Postcards! We Got Postcards!
I've been meaning to update all you kind folks on the state of the postcard project - The Boy's memory is getting a little better now that he knows to look out for random postcards addressed to him and his classmates.
He was especially impressed with "Texas Tom," because he came home and announced, "Mommy! I got a postcard today but I don't think it's from our family! It's from Texas!"
Because everyone knows Texas is way too exotic to hold any of our familial clan, I suppose. So to all of you who sent a card, rest assured it was received - thanks again.
I'm just hoping this gets The Boy a better education in American geography than the one I had, because my 5th grade teacher was teaching a 5th/6th grade combination class, and she was a 6th grade teacher by trade, which meant that the 5th graders kind of did their own thing for much of the year. And as you may expect, our "own thing" did not include learning the whereabouts of any of the states not located on the East coast. So my knowledge of my own country's geography has been along the lines of "If I've been there, I know where it is, and if I haven't been there, Google is my friend." Pitiful, I know. So I bought one of those U.S. Map puzzles in the hopes that if I go on the show about being smarter than a 5th grader and I get a geography question I'll be able to answer it...
But I digress. The Boy's class still has a few states to go, if anyone out there is willing to send a postcard - and according to my Uncle, who is traveling the Gulf states just now, it can actually be a bit of a problem to just FIND a postcard if you don't live in a touristy town. So I appreciate the effort. Here are the states:
Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Email is bigarm at bigarmwoman dot com if you can help out.
He was especially impressed with "Texas Tom," because he came home and announced, "Mommy! I got a postcard today but I don't think it's from our family! It's from Texas!"
Because everyone knows Texas is way too exotic to hold any of our familial clan, I suppose. So to all of you who sent a card, rest assured it was received - thanks again.
I'm just hoping this gets The Boy a better education in American geography than the one I had, because my 5th grade teacher was teaching a 5th/6th grade combination class, and she was a 6th grade teacher by trade, which meant that the 5th graders kind of did their own thing for much of the year. And as you may expect, our "own thing" did not include learning the whereabouts of any of the states not located on the East coast. So my knowledge of my own country's geography has been along the lines of "If I've been there, I know where it is, and if I haven't been there, Google is my friend." Pitiful, I know. So I bought one of those U.S. Map puzzles in the hopes that if I go on the show about being smarter than a 5th grader and I get a geography question I'll be able to answer it...
But I digress. The Boy's class still has a few states to go, if anyone out there is willing to send a postcard - and according to my Uncle, who is traveling the Gulf states just now, it can actually be a bit of a problem to just FIND a postcard if you don't live in a touristy town. So I appreciate the effort. Here are the states:
Alabama, Arizona, Colorado, Indiana, Iowa, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Hampshire, Ohio, Oklahoma, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Utah, West Virginia, Wyoming.
Email is bigarm at bigarmwoman dot com if you can help out.
Thanks for your kind words, BAW, and I'm glad that Boy was pleased. If you are of pre-revolutionary Carolina descent then tell Boy that he DOES have Texas cousins. My family left Carolina just after the Revolutionary War because they fought on the wrong side, and decided that mustanging on the plains was better than being hanged in Raleigh.
Tom - I can't speak for Big Arm's side with certainty, but I know one side of my maternal grandmother's family can definitely be authenticated as pre-Revolutionary North Carolinians. A few years ago, I traced them back far enough to find a soldier who served in the Continental Army for a time. Hope he didn't shoot at any of your folks!
Tom -
We were indeed pre-Revolution, family wise. My people sort of got stuck up in the mountains in the western part of the state for a while, but after a couple of centuries we have made it all the way to Raleigh.
Slow but steady, that's our motto.
Thanks again!
Sorry for the delay. I fell into the clutches of the medicos, quite on a par with the Medicis.
I had an elderly great aunt on my father's side who became fascinated with family history in the early 1950s, and compiled extensive research. Every week or so she would come to her sister's (my grandmother) quilting bee and breathlessly report on her latest discoveries, until the day that she abruptly shut up on the subject. When she discovered that we were deported to Carolina as convicts from England, that we were indentured in timber operations there, that we fought for the bad guys in the American revolution, that we had a reputation as horse thieves in Mississippi & Texas she reported with gusto. What shut her up? She never said, but considering the people & times, she may have discovered a touch of the tar brush.
Me? I'd rather start a family than finish one.