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Memorial Day Adventure
For our Memorial Day adventure this year, we decided to visit several ancestral cemeteries. This is the first time I've lived near where any of my ancestors lived, so it was interesting to me to find where some of them are buried.
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Christmas 1971
We'll be celebrating Christmas in Arkansas this year, in the house my grandparents were in the process of building 50 years ago. Christmas that year was one of best ones I remember. I was 6 years old.
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War Eagle Mill
Our adventures this past week took us to War Eagle Mill in northern Arkansas, for a bit of family history combined with a fun fall outing.
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MawMaw’s Bible
The fourth family Bible in my collection belonged to my paternal grandmother, Annie Matil Jarrell Ezell. She lived from 1919 to 2009. We called her MawMaw.
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Granny’s Bible
The third addition to my growing collection of family Bibles belonged to my great-grandmother, Kate Easley. We called her Granny.
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Girls’ Softball 1935
My Grandmother graduated from high school in the middle of the Great Depression. She and Granddaddy both attended the same small country school in southwest Oklahoma, though he graduated two years before she did. During her teen years she kept a scrapbook and a diary, both of which I am privileged to have. She had given me her scrapbook several…
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Home Remedies I Remember
When I was growing up we didn’t go to the doctor much. We didn’t have health insurance, nor much money, so my parents and grandparents usually tried to treat minor illnesses and injuries with home remedies first. Sometimes they worked. Sometimes they didn’t. My family was into healthy food and holistic treatments way before it was trendy. We ate lots…
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The Shumaker Bible
Heirloom Bibles: Part 2 The second family Bible I have inherited belonged to my great-grandparents, Ernest and Liffa Shumaker. It is even more tattered than the older Maberry Bible. The spine is split down the middle and the cover is literally disintegrating. Also, the first few pages are missing. However, much to my delight, this one does include Family Record…
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The Maberry Bible
Heirloom Bibles: Part 1 “You’ll be getting a package in the mail soon,” my mother told me last fall. “I will?” I asked. “What kind of package?” “Mama ‘Berry’s Bible,” she told me. “Seriously?!” I didn’t know Mama ‘Berry’s Bible was still in existence. Mama ‘Berry was my great-great-grandmother who lived from 1872-1949. I mentioned her last year when I…
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7th Grade Reading List from 1935
As I’ve been gathering and archiving family documents I came across this list of books my great-aunt Bonnie read when she was in 7th grade in 1935-1936. Aunt Bonnie was Grandmother’s younger sister. This would have been the school year following Grandmother’s high school graduation. I recognize a number of the titles as books I’ve read–some of them when I…