depot and maybe, just maybe, a cucumber vine.

Garlic, hot peppers, parsley, too. But those would have happened anyway.

Double Post from Alphabridge: W is for Winter

Sometimes in Winter...

Mike wakes me up as he goes to bed. I crawled into bed at 8:30, but now it's 10:45 and he's home from going out with Rob. We chat a moment, and then almost immediately, like taking a stage cue, he is asleep. And I am awake.

The heat is on, and it is too hot. The ceiling fan, however, would make it too cold. The electric blanket is off, rejected for being too hot. But the vaporizer blowing near me is making me too cold. I took off the flannel pants for being too hot, but the jogging shorts have now made me too cold. I roll over on my side, inhaling the breath from the vaporizer--literally, since ours is shaped like a penguin that breathes on you, and stare at my bedtable.

Vaseline. Vick's Baby Rub (the same idea, just made from eucalyptus and rosemary). Chapstick. Saline nasal spray. A glass of water that really should go down to the dishwasher in the morning. Neosporin and bandaids, but, actually, those aren't for me. That was for Sophia before bedtime, a little annoying cut on her knee. If I ever needed a photo of what winter means to me, I've got it right here.

It's not even winter, technically. And the part of me that worries about global climate change welcomes winter with open arms. Please be cold, please snow, please ice our streets and make me want to shoot myself trying to park my car. But the rest of me? The parts of me that have to endure our freezing bathroom as I step out of the shower? The part of my brain that decides to hibernate, making the rest of my brain sad and befuddled? We hate winter.

Maybe it's because of too many years in Texas. Too much reliance on forced air heat? Maybe just the reality of how exhausting ice storms are, and in St. Louis, that's the typical precipitation for winter. We do get snow, which is pretty and energizing and usually gone in three days' time. But we get ice. Sometimes we get ice on top of snow on top of ice. And the city does not plow our street, as it is tertiary (side street) and unneeded for emergency vehicles. Never mind that the fire house on the next block often heads up the wrong way on our street in the winter time, scooting around on the ice, endangering parallel parked cars.

The dry skin, the nosebleeds. My hair, oh God, don't talk about that. I get this fuzzy dullness, starting right about now and lasting until I can smell spring in the air, in the thawing mud in my backyard. Little things. Like yesterday, I couldn't remember the other name for garbanzo beans. My vocabulary starts to slip away and soon enough, I'll be reduced to "Cold. Close the thingy. Hurting me."

And we live in a mild area. Really. It's a river valley, where two of the biggest rivers in the US meet, in fact, Missouri and Mississippi. So we don't get blizzards (I've had this explained to me but it's too late in November to remember the logic) like they do just west of us. It's more than the "heat island" effect, too. It's the humidity and the standing water or something. So we get, like I said, pretty little snowfalls and picture-perfect icings. Except when the icings get too heavy. And electric transformers blow. And trees crack and all of it crashes to the ground sounding like glass shattering all over the neighborhood.

I hate it. That doesn't make me very original, I know: wow, she hates being cold! How novel! I have tried for 16 years of living here to embrace winter and be excited and happy about those crystal blue skies and bright white sunny days and hot chocolate and good slippers. But you know what? I'm not an Austrian nun. No warm woolen mittens or schnitzel with noodles (what the hell is that?) is going to make me happy until it truly does melt into spring.

At which point, I will wring my hands wondering if winter was long enough, if my kids saw enough snow to satisfy, if it means we'll have a scorching summer or a mild snooze in the hammock. I'm never happy about the weather.

Amusing Bible Story Link

I just discovered Rev. Dave's blog via Stephen's (we both comment). And I get curious sometimes and went over to take a look-see. He has written a list of favorite bible stories from the Old Testament which is just wonderful to read. This is not a heartwarming list containing Ruth and Naomi supporting each other, or even amusements from the Book of Jonah. This is mostly Pentateuch, and the stranger bits of it, at that. It's worth reading in your spare moments.

Stand By Me

My mom sent the video to me. It's a small thing, but it's nice.

Summer and Autumn of 2000

One of my readers is going through a tough time, recently miscarrying in early pregnancy. It's one of those unenviable moments when I can say, "yeah, me too" and mean it. There are many things I can't relate to: my parents are alive, and young; my kids are healthy and strong. Mike has lost one job, total, since I met him, and he was re-employed within a month. I can say, "yeah, I have bad hair, too," when the topic comes up (actually, I've embraced the curl and am doing much better), or "I used to live in Texas/Oklahoma/California/etc, too," but there isn't any grief or worry involved with those things. But there is in this one case, and it got me thinking back to July 6, 2000, and everything that went along with that moment.

I'd gotten pregnant in early May. Baby was due February 11. First baby, pregnant on the first try. First grandchild on one side; Mike's sister was due in August with the first on his side. It was exciting and hopeful. I didn't know how I was going to work out the job thing, being a teacher, but I figured I'd probably just leave for the semester and work it out over the summer. At that point I was still the golden child at St. Pius and they would have held the job for me, no problem.

I ran a summer school program that started in late June, running to early August. It was a math program, enrichment and remedial, and I had 8 students (but not the one that I'd devised the program for, unfortunately--he'd slipped through the cracks already and was gone for good). My students didn't know I was pregnant, but everyone else on Earth did.

A little bit of spotting...a trip to get some blood drawn. A little ultrasound in the office in the fumbling hands of my OB (there's a reason why there are ultrasound technicians). Couldn't find a heartbeat, but...maybe our dates were off?

It was our anniversary, our 4th anniversary, and the doctor called me herself and left a two minute rambling message on the phone. No, the HcG levels were wrong. It wasn't going to work out after all. I went upstairs and cried and bargained and wished. And then I called Kate Hartz, because I needed to cancel tutoring for that afternoon. I didn't want to see anyone or pretend I understood anything about algebra that day.

Kate came over. She'd never miscarried, but Rachel had been touch and go and her feelings were very strong. She was good to talk to. Mike came home later and we tried to adjust our thinking to trying again. That night, Mary and Elliot brought over Indian food and gave me something else to talk about.

The next day I called my aunt Gracemarie, who had gone through several miscarriages before her first child. It was getting easier to think about the future. I went back to the summer school program and proceeded to miscarry over the course of 6 weeks, finally getting the go-ahead to try again in late August.

In September, I wasn't pregnant yet, and I called in a panic. This will never work. The nurse laughed at me on the phone, but not like how you think that would go. She'd been the one in the office who'd gripped my hand while the doctor figured out why I was still bleeding six weeks later. She was the one who'd drawn my blood, who'd called with results, who'd been there and been good. And hearing her laugh, I know, sounds awful, but it was good. This was no big deal.

I went on the Pius Women's retreat that October (the one where Maura and I get picked up by the police stealing firewood). I sat talking to the blissfully pregnant Christina and could hardly handle it anymore. I remember talking, one more time, to the pastor that weekend and he sighed, rubbed his eyes, and told me I was so young.

We went to Rock Eddy for the first time that next weekend, sitting under the fall oak leaves, walking down to the Gasconade, making pancakes in the morning, working puzzles late into the night.

Ten days later, I was pregnant. And I spotted and panicked and never let myself admit that it might actually happen, that this baby would take the bait, would stick around. I had an ultrasound at 6 weeks, also in the hands of my OB: ok, lie as still as you can, hold your breath, it might be too early, but--do you see that? Heartbeat. I told you this one would take.

Sophia was born a year and 8 days after the miscarriage.

These things test your faith and make you see the world a different way. They grind down the rough edges. They make you grow up.

More St. Paul (Can You Tell Mike is Out of Town?)

He gets home tonight; got a deer yesterday, although smaller than perhaps we would have wanted. But that's ok--one of the guys Jeff (his dad) hunts with doesn't take the meat anyway, so we may get some of that, too.

Anyway, with the help of TXMama and the website that led me to find where the cemetery was in the first place, this is what I've learned. This kind of thing is right up my alley. I love Christian history, roots of schisms, history of St. Louis, and, I've realized, genealogy. So here goes.

In 1832, a group of German Protestants form Holy Ghost German Evangelical Church. In 1843, a group from the church leave to form the German Evangelical Congregation, which evolved into two churches: St. Marcus and St. Peter, which were divided only by geography. Then in 1848, St. Paul's congregation was founded as another splinter, and admitted to the Evangelical Synod of North America. I'm having a hard time figuring out the roots of this denomination--Luther or Calvin? I'm not certain. Words like "evangelical" and "reform" seem to apply to different sects of both types. But what I do know is that St. Paul's builds a church on S. 9th Street, which today is known as "Ninth Street Abbey".

Services are conducted in German; they have a parochial school. They started conducting at least some services in English around 1909. They relocated in 1924, selling the building to Holy Trinity Slovak Roman Catholic (which eventually dissolved and, thus, it became a catering business).

Denomination-wise, the Evangelical Synod of North America merged with the Reformed Church in the United States in 1934. This would be long after any of my relatives were a part of this church (if indeed they were to begin with, but that remains to be sought out and documented, probably after the holidays). St. Paul's remained a member of this denomination, which then merged in 1957 with the Congregational Christian Churches to form the United Church of Christ. Which explains why this church, which I had assumed to be some type of Lutheran, was now listed as UCC.

So records are not at Concordia--according to what I've found, I might have some luck at the church itself, which is just across Grand from St. Pius, actually (right by Fanning Middle School). Otherwise, there's microfilm at the HQ of St. Louis County Library, or I might be able to find something, by appointment, at Eden Theological Seminary. I'm thinking I'll be heading to the library. I like to hunt on my own when I can. And I have other things I probably want to look at there, anyway.

My hunch? I'm not going to find anything. I figure St. Michael the Archangel Catholic Church, razed in the 1950s, is my best bet (those records are at the diocese). And after that, St. Henry's, which is where my grandfather was baptized and may be a good starting point if St. Michael's doesn't come through like I think it might.

But I will look at St. Paul's, too, just in case Jennie converted or, which seems less likely, everyone else around her started out Evangelical Lutheran and then converted to Catholicism.

But that's a project for after the holidays, I'm realizing. Too much to do in the next month. Way too much!


update:
Here's an interesting article about the Evangelical Synod, which helps clarify a bit, in case you are similarly fascinated by roots of modern Christianity. It seems that this Synod united German Reformed (Calivinist) and German Lutheran churches here in the US, but with a strong leaning towards the Lutheran end of things. Actually, here in St. Louis. And here is a link to the history of the Missouri Synod, which also had the word evangelical in the original name until it was shortened to Lutheran Church--Missouri Synod. I find these things so intriguing, that two groups of German Lutherans were living in Missouri but wound up making small shifts in their denominations to the point that they are now Missouri Synod Lutherans and United Church of Christ. And, lastly, a Missouri Synod page giving some basic differences between the two today.

Jennie Tales

Also long and boring unless you are my sister. But this isn't fact-based. This is, well, squishier than that.

Jennie, my grandfather's grandmother, died the year before he was born. At the time, she was living with her son and his wife, Edward R. and Anna Blake. They only had one child then, Edward J.

When Jennie lay on her deathbed, she told Anna, in view of witnesses, that she cursed her "to a thousand deaths." In my grandmother's notes (she would be Anna's daughter-in-law), she writes, "Of course Anna always said her mother-in-law Jenny put a curse on her." A thousand deaths, I don't think, is one of the things you want to hear wished upon you when your husband's mother dies (Mary Helen: let's not get there). Anna did die of cancer which ran rampant through her body slowly consuming her over decades of suffering. But that's all I'll say. I do know that Anna was the superstitious sort, and I think Jennie was probably a force to be reckoned with. And possibly the kind who would play on the fears of others, even at the moment of death.

Anna took Jennie's picture down when she died--until that moment, it had hung above their bed. She hid it in the attic, where it remained until my grandparents took it home (now my aunt has it).

Anna swears that Jennie appeared to her after she died, and this apparition caused her to "lose her milk" while she was breastfeeding her son Richard (who becomes, later, my grandfather). So she switches to what passed for baby formula back then--eagle brand milk with molasses. Which I'm sure worked like a dream.

All that I have from at least two oral histories--my father's and my grandmother's. But this next bit is more like a ghost story you tell your kids or nieces and nephews. For instance, the number 3 figures prominently, which seems to go along with the fairy tale significance of three (three meaning an example of any given item (three pigs, three bears), events happening in threes to establish a pattern (like the billy goats gruff, also three, and the first two are eaten but the third succeeds; Goldilocks does three naughty things in the bears' house, and so forth)). And I don't know where I heard it. Perhaps from my father, or maybe my Aunt Chris. None of my other aunts and uncles make sense, my grandfather wasn't a talker, and my grandmother swears she hasn't heard this story. But where my dad or my aunt heard it?

When Jennie died, she left behind not only the curse on Anna, but also three rings: two wedding rings, one from each of her marriages, and a third ring with a center stone. Her son Edward couldn't be bothered with women's things, so they passed on to Anna. Anna, of course, was no fan of her mother-in-law, and she threw them out with the old clothes and bedding and everything else of Jennie's.

Three days later, Anna found the rings on the kitchen table. Not really thinking about how they might have come to be there, she buries them in the backyard to get rid of them.

Three days later, they're back on the kitchen table. At this point, Anna freaks out and decides she has to destroy them by soaking them in some sort of solution (lye? lime? something caustic). And three days later, the rings are completely untouched by the solution. Gold doesn't react to much of anything, so it isn't that surprising that they came out just fine. I don't know what happened to the rings in the end, though. Maybe she gave up and put them in the attic with the picture. Their house is torn down, but is on an otherwise intact block of Allen St. Maybe I should get a metal detector.

Anna kind of lost it after that, walking back and forth on her front porch with a crucifix and mumbling a lot. And then, of course, she got cancer and spent 20 years dying. Only to wind up buried 8 feet from her mother-in-law.

Jennie Blake, As Far As I Know: For Colleen

This is going to be terribly long and boring. Unless you are my youngest sister. We've got this ancestor--the Jennie I went to visit this week. And she's mystifying to us due to the layers and layers of creepy stories about her we were brought up on. What I have here isn't my conjecture. This is my grandmother's conjecture, added to census records and birth records and so forth. Starting from the beginning, at least the beginning of my knowledge:

Jennie was born in Illinois. She has two brothers: Edward (of course, another Edward...) and Henry Daniel. Her father was probably Henry (based on her death certificate, which lists his name) as well, and from "Great Britain" which sometimes was marked as N. Ireland (in the census that distinguished between Northern and the "Irish Free State"). Don't know who her mother is or what her maiden name might have been--all the cousins and nieces and so forth who show up over time I can trace to Henry's and Edward's lines. Nobody more distantly related comes into play, so there aren't any guesses I can make. She also had a sister or a cousin named Lizzie. Cousin is more likely because her parents' birthplaces don't match Jennie's (GB and mother from Illinois; Lizzie's are from GB and Kentucky, which is also where Lizzie was born).

So, Jennie doesn't exist officially in any census that I can find in 1870. This is hugely frustrating. She was born in 1865, so she would have been substantial enough to show up, I would think. There's no record of the brothers (one older, one younger) either. But then in 1880, she might be a boarder in St. Louis, living on Division Street with a widow named Helen Waite and her daughter Lulu. It's the best match I have to go on, assuming she wasn't already married at 15. The 1890 census was destroyed, so there's a twenty year lapse, and then she shows up in St. Louis, already Jennie Blake.

Between 1880 possibly living with the Waites and 1900 with my great-grandfather still a toddler, a lot happens. She marries a man named Leonhard Etter and has 9 or 10 kids, but only 3 survive infancy. I have records of 5 of those births--the other 4 or 5 are based on her own word in the 1900 census. Joseph, Francis, and Alice are the three surviving children. Leonhard dies in 1896. She lives with Leonhard's father Joseph and a brother-in-law, also named Joseph.

Was she Lutheran? I don't know. I do know that she was not Catholic by the time she married Edward D. Blake. And it wasn't that she converted when she married Leonhard--he and his father are both buried at Sts. Peter and Paul (Catholic cemetery in St. Louis). Also, I know her brother Henry D., his wife Rose, and several of their children are buried in Catholic cemeteries. So she was likely raised Catholic and left, or just by sheer coincidence her brother converted, her first husband converted or was Catholic already, and she just didn't. I don't know.

So in 1900, she's there with her new husband, Edward D. Blake, whom she married the same year Leonhard died. They have a son, Edward R. Blake. And she has three Etter children along with the father-in-law and brother-in-law.

Between that census and the next, Francis and Alice both die. Francis dies of Phthisis Pulmonalis, which is the fancy way back then of saying tuberculosis of the lungs. He is 18. Alice marries a man named Tony Avers and has a baby die at birth. Then she dies of chronic hepatitis at age 20. Jennie's husband Edward D., is dead of emphysema at age 36. Jiminy. So of course, Jennie, still living with the father-in-law (the brother-in-law is married and gone), invites her own widowed brother Edward and his three daughters to live with them. And by 1910, she has two unrelated boarders as well. They've left north city and now live on S. 13th St., which of course was razed for the Darst-Webbe Housing Project in the 1950s.

She lives another 9 years, dying of acute nephritis complicated by chronic hepatitis (hmm, maybe I should lay off the bourbon slush...). And then she's buried in a German Lutheran cemetery. Where she is later joined by her son Edward R., and daughter-in-law Anna. It's not so strange that they're there, frankly--the family had the plot, might as well. But it is mysterious that both of Jennie's husbands were buried in Catholic cemeteries, as were the children who died before her.

My grandmother tells it that Edward R., upon marrying Anna, converts to Catholicism (which is mystifying considering everyone around him besides his mother obviously was). Perhaps everyone was Catholic, but as time went on, she stopped attending, and never had Edward R. go to church either. Could be.

Or it could be that Anna, her daughter-in-law, hated her so much that she prevented a Catholic burial somehow. I don't know. Maybe she was just bad. This is a strong theory. Catholic but not in the state of grace?

Maybe there was a sale at St. Paul's Churchyard.

Next up: spooky things I was told as a child.

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Crappy Gift Idea

Let me say this as clearly as possible, especially to my brother, all my child-free friends, and my parents: if something like this were to show up as a gift for one of my children, ever, I will move and not tell you where.

But in the interest of full disclosure, here's the link to these disgusting items. As Mary says, do you really want your children snuggling with these??

One of the signs that perhaps, as a consumer culture, we've gone round the bend.

St. Paul's Churchyard

Ever answer a question and have more questions to ask? I went to St. Paul's Churchyard yesterday with Maeve after picking her up from school. My handwritten family history notes from my grandmother, Penny, said that's where Jennie Blake was buried. This seemed odd to me, since I knew her husband, who died 15 years earlier, was buried at Resurrection (or possibly Calvary or Sts. Peter and Paul--one of the many Catholic cemeteries in town). Her daughters who died before her (both, I believe, in childbirth) were there, too. Her children who died in infancy are in Catholic cemeteries. Her mother-in-law, her father-in-law (who committed suicide, to boot), her first husband, her first husband's family: everyone was laid to rest in the St. Louis Archdiocese consecrated ground.

So at first, reading the information, I thought for sure Penny had it wrong. She means Sts. Peter and Paul. Not St. Paul's Churchyard. Why would she be there all alone? But you can search the archdiocesan records online. There is no Jennie Blake. There is no Genevieve Blake, if that is possibly her given name. No Blakes who died in 1919. No one. So I called St. Paul's. Yes, she's here. I'm coming out today.

St. Paul's is on Rock Hill Rd., which is the other half of Tesson Ferry (it changes name at Gravois). It's built on what used to be part of General Grant's farm (what isn't, really, down that way?). If it seems a far away location compared to where Jennie lived in the near north side, you're right. The cemetery used to be a Gravois and Wilmington, but in the mid-1920s, the city decided nobody else could be buried in the city limits (I think that's how the story goes) and the church decided to move their cemetery out into the county.

St. Paul's is an evangelical German Lutheran church. I haven't investigated its family tree more than that, although it appears to have broken off St. Marcus' at some point (another defunct cemetery down near Gravois and Kingshighway). I don't know if St. Paul's still has a congregation or if it merged, died of natural causes (attrition) or joined another denomination. The cemetery's sign says non-sectarian.

The office is across the street, an ordinary house, and the groundskeeper met me there. Took me across the way and we easily found her headstone. I stood there a minute with Maeve. This is my grandfather's grandmother. It's weird for someone with no roots in her own life to stand so close to her actual roots. Then the groundskeeper handed me the photocopy of the record that I could keep. I looked at the little handwritten record.

Jennie Blake. And Edward R. and Anna Blake, right there behind her. Edward R. is Jennie's son--they are my grandfather's parents. And they're here in this little cemetery, too. And, most strangely--no, just more strangely--Sylvester Smugala is right next to Jennie. Buried there in 2003. I asked the guy if he knew who that was, and he pointed to the top of the little record--the contact person for the plot is a Bea Smugala. Oh. That's right. My grandfather's youngest sister. So her second husband is buried next to her parents and grandmother. Of course (later I learned from my mom that Bea is still alive, so it made it less odd--perhaps Bea will join them there). But MOST strangely is that in the same grave as Jennie, marked with another handwriting, "buried deep" is a woman named Helen Dawes.

I don't know who Helen is.

She was buried there in 1937. She is in the same grave (Jennie was originally buried in the old St. Paul's, and moved with everyone else in 1925-ish). She has no headstone.

I know Jennie's maiden name is Dawes. I guess this could be an unmarried sister. Or a sister-in-law. Perhaps a cousin. I know Jenny had a brother named Henry who had a bunch of kids. Maybe a niece. And it was 1937 and who could afford a headstone: bury her at St. Paul's, we have a plot there.

It was a lovely day--bright blue sky and leaves coming down from the trees. Maeve and I walked along, took pictures of the less puzzling headstones (some in German, which makes sense considering the congregation). Talked about death rituals and belief. Seriously. She freaks me out sometimes. And then we went to the fabric store. To cleanse the palate.

Just the way it works

On Thursdays, Maeve doesn't go to preschool. She goes to Atrium in the afternoon but doesn't have to wake up with Sophia and get dressed, eat breakfast, and so on. This is the day she can hang out in pajamas and watch cartoons and play legos and read books and all that.

Monday, Tuesday, and Wednesday of this week, I actually had to march up to the third floor and lift her out of bed and take her downstairs to dress her while she groggily came to life. She made Sophia late on Wednesday, in fact, dragging her feet on any number of things she was supposed to get done before we walked out the door.

This morning, Thursday? She came down--bounded down--the third floor stairs. "Today is Atrium!" she announced.

"But Maeve, Atrium is after lunch," I tried to persuade her to go back upstairs. But she was not going to be swayed.

She was dressed before Sophia. She ate breakfast with Sophia. She said she wanted Mike to take her with to drop off Sophia. I tried to bribe her with a movie (hey, Thursday's the morning I hang out in pajamas and kind of snooze on the couch myself). No go. She's going through an illustrated children's version of Lion Witch and the Wardrobe right now, narrating the story page by page. She's already asked to play with friends. She's awake. And I don't like her very much right now.

No, I like her just fine. I guess I'll go put the coffee on and hole up on the couch a little while with my knitting. I've got stuff to do, too.

I Award You This Award

Texan Mama thought I was worthy of this smile award today, which was well timed because I have spent the last 2 days with foot in mouth, and not the disease that kids pick up at preschool. Just realizing oops, I said that, and now I need to go make amends. It is the way I sin. I do not steal things, I do not commit adultery. I don't tend to be jealous or greedy or miserly or any of that. I SAY things. And then later I realize, there, I did it again. So maybe I don't learn from my mistakes right away, but I am more aware of them.

The person/blog who gets this award demonstrates the following:
A. Display a cheerful attitude.
B. Love one another.
C. Make mistakes.
D. Learn from others.
E. Be a positive contributor to the blog world.
F. Love life.
G. Love kids.

The Rules:

1. Must link it back to the creator.
2. Post the rules.
3. Choose 5 people to give it to.
4. Recipients must fill the characteristics above.
5. Create a post to share this.
6. You must thank the winner

Ok, so I don't think I'll pick 5 people--Tex picked just three, and I think I'll just pick one, and that would be Annie over at Annie Knits because, girl, you are all those things plus a formidable woman. With huevos grandes you must keep in a drawer in your kitchen. Don't feel like you need to pass it along, but just to say you made my day--no, my whole month, this week.

Meme: Children's Books

I've done this with adult books, like "the most unread" and "banned books" and so on. Here's a list of classic children's books--pretty canonical as children's books go (no Captain Underpants here). Simply take the list -- bold those you've read, and add some commentary if you have any...

Millions of Cats, by Wanda Gag Zzzz.
Angus and the Ducks, by Marjorie Flack
Caps for Sale, by Esphyr Slobodkina The only book in my first classroom that I had multiple copies of (a full classroom set, actually). But you can only do so much with it.
The Man Who Didn't Wash His Dishes, by Phyllis Krasilovsky
Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel, by Virginia Lee Burton I'm just not the biggest fan, although reading aloud while pregnant makes me teary.
Babar, by Jean de Brunhoff You know, I never caught the thinly veiled colonialism in this book as a kid? It wasn't until my undergraduate years.
Madeline, by Ludwig Bemelmans I just can't like Madeline. And what's with Miss Clavell, anyway? Is she a nun? No one else dressed like that in the book, but she wasn't Sr. Something. What's up with her?
The Runaway Bunny, by Margaret Wise Brown
Green Eggs and Ham, by Dr. Seuss Of course.
Bread and Jam for Frances, by Russell Hoban, illus. Lillian Hoban This is a useful parenting book.
Harold and the Purple Crayon, by Crockett Johnson I just can't like Harold, either. Harold and Madeline.
A Hole is to Dig, by Ruth Krauss, illus. Maurice Sendak
In the Night Kitchen, by Maurice Sendak I do like Maurice Sendak, though.
George and Martha, by James Marshall
Sylvester and the Magic Pebble, by William Steig Just weird.
Harry the Dirty Dog, by Gene Zion, illus. Margaret Bloy Graham
Blueberries for Sal, by Robert McCloskey
Mr. Rabbit and the Lovely Present, by Charlotte Zolotow, illus. Maurice Sendak
Ira Sleeps Over, by Bernard Waber
A Color of His Own, by Leo Lionni
A Whistle for Willie, by Ezra Jack Keats
The Beast of Monsieur Racine, by Tomi Ungerer
Strega Nona, by Tomi De Paola
Eloise, by Kay Thompson, illus. Hilary Knight Eloise, Harold, and Madeline, actually.
Brown Bear, Brown Bear, What do You See? Bill Martin Jr., illus Eric Carle
Freight Train, by Donald Crews
Frog and Toad are Friends, by Arnold Lobel Arnold Lobel is wonderful.
Jamberry, by Bruce Degan
First Tomato, by Rosemary Wells
Hondo & Fabian, by Peter McCarty
My Friend Rabbit, by Eric Rohmann
Tuesday, by David Wiesner Lovely wordless picture book. Really, really fun.
Zin! Zin! Zin! A Violin, by Lloyd Moss, illus. Marjorie Priceman
Charlie Parker Played Be Bop, by Chris Rashka

Nutsy: Babies Make Me Crazy

Nutsy was, well, reminiscing on her pregnancy experiences and was happy to see that someone rolled with it better than she did.

Sure I do.

With Sophia, I was 50 pounds overweight before I started. I had high blood pressure almost immediately. I didn't gain much weight, and luckily was not diabetic, but I swelled up like a dead raccoon on the side of the road. My doctor, who did not speak in very direct ways, wanted me on bedrest but I refused because I felt I owed it to my classes to continue to teach. Stupid. School let out and immediately to the couch I went. I wound up with a failed induction, a hospital-borne infection (e.coli, I highly recommend not getting e.coli), an emergency c-section, a baby who wouldn't latch on, and 4 different antibiotics intravenously for each of us. Sophia blew 9 IV lines by the time she left; I did just about as many. Later we found out one of the antibiotics was ototoxic, which led to series of hearing tests and just sort of this hopeless caught up in a machine kind of feeling. That lasted for, oh, 3 years. She did finally nurse, in fact, she was hard to wean when it was all said and done. Two weeks in the NICU meant she didn't like darkness or quiet. It was great.

With Maeve, I put on 40 pounds. Forty. I didn't swell and my blood pressure was fine, but my feet died. Plantar fasciitis. I didn't sleep the entire 3rd trimester, I'm confident of that. I became obsessed with the drug dealers on our corner, doing surveillance from my porch late at night. I was also completely obsessed with going natural this time--avoiding the c-section which loomed in my thoughts as the root of all the problems Sophia and I had afterwards. This of course was a gross simplification of our experience. I had a high amniotic tear, which meant I couldn't pick anything up, bend over, go up steps, etc., without leaking fluid. Fun! I got anemic that pregnancy, and sciatica reared its ugly head. And then, to top it all off, a 52 hour labor followed by a less-emergency-than-simply-realistic c-section. It was a wonderful birth experience, over all, I know, that sounds totally insane, but it completely confirmed the idea that the first one was not my fault. I just don't birth babies. All the natural birth folks in the world can shake their heads at me, but listen to me closely: the term "died in childbirth" exists because it happened often enough they named it. I am so totally over that aspect of pregnancy and childbirth and so on.

So this one, until about a week and a half ago, was so easy. Like I could have phoned it in. Glucose levels: great. Blood pressure: 120/68 and consistent. Swelling: nothing that water and walking can't take care of. My shoes have fit the whole time. My wedding ring still fits. Now, the past week and a half has been overwhelmingly exhausting. Going to church this morning was a huge mistake. I was so woozy and tired and uncomfortable...and Maeve was there being, well, Maeve. My four hour nap this afternoon helped some. I have found (and I've said it before) that I can do one thing each day, and that's it. Today was go to church and the fabric store for cotton twill camouflage to make a tree stand blind for Mike. That was it for me. Tomorrow? I need to vacuum and make the ole Christmas list. That'll be it, I figure. Nothing more can be accomplished because vacuuming will do me in. Maybe I'll knit.

So I'm ready--I am more ready at this 7 month mark than I was with the other two. Maybe because it all came crashing down all of a sudden with this one? I don't know. But I'm ready to get back the things I've given up to be pregnant, which of course will seem laughable to those who haven't been pregnant, and those who have will just shake their heads:

1. Sleeping on my back
2. Drinking coffee any old time
3. Having a whiskey sour. Amaretto sour. Hell, whiskey and water. Margarita on the rocks. A martini. Listen to me closely: I'm craving alcohol, and not like a light beer. Like hard liquor. Christmas this year with no bourbon slush? I can't believe I'm even considering such a thing.
4. Bending at the waist to pick something up off the floor
5. Being able to roll over in bed without gripping onto the headboard
6. Having a conversation about, oh, quilt blocks or Sophia's spelling test, without getting verklempt
7. Did I mention drinking?

Ah well. Not far now.

We have a due date

Unless I go into labor before then, which is unlikely considering my track record, this baby will be born soon after 7:30 in the morning on January 20, 2009. This is later than I might have wanted (there are two due dates we're working on: mathematically, I'm due the 26th, but according to my ultrasound, the 21st). My doctor said his likes to go for about a week ahead of time, so I was thinking around the 14th. I was REALLY thinking that. I was thinking, hey, two months from now, I'll be completely done with being pregnant. But no. I tried, rather lamely, to argue him to the 15th, but I kind of really wanted a Tuesday (he prefers Tuesdays and Thursdays for surgeries), so I could be home by the weekend and all that. He gave me a funny look when I suggested the 15th, and I just wasn't feeling well enough to argue why I wanted to have the baby early. Because it's stupid to have your baby early. I mean, lungs are done by week 37 or earlier, everything is ok to go. But 39 or 40 weeks really is a better idea. Babies are a little chunkier, they breastfeed better, and Mike keeps mentioning that math skills get laid on top in the last few weeks. This of course has played out astonishingly in Maeve and Sophia (although Montessori gets a lot of that credit), so maybe it's so (Sophia was 39 weeks 5 days and Maeve was 40 weeks 3 days).

I was just...selfish, I guess. But in the end, what's 5 more days? Or 7? Can I suck it up and just do it? Yeah, I can.

We're having this baby at St. Luke's, which, according to their history page, opened their first hospital in St. Louis during the cholera epidemic of 1866. Which just kind of brings it back around to the conversations I've been having lately with sisters and other interested parties about how much more depressing it is to have urban poor ancestors compared to rural poor. My Germans didn't die of cholera. But that's a tangent.

So I guess I'll have to put a countdown clock on the side there. Countdown to Bridgett Getting Her Body Back (aka "I can sleep on my back again" aka, "Oh! A Baby!")

Maeve is Better; Sophia is Well

Kids are making it. Today is Grandparents' Day at school and both are highly focused on anything out of the regular routine. I will see what happens for me in the next few hours; I see the doctor for my regular appointment at 9:30. Looking outside at the rain, I realize I haven't been outside since Tuesday. How can that be?

Photo Friday (How Can It Be Friday): Autumn

I was going to do the standard leaf picture. Looking out my window, I see that the sweetgum is doing more than just yellow this year. And the quercus velutina next to it is a breathtaking burnt orange against the blue sky.

But this morning it is raining and they just aren't the same wet against the clouds. So this picture is from last October in New York with Ann. We walked out to a lighthouse on the Hudson. This was on the way back.

And what would be the next step?

Maeve has passed on the love. To me. I have many things I think about this right now, and none of them is particularly publishable.

Just my favorite LOLCat:
From I can haz cheezburger:

more animals

Anemia, Pregnancy, and More

Ok, so anemia is one thing. Plus pregnancy is not so great. But then add in a 4 year old vomiting every hour and a half starting at 4:30 this morning (it has slowed somewhat since 3 this afternoon)? Remember when I said I could do only one thing a day lately? Guess what today's thing was.

I'm going back to bed now. Waiting to see if I need to cancel Atrium for tomorrow. Waiting to see how I feel, too.

This sucks.

Oh. I know what it is now.

I googled for "rat poison 19th century" and found this blog entry dedicated to a product called Rough on Rats. That's certainly what it says there. "Poisoning Rough on Rats Suicide."

Here's another location with pictures in color. I need to go to bed now.

Looking for Ideas

What does this say? I know the first words are "Poisoning by" and the first word on the second line is "Rats" but I'm curious what other folks might think those other words are. I think the second word on the second line is "Suicide." But I'm not 100% sure about that. And I have no clue what the last word on the first line is. It's from a death record for Edward Blake, my grandfather's great-grandfather. It's from 1886 if that is somehow helpful, and his profession was bar owner. It worries me. But I kind of want to know.

Getting Used to Feeling Bad

So today I didn't feel so bad. Comparatively. Plus, I dropped girls off and came home and went to bed. Then I picked up Maeve and came home, fed her lunch, and went to bed. So I had enough energy to go to Irish Dance class, put gas in the car, and so on. We're home for a moment and I don't have enough time to go back to bed, but I wonder what might happen after I pick up Sophia.

I keep waking up to really vivid dreams, which makes me think I'm not sleeping well. The cats see me as a heat source and want to share space, sitting right next to me and staring at me. Waiting for me to roll over so they can lie down where I was, still warm.

I see the doctor Friday. I'm better than I was yesterday, which was the worst day thus far (I think I've been feeling bad for about a week or so, maybe longer).

This, plus the weather, is getting me down in a major way. It's too early in the year for seasonal affective disorder. In a better year, I'd still be out doing yard work, stuff like that. I've begun to realize I can do one thing each day. I can decorate church for the mass of remembrance, or I can vacuum, or I can make dinner (more than heating something up on the stove). I can't do all three. Yesterday I did too much.

Here's hoping that choking down iron-rich food (bleah) and getting back on the prenatals with iron will change this. Because this is beginning to feel like "normal" and it really shouldn't.

Barsabbas and Matthias

The first thing we need to do, of course, is pick a replacement.

We should vote.

No, I think Peter should just pick someone.

Really, we could draw lots.

[Laughter] But what would happen if we chose the wrong lot?

Are you saying there's already a decision that's been made?

No. Just, that.

If we put the right names in, it wouldn't matter which one we chose. It would work out. God would see to that.

Isn't it too important to just leave up to chance?

To God, you mean. Like I said, the right names to choose from and it'll be fine.

Whose names?

How about James?

Which one? Not, oh, are you sure?

Joses?

Oh, be serious. Barsabbas. Put him in.

Oh, and Matthias.

Barsabbas. That's a good choice. He's a strong leader, a good voice. Speaks Greek and Latin, you know. He's been there the whole time. Good man.

What about Matthias?

Not bad.

And?

Let's just choose. Here--the longer straw is Barsabbas, the shorter one is Matthias. Who wants to draw?

Come on, somebody needs to draw.

I think we need more names. What about James?

No, let's just do this. We have two names.

I still think we should just vote.

We're letting God decide.

I just. Ok. Never mind.

It's the short one. That was Matthias, right?

Huh.

Let me see those straws.

Are we wed to the idea of 12? Could we go ahead and just have 13?

Well, then, why not have 120? You have to limit it somewhere.

I still wish we would have put James' name in.

I think putting it to the people as a vote, you know, takes it off our hands.

Is it really that important? Seriously. We know what we're doing. He's just a fill in guy.

So.

It'll be ok.

Huh. I kind of--

Yeah, but that's not what happened.

Do you want to announce this?

Sure. Tomorrow, in the morning. I need to sleep on it.

You could still just pick someone. I mean, if you wanted to.

I think there's a reason for this.

Maybe.

We should have voted.

Stop it. Just, stop. No reason to argue the case now.

--------------------
I remember reading Acts 1 in 7th grade in Br. Stephen's class, wondering what Barsabbas must have thought about it afterward. Where did he go? Was he upset? Did he get over it? But now I wonder about Matthias, too. Did he live up to expectations? Did he defy expectations (in a good way, I mean)? Buyers remorse on the part of those who chose him? There are lots of ways to choose someone--consultation, interviews, lots, votes--did they ever wonder if they'd done it the right way? Or did they just have faith that it would work out in the end?

It's hard to not be chosen. It's hard to be chosen. It can also be hard, it turns out, to do the choosing. Huh.

I think it's called, umm, the domino effect?

So, pregnant women shouldn't become anemic. And if pregnant women, or a specific pregnant woman, does let herself become anemic, she shouldn't then get an intestinal bug.

Really.

And if said pregnant woman becomes anemic and then does succumb to an intestinal bug, she really, really, really shouldn't take a hot shower on an empty stomach.

She also shouldn't try to survive the second half of the day, including a Brownie Girl Scout meeting, on coffee and PB&J and promises of red meat once the meeting's over. Her bloodstream does not understand promises and believes it has been abandoned. So then said woman gets back home after the meeting and it's too late.

So it's no good.

Even if her husband has made dinner and she has an entire can of split pea soup in addition to dinner, it's no good. It's like being drunk. With restless leg syndrome.

So she needs to work on this. Pronto. Like yesterday.

Halloween/International Children's Day Pix

Ok, here they are. First up, Maeve as Black Cat. Black turtleneck, black stretchy pants, a feather boa for a tail, and some store-bought ears. A little face paint and voila.



Sophia as witch. This was a total Target special--and 40% off to boot three days before Halloween when I realized that, no, I wasn't going to manage to make a black dress this year. We already had the hat. Oh, and the broom? A mulberry branch plus dried grass. That I'm proud of, at least.

And these two below, I had Sophia pose for this evening, so her hair is limper and far more wind-blown than it was on the day of. Oh, and she had a button-down peter pan collared shirt on instead of this too-small polo thing. Otherwise, a pretty good representation. Note the toes. She spends a lot of time on her toes these days. And the look on her face? We're working on it. Plus, she lost another tooth today, thus creating a look reminiscent of my sister Colleen when my other sister Bevin named her (Colleen's) front tooth "Old Chopper." Here's hoping the other permanent teeth come in soon.




And of course, the coup d'etat of school costume making at the last moment, the "Irish" sash.

Beans, Pumpkin, Autumn

There is something satisfying about sifting through dry beans on a chilly November evening, preparing for the next night's meal. Black beans, that tomorrow with salsa verde, green onions, and colby cheese will be consumed in moments after simmering all day in the crock pot, are smaller than any other bean I cook with, and therefore usually don't need as much sifting as kidneys, pintos, or great northerns. But tonight I find a tiny clod of dirt in with the beans, almost the same color, the same as all the other clods I find in beans when I sift them before they soak.

I wonder where this dirt is from. All the package says is Product of the USA. I guess the south, for no good reason--maybe Minnesota is the capital of black bean production, for all I know.

The pumpkin is thawing in the sink to get ready for pumpkin spice cookie baking this evening with the girls. I've been out of touch with them lately due to more than a touch of anemia and all that comes with it. After dinner, the house will smell like sleepy windy autumn: ginger, cinnamon, nutmeg, pumpkin. Mike just ran out to refill our hot chocolate stock to complete the Saturday night.

Sophia is 7; Maeve is 4. How we got here sometimes makes me dizzy (or maybe that's the lack of iron again). I had this friend once back in college who said she wanted to do certain things for her kids at certain points, but she let the present slip through her fingers waiting for those moments. Tonight is perhaps one of those moments--the house is already clean, the oven is preheating, and Mike did a healthy day's labor chipping up the old mulberry tree. But tomorrow and the next day and the next: I need to be there, too.

So the beans go in the crock pot to soak overnight. The sweet potatoes are almost done. Mike will finish the bacon when he gets home (BLTs tonight, well, Bacon, Arugula, Tomato--the last tomato of the year, found by accident this afternoon). I head upstairs to think about what this coming week brings: girl scouts, children's liturgy, atrium, the continuing rotation of theme at church (month of the dead and of the harvest), doctor's appointment, parish council. Tonight, though, has nothing so pressing.

Buzzer going off. Better get down and finish up.

Update: Halloween Pictures Coming

I'm going to have Sophia put her Irish Dance costume back on after dinner tonight and I'll take a picture. Is it really a week later? How did that happen? And I have standard Halloween pictures, too, although only one of each girl. By bedtime.

FYI: Not Mad At Anyone

I got a message today, a case of mistaken identity (who knew there were so many Bridget(t)s on the internet?). And then a very nice reply that, yes, wrong person...And instead of hashing all that out, just a message to everyone:

I'm not mad. Not even a little bit. No point in that!

Peace!
Bridgett

Harvest

The harvest is plenty, laborers are few.
Mt 9:37

This Sunday our parish celebrates our annual Harvest of Justice mass. This is the Sunday when we especially focus on what we eat and where it comes from and through how many hands it passes. Each strawberry picked by hand, each bushel of tomatoes paid piecemeal.

When I started going to St. Pius V, I didn't think much about how I ate. I remember feeling uncomfortable when friends prayed for the migrant workers who basically brought us our meal we were about to consume. I wanted to stick to the blessusohlordandthesethygifts prayer we rattle off every day without thinking.

Change comes slow, but I do examine my life pretty regularly. I am not the same person I was at 18, or at 25. And now I look around at what we eat and I'm stunned at the change.

This is not a big pat on my back, at least, that's not what I mean to say. I still drink way too much coffee (although it is shade grown and fair trade, it's still coffee). When Edy's comes out with their thin mint ice cream, I have no will power. We like avocados. A lot. And sometimes, I admit, I buy frozen french fries that are commercially grown potatoes probably chock full of evil. Evil!

But on other things, changed a bit at a time. The road we've taken as a family has taken ten or more years to go from completely conventional/commercial food choices, with cheap being the deciding factor, to really thinking about what we eat, where it comes from, and through whose hands it passes.

I think it started, really, with apples. One year apples were reported as the most pesticide-laden fruit. So we stopped eating them until I could find a no-spray alternative. It wasn't that hard, actually. Then, we boycotted everything Nestle made due to their baby milk substitute (formula) pushing in the third world (Sophia was born by then and I was deep in La Leche League--we still avoid Nestle but I'm less likely to bring it up in conversation). After that, it seemed, anything was possible.

Now, we just rounded the corner on a half a year in our CSA. And besides the milk/cheese/butter/eggs that come to my house every two weeks, that's pretty much what we eat. About a pound of meat a week, supplemented with the deer Mike killed last November. We have taken to eating in season far better than I could have hoped. The strawberries are gone and no matter how much Maeve begs for them when we pick up those few things at Schnucks, I'm not buying creepy flavorless strawberries in November. I will wait until May and enjoy them.

We've eaten a lot of squash this year--summer and winter. Occasionally an object will arrive and I'll have to really think about how I'm going to use it. How many sweet potatoes and acorn squashes can one family eat? Except that these are chock full of good things we probably need to survive the winter. And they were grown by farmers who live within 100 miles of my house. Not in Chile or Southern California. So I'm going to eat them.

Another thing that's changed in the ten years: we don't throw food away. Now, yes, sometimes I'll peer into the fridge and realize that bowl covered with a plate contains leftover mashed potatoes dating back to the first world war, and they do go down the disposal. But we don't throw away food we haven't even eaten yet. That was something we were notoriously stupid and bad about along the way. We buy spinach with good intentions, and a week later, throw it away. It shocks me now. But we buy less, we take what we're given by the CSA, and I always say yes to free produce from my neighbor who has a garden that is successful (as opposed to mine this year, yikes). I learned to can and to freeze and how to make unappetizing things (beets) fade into the background.

And there are non-altruistic results to this. It's not all about saving the world. I'm not that good. For instance, it's cheaper. When nothing (except those fries or that ice cream) is pre-made, it's cheaper. And healthier--artificial sweeteners and high fructose corn syrup pretty much do not exist in our diet. My kids have a wide and varied experience of food and aren't afraid of new foods as a rule (although each of them has her moments). It makes me feel smarter, which of course is one of the things I seek out in an affirmation way all the time. If I can use nothing but CSA food and dairy in a week, I've done a good job and really had to think it through. And lastly, this whole eating in season thing really does make food taste better. This fall's apple harvest was the sweetest bunch of fruit I've ever eaten. Tomatoes get words to describe them that are usually reserved for red wines (smoky, earthy, bright). And even though I might be tempted, on a bad day, to down a dry pint of strawberries, I know they would not satisfy. Not at least until May or June.

Neighbors From the Past

So I've been doing this genealogy project. And maybe because I've personally blown around this country and landed here, my husband landed here, but we had no other connection than that, I just assume that the majority of folks just meet and get married. But not so much. Bear with me--I know you don't know who any of these people were.

My grandmother's parents are Mazie and Overton (yikes, by the way, those names). Overton's parents are Rosalie and William. Mazie's parents are John and Nancy.

I know that Rosalie and William were married before the 1880 census, and already had children listed in that census, living in St. Louis County. And I can find John and Nancy living with Nancy's parents with little Mazie in that 1880 census.

I was having a hard time figuring out Rosalie's past. I knew her father was Charles, but didn't have a mother's name. So I looked for Charles Weber in St. Louis, born in Prussia, married to a woman born in Kentucky. That's all I knew. I narrowed it to a single good choice, living also in St. Louis County, with children (remember, their oldest daughter Rosalie is already married and gone) whose names show up later in my family: Alexander, for one, and even more so, Edith. My grandmother is Edith, and all her siblings (8 of them) have family names. She's the only outlier, and seeing that perhaps her grandmother Rosalie's youngest sister was also an Edith made me think, yes, this is the right family.

It's a guess. I could probably hunt down a lot more at the Missouri Historical Society--the Broadheads are actually an important Missouri family (you want to blame someone for the separation of St. Louis County and City? That would be one of William's brothers...). But for the moment, I figured, hey, I've got this part figured out.

I clicked on the 1880 census for Charles and his wife (Elizabeth, born in Kentucky). And when the hand-written record appeared on my screen, I thought Ancestry.com had short circuited. This isn't their record...this is Nancy and John Aiken's...I scrolled down. Their next door neighbors (if that's how census takers did their job) are the Webers. My Webers.

So. Charles and Elizabeth's daughter Rosalie visits with her kids, I mean, they all lived in St. Louis County at the time. Her son Overton grows up knowing Mazie down the road--or at least, Rosalie knows Nancy and they play matchmaker. Overton and Mazie date, marry, move to Maries County to farm (why? WHY?) and have 9 kids. The youngest of those 9 is my grandmother.

They lived next door to each other. This is how families work and merge, I know. Just not MY family. My parents were not high school sweethearts. Mike's parents were...but that was an incredibly small town in comparison to the St. Louis area in the 1880s, even. My maternal grandparents met as adults with no family friends in common; my paternal grandparents...actually, I don't know how they met, but I know it wasn't that their families were close.

So this is something I never would have seen coming. I know, it's interesting to no one but me and possibly my mother and sisters. But it fleshes out the story, even fictionally, in a satisfying way.

Bridgett Goes to Vote

No line at my polling place, which is a nursing home 3 blocks from my house. It was a nice little walk on this most beautiful November day--63 degrees, clear blue skies, autumn leaves everywhere. My polling place has 3 precincts, and one of them had quite a line, but mine was empty. Mine is small, though, I think just a 6 block area.

I tried to feed my little ballot into the machine and it was jammed. But there were election workers crawling all over the place, and a woman with a key came and unjammed it--there were so many ballots in the box behind the counting machine that there was nowhere for my ballot to go. She stuffed the ballots back into the box and I slipped mine in, no problem. Number 444 in the 3 precinct area. Mike, who voted 45 minutes earlier, was number 308. If that rate continues through the day (who knows), that's about 160 voters per hour. Extrapolated over the day, from 6 a.m. to 7 p.m., that's 2000 voters.

But wait, there's more. Over at Shenandoah School, which would be where I voted if the city wasn't so danged gerrymandered, Ann's husband stood in line for over 2 hours to vote. I drove past the school on my way home from dropping off the girls at school, just to see. The line was over a long city block long. There was a news van parked on Tennessee.

Missouri doesn't have early voting the way many states have switched to. There are absentee ballots, but not like these newfangled polling places open for weeks ahead of time. So it could be crowded today. Unless you're in my precinct, of course.

One scene from this morning: driving down 39th Street to take kids to school, a young black man, maybe 20, with a black hoodie sweatshirt and baggy jeans, was walking south on 39th holding an Obama yard sign above his head.

Now that my part in this election is done, this election that's been going on since, it seems, the Truman Administration, I'm going to go buy cat food. No. Wait. Maeve goes to Irish Dance this afternoon. I'll buy cat food then. I'm going to take myself a little "I'm 7 months pregnant, doggone it" nap before picking her up.

Mike Goes to Vote

7:45 Update:
Walk over, don't drive. No place to park. I drove home and traded my car
for a jacket.

arrived at 7:15. Moved about half the distance to the door since then, but
still outside.


I go to vote around 8:30. I wonder how my attempt will work.

Ready?

Behold this and always love it. It is very sacred, and you must treat it as such. --Sioux aphorism


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Second Wind?

So it's 2:30. I'm up. Stupidly. Ancestry.com has sucked me in again. I've come to the point where I can go no further without upgrading to the international account. I have everyone else to the point where they leave the US (meaning, when they arrive in the US), and several threads go back much further than that.

I've come to the following points. Not really conclusions, but something:

My Germans moved here for money or to avoid conscription into the German Army. Or both. They knew where they were going and went there: in my case, Illinois or Missouri. Whatever happened after that is not so uniform (one winds up in St. Vincent's German Orphan Asylum, for instance, while several others turn into mediocre farmers, or fight in the civil war and lose a leg). But they came here as family groups and settled along the Mississippi. Vorberg, Wibbenmeyer, Grothoff, Eiler(s), Lohrum, Fox (Fuchs), Frick.

The English line is old and overwhelmingly complex. My mother's mother's line, via her grandmother Mary Winston Carr, dates back to Jamestown. This was dumbfounding. How her family went from that to dirt farming in the Ozarks is an interesting set of twists and turns--since the American roots there are so old, there's quite a bit to look at. Lawyers and mayors, doctors and sheriffs. This line winds up not of interest to just genealogists, but also historians. Which amuses me somehow. Broadhead, Winston, Carr, Swann, Walton, Eastin.

The Irish were all refugees from the famine or arrivals very soon after (the following year, so really, still part of it). Every single Irish ancestor in my line arrived between 1845 and 1853. Nobody before or after. None of them seem to have had a plan, winding up here and there. No married couples emigrated--only 18-35 year olds, all completely alone on their voyages. Not even sibling groups. The first generation takes on several occupations--farmers, house servants, teamsters, saloon owners. The lucky ones were in Northern New York; the rest settled in Kansas City, and, worse, St. Louis, living in areas on the north side that were razed by 1930 or so because the conditions were really that terrible. Blake, Kidney/Dwyne, Dawes, Aiken, Donnelly, Marion.

I have a single Scottish ancestor, Sarah Whitlock, who emigrates to Virginia with all the English. Many of the Germans, of course, were actually Prussians, but the actual locations are in modern-day Germany. A few were from Saarland, which puts them sometimes in France (but, once again, currently in Germany). And if you believe the information I've found, the deeper English roots jump the channel and join up into minor royalty in France. I'm not sure I buy that at this point. Too much Missour-uh in me: Show Me.

At times, reading this stuff was way too depressing. A lot of the children die. And not within a week of birth--those I usually assume were premature and I can't get too emotional--but lots and lots of 3, 4, 5 year olds. I know this is not uncommon but it got to me after a while, reading about 11 or 12 births and 2 children survive to adulthood. Mostly the Germans lost kids at this rate. My Irish didn't have so many children, which seems counter to stereotype, actually. Of course, the Germans were rural and the Irish were quickly urban (the Donnelly family does have quite a few on their farm in upstate New York, but the Dawes/Blake crowd were small families). My father comes from a family of 8 children, and I kind of assumed that past his father's family (of 4 kids), I'd find whole messes of Blakes. But no--one or two sons. That's it.

Lastly, names. Everybody gets the same damned name, all the time. I got so tired of reading about William Donnellys and Maria Angela Anna Theresia Wibbenmeyers. Edward Blake? Which one? And those English--can't think of a first name? Give your son somebody else's surname. So we get men named Winston, Carr, Garland, Overton. Can you imagine dating a guy named Overton? Every family had its set of names, so when I say "Richard" I'm obviously talking about Blakes, while "Theodore" means a Wibbenmeyer. And the English-speaking countries seem completely satisfied with single first names--Thomas, Richard, Jennie, Bridget, Ann. But those Germans seem to want to cover as many bases as possible. This happens not only back in Westphalia, but all the way to my grandmother's father, Peter Jacob Richard Paul Lohrum. He was born in the US. There's no reason for this.

I say this laughing, because our current plan for Baby's name is three names plus Wissinger. It might as well be Johann Sebastian Casper Stapel-Wibbenmeyer gedant Aussel (which is actually only a slight exaggeration).

So anyway, I'm done for a while. My sisters want me to print this out, or copy it somehow. And then I'd like to help my mother-in-law work on hers (the Baudinos and Stouts seem to have much shorter tenures here in the US). But I'm done with mine until I get up enough curiosity to see what the international upgrade might give me.