Happy Samhain, Halloween

 

Saying goodbye to a woman I never knew well, but who was loved by my ex-husband. I don't know what kind of relationship definition that is...I was first wife to him, she was third. Millie spent more years with him than either of his first 2 wives. I think they were happy.

We didn't spend much of our lives together.

But as I knew she had been hospitalized this week, I felt her and my ex's presence in my mediations.

May her spirit find it's way to the summer-land, and those who loved her have peace in their hearts.

Ancestors with heart disease

I have already listed my grandmother Ada Rogers, and invited her to be available to communicate with me through the Samhain (Halllow-een) thinness of the veils between the spirit and material worlds.

I just discovered that her death certificate says she died of heart disease at age 78. As a Christian Scientist, she never talked of her health, nor did anyone in my family growing up.

But Ancestry includes many death certificates. I won't copy them here, but they do tell of her disease a well as her father's. Her father, Alexander John Swasey died at 60 of a heart attack.

I mention both of these because of my recent brush with death in having a heart attack at age 77. Fortunately I had medical treatment, and have since had a wonderful rehabilitation program with a lifestyle change to reverse heart disease.

I wished both of these individuals from whom I'm descended could have had the treatments I've received. So when and if I can have any contact with their spirits, I need to share that our DNA has continued to create this susceptibility, and to thank them for living the good lives they did.

Other relatives were reported to have high blood pressure, which contributed to their deaths. There are a few people, like my grandmother's mother, who died in a car accident.

Contacting the spirits when facing this election

I want to tell you a bit about my great times three grandfather, William Lewis Booth. He was the grandfather of my great grandmother, Eugenia Booth.

I just found two obituaries for him, when he died at age 76 in 1894, in Hillsboro, Hill County Texas.

He had been an attorney, and became a Colonel during the Civil War, for the Confederacy. He had been one of the early settlers of the Hillsboro, Hil County Texas, and helped in laying it out. He was a county judge at one time during reconstruction, and was the chairman of the Republican county executive committee. 

"In religious belief," the obit says, "he was a Spiritualist. He was president of the Spiritualist association of Texas during the life of that association."

"The burial was conducted by Rev. J. D. Shaw of Waco."

Incidentally, Waco is about 35 miles from Hillsboro Texas. It may be assumed that the only Spiritualist Reverend nearby was J. D. Shaw. 

Spiritualists were the people who in all seriousness held seances and believed they could "contact the spirits of the dearly departed."  Col. Booth had obviously been high ranking in that association.

Col. Booth had been born in the area of New York state where many religious revivals were held, leading to various new religions, including Moromonism, which is not related to the Spiritualism movement that also had roots in that area. Spiritualism has recognition as a religion, but has a reputation that is somewhat tainted by nefarious activities of mediums who played upon the emotions of rich mourners to make money. There are now various principals which serious Spiritualists follow.

Since I'm not a Spiritualist, but have an open mind regarding spirits of "dearly departed" I think Col. Booth would be a good ancestor to add to my list of those I'm inviting to give support while Halloween (Samhain) offers the thinning of the veil between the worlds. I would appreciate his spirit giving gravity to the many legal quandaries that exist as a result of the current President of our country.

So if his spirit should come knocking, or otherwise make himself known to me, I will be curious what he thinks of the current Republican situation. And I hope he will be ok with me being a Democrat. Many of my cousins belong to the GOP.

The upcoming election gives me significant pause to consider the ways various players will react to who the winners are. I am positive that all the votes will be counted. And I hope that everyone who can, will have cast a vote.

Talking with the ancestors

 

Now that Hallow-een is near, also known as Samhain, us Pagans believe that the spirits on the other side can communicate with us, as the veil between the worlds is thinner now. And I'm ready to send my love to these spirits that offer nothing but good to my life. The others can just take their hate and find it's only reflected back to them.

I'll share a little about my altar, which will show my ancestors who have recently passed through the veil, as well as some important earlier ones for this time in my life.

My grandmother, Ada, was a Christian Science Practioner. She helped people heal, and I figure she would be good to have around as we continue in Phase 3 of North Carolina's COVID-19 pandemic steps. Her approach to healing was to call upon the same powers that Jesus used to heal the sick. I'm pretty sure that energy or power is still available today.

And of course on my altar stand two goddesses, or figures that remind me of the values for which they stand.

Themis, a young wise woman, holds her hands out to weigh the actions of people against the laws of nature...as her mother Gaia set forth. A lot of these laws have been violated recently, and the justice that mother nature provides will continue to strike humanity with many environmental issues including global warming.

Hecate, the crone, stands at the crossroads of life, helping with decisions as to which direction will take us to our destination, answering questions that we may not know we have. Again, her wisdom offers assistance, and knowledge that we need. She is also connected with the underworld of death. She is a strong ally to have at this time.

The stone circles were all built before Christianity came to Western Europe...so are surmised to have been locations of religious significance to earlier civilizations. Most Pagans are interested in them as links to practices long forgotten. The solstices and equinoxes are recognized as part of the meaning of stone circles, and many early sites of significance for these earlier cultures.

Just a note quickly to my conservative friends and relatives. Pagans are a group of people who believe in the laws of nature, the significance of older cultures' anthropologies, and living to support our one home, the earth. All life has equal standing to Pagans. We do not hurt any living thing if possible. There is no wish for power over another living thing. A Pagan doesn't have weird sexual practices, nor does he eat babies. The do not put a hex on other people. That would be our sisters, the Wiccans...another recognized religious group where hexes may be made to heal negative energies.

Asking the ancestors for help

At the holy time when ancestors' spirits may contact the living, Hallow-een, I have upon my little altar placed images of the ones who have gone before, and will be asking them for specific help at this time...a pandemic and election and full-moon Halloween.

Margaret on the right, in the 1920-30s.

For political stability to be realized through this election, I will bring my Great Aunt Margaret, who was a early voter when women first acquired the vote. She taught high school math, and I thought the world of her. 

Grandmommy (Mozelle) before I knew her...when she was about 38. Her second husband died when she was just 29. 

 Of course my grandmother, Mozelle will be invited, as she represents so well how a single woman raised a child without a man to support her, (after her two husbands had died within a few years of their marriages in successioin) Her family and good friends continued to help her when our government didn't have any of the programs that it has today to help single working mothers. Her death from breast cancer at the same time I graduated from high school, reminds me of how many women still suffer from the pain of that disease today.

Rosie (in hat) and myself...before she helped me move to NC when I retired and before her breast cancer.

Rosie and her husband George after they moved to Washington state.

My dear friend who also died from breast cancer a couple of years ago, will definitely be honored on my altar. Rosemary gave me so many positive emails as we continued to communicate only in that way...and I loved her positive lifestyle as a vegan.

I will invite my great grandmother Eugenia (mother of Margaret and Mozelle) as a Texas woman who ended up in the position of being married to a German immigrant through WW I and at the beginning of WW II. 

Great grandpa Charles...

I also invite her husband, Charles, as they raised their 4 girls through the early 20th century, and I'm pretty sure they would know just what American Germans thought of Hitler and racial anti-semetic Natzis. Eugenia died in 1936, and Charles lived until 1946. Charles finally obtained US citizenship in 1939, after repeated attempts and affidavits declaring his patriotism to America. I invite their spirits as influence is needed to fight the etheric and political battle that has allowed many dark forces in America to again raise their ugly racist heads.

I am going to look for more of my ancestors to try to have their influence available as we look toward this important election...and to keep the democracy our America was founded upon safe from so many negative energies that are full of hatred and divisiveness.

"In the next room"

She just went upstairs.  Or in the next room.
But there's still a feeling of loss when I return to conscious daily life.

Before I woke this morning I dreamed I was having coffee with my own mother, who's been gone about 20 years.  We chatted as if we were really sitting at a table, no drama, no messages from on high. I asked how Dad was doing, what was he up to these days. "Oh, he's puttering around in his workshop."  We talked about things like I do with my friends, what books have you read? We had always avoided the subject of any medical things since she was a Christian Scientist.  But there were pets, TV shows, and plants...and the grandchildren.  Then she was gone.  And I woke up and thought, she'd just gone back in the next room.

This dream was 2 years ago, and I still have those feelings about my parents.

There was such comfort knowing she was there, loving me still in her own way, which was pretty difficult between us often.  I look in the mirror at this old woman and wonder that my own mother  recognized me the last time I visited her, years before she died.  My own old woman face looks to see if there's any of my sister in there too. Perhaps.

I have spent many hours working on ancestry stories here at the computer.  Honoring those who's DNA flows through me, and now another person who shares it has gone into that other room. 

We love those we share blood and bones with.  We try to understand them. 

My mother who worked an 8 hour job, then came home and fixed dinner and did our laundry and the house cleaning until we were teenagers, and did all the shopping. My father worked the same hours and came home and read the newspaper, and sometimes fixed cars, or mowed grass, or did carpentry...men's work around a home.

Mataley before she married my father.

Galveston roots of Rogers family

 My father was born in Galveston TX, and his parents had lived there most of their lives. My grandmother's parents had met and married there, and she had several cousins and aunts and uncles there as well. I think my grandfather moved there when a child. But they married there in 1905.

The 1900 census gives my grandmother being listed in her parents home, as well as her Uncle and Aunt Sweet's. Her parents lived at 1509 Avenue I.

Her Uncle Chauncey Sweet and "Auntie" Ada Pulsifer Phillips Sweet lived at 1709 Winnie St., where Ada at 14 and her younger sister at 12 were also listed for that Census of 1900.

Postcard, undated of the beach and seawall in Gaveston (probably 1930-1950)

1709 Winnie Street, Galveston - Google street view. These houses were built later than where Great Uncle Chauncey and "Auntie" Ada Sweet lived in 1900. (see below)

"1201 Avenue I - Galveston Texas. Auntie's home that she loved so much. (Mamma?)" Not dated, but they may have moved here after living on Winnie St.

The Chauncey Sweeets lived at 1201 Avenue J in 1910, but by 1920 were on Ave. I (according to the census records.) Perhaps my grandmother (who I think gave the caption for this house's photo above) got the street confused. But it is a beautiful house, probably on a corner with that wrap around porch.

My grandfather, George Rogers Sr. and his sister Annie, lived with their mother, Betty Rogers (widow) at 1828 Church St. with a boarder and a female servant in 1900.

Ada Swasey married George Rogers in 1905 at her parents' home, on Avenue I. Her parents left Galveston and moved to Houston in 1907.

In 1910 the young Rogers family, George, Ada and sons Elmore and Alexander, were living at 1217 Avenue J.  They were in their own household.  In 1916 their oldest son, Elmore accidentally drowned. They had a daughter born in the same month just before he died. She unfortunately also died before her 3rd birthday. Sons Chauncey Rogers (1912) and George Rogers Jr (1914, my father) were born in Galveston, but I don't know the address of their home yet.

By 1920 the George Rogers family had moved to Fort Worth Texas, where their last son, James was born in 1922. The census for that year was so poorly written the family was transcribed as Ragus, with Alexander getting a very strange name, and Chauncey even is considered a daughter, but at least George at 5 (my father) is legible.

House built by my grandfather, George E. Rogers, Sr. in Galveston TX. Photo taken in the by my sister when we visited in the 1970s. I don't know if this is one of the houses where some of their sons were born (but it probably would have been.) And I don't know exactly where it was located. Avenue J is now Sealy St, but none of the houses are raised up like this one. Perhaps another one has replaced it by now.

The seawall in Galveston was built after the Hurricane of 1900, no name given to it. All the homes which survived the storm winds and tide (which killed maybe 6000) were raised up and fill was added to all the town remaining...as well as this high seawall.

1905 is date of the photo below, which shows the seawall completed.

A few photos of the devastation of the Hurricane of 1900 in Galveston...

Sharing my Galveston roots with Sepia Saturday for this week.

Exercising on the Beach, 1935

Children of Giles Rogers

Giles Rogers (Giles Fitz Roger) married Lucy and/or Rachael Eastham in England. They had their first 3 children there, and John was born on the way to Virginia, where their last 2 children were born.

 

• Giles (1673–1760)
• Lucy (1675–1760)
• Peter Iverson (1677–1724)
• John (1680–1762)
• Rachael (1683–1715)
• Mary Ann (1687–1742)

Unfortunately, some historians have tried to link the Rogers family to the Byrds. None of these Rogers men married Mary Byrd, who married someone named Duke. 

Mary Byrd was married circa 1700-1704 to James Duke, of James City County and Charles City County, Virginia. James Duke served as sheriff of James City County in 1719 (see The Letterbook of John Custis IV 1717-1742, edited by Josephine Little Zuppan, page 50).  

She is mentioned by her brother, William Byrd II, in his diary in an entry dated, May 4, 1711: “My sister Duke and Colonel Epes came and stayed to dinner. I ate pork and peas for dinner. In the afternoon my sister went home….” (The Great American Gentleman: William Byrd of Westover in Virginia His Secret Diary for the Years 1709-1712, Edited by Louis B. Wright and Marion Tinling, page 148).

"The London Diary, 1717-1721, and Other Writings” makes several references to James Duke and his wife, Mary (Byrd) Duke. They were the guests of William Byrd at Westover on September 17th and 19th in 1720 (pages 451-452). Byrd mentions seeing James Duke on November 14, 1720 at which time Duke told him (page 474), “…my sister and her fireside were well.” He references his sister, Mary Duke, on April 6, 1721 (page 515). 

The destruction of Charles City County and James City County records resulted in many researchers in the past mistakenly attributing Mary (Byrd) Duke as being part of their family, but the publication of William Byrd II’s diaries showed that she was, in fact, the wife of James Duke, of James City County and Charles City County. She was in no way connected to the family of John Rogers (1680-1762), of King and Queen County, Virginia. She was never his wife and she was not the mother of Ann Rogers, the mother of George Rogers Clark. Aside from the fact that Mary’s husband, James Duke, is identified in her brother’s diaries, the wife of John Rogers, of King and Queen County is identified as having children as late as 1737, when Mary Byrd (born 1683) would have been in her mid-fifties. Furthermore, James Duke, who is known to be the husband of Mary Byrd, was alive at a time when John Rogers’ children were being born. The family of John Rogers is an entirely different family and unconnected to the family of William Byrd and Mary (Horsmanden) Byrd. In a similar vein, the attempt to link Mary (Byrd) Duke to the William Duke whose family settled in North Carolina and who was an ancestor of the Duke tobacco family has been disproven by DNA testing."

So since many of the referrals on my ancestry tree go to other people's trees which have linked to the Byrds, I don't have as much information about the early Rogers as I would hope. Not to mention the above mentioned problem of so many records having burned at one time or another. 

Giles Rogers came to Virginia in 1670 with his own ships. His motto on his coat of arms was “Act Justly and Fear Not.” He patented 400 acres in New Kent County, April 18, 1670. He had brought 8 persons with him. He returned to England and married Rachael Eastham in 1672. In 1680 he returned to Virginia with his wife and his first three children (Giles Jr., Lucy, and Peter) and servants and materials for building. John, Rachael and Mary Anne were born in America.

Another source says:

1. Giles Rogers, Sr., b. 1643, d. 1730; m. Rachel Eastham.  

Giles Rogers Sr., was named after the patron Saint "Giles" of Edinburgh, Scotland, where he was born. He was well educated and after maturity moved to and settled in Worcestershire, England; where he married Rachel Eastham (pronounced "Esam"). Giles Sr. and Rachel had six children - three born in England, one born on-board ship, and two born in America. Giles Sr.'s motto being "Act Justly and Fear Not." Giles was the nephew of Thomas Rogers, who had emigrated to America on the Mayflower.  Giles made a preliminary trip to America, and then in 1680, immigrated in his own ship, bringing with him his wife, three children, artisans, and servants, laborers, and materials for constructing buildings, etc. He settled in King and Queen County, Virginia, near the present town of Dunkirk...

Source: History of the Rogers Family, Lineage furnished by Nola Eichelzer, compiled by Mamie Williamson, Grant, KY Copied by Wm & Ann Fitzgerald, Florence KY 1958. Copied from Boone Public Library holding.

I will try to find some information on these 6 children of Giles Rogers (aka Fitz Roger). I am most interested in the son from whom I descended, namely John and Mary Molly (not a Byrd) Rogers.**

There are about 10 other people listed in various Ancestry trees who are supposedly children of Giles Sr.  I am afraid a lot of people believe they are descended from him, and probably are not.

I'll give you what information I've found that seems to be fact to the best of my knowledge.

** From comments that have been made by my cousin Patricia Rogers, I have to consider our line is from Peter not John Rogers. It hasn't come together yet on my Ancestry tree...but I believe the DAR made few mistakes (with the exception of the Mary Byrd marriage.)

On my Second Rehab

 I finished the Ornish Cardiac Rehab (9 weeks) on Sept. 24, 2020. While the pandemic continues, we all wore masks except to eat the nice vegetarian lunches. I increased my abilities to walk and climb hills, and lost some weight. But the Ornish program talks about not jut recovering from heart disease, but reversing it.

So I learned not only to eat vegetarian and low fat dishes, but to prepare them, because my usual places to get food out weren't making these kinds of things. And I had to keep track of everything I ate. And I also took active part in a group counseling session, and a meditation/stress reduction session twice a week. I also did these at home on the days I didn't go to the rehab program.

My cholesterol number was halved. And I started losing weight. Not to mention, I don't get out of breath just doing simple tasks any more. 

And just finishing that program, I turned a corner and addressed my chronic lung difficulties. So now I'm in pulmonary rehab. It's more focused on endurance. We started with a test to see how far we could walk in 6 minutes. I dare say when I complete the program I'll have that test again. We also do some weight training, as well as recumbent stepping. I am up to 20 minutes on each of the walk and recumbents. So my walk is now over a half mile (0.7 last Friday.)

I have eaten a few things not on the Ornish diet. But each time I make sure to go back onto it strictly the next day. I'll be meeting my cohort friends this Tuesday to see how everyone has been doing in the 2 1/2 weeks since I last saw them.

And I'll finish the 8 weeks of pulmonary rehab in a few more weeks. Before then, I'll see my pulmonologist and have a breathing test this week also. So I hope the fact that my coughing has greatly reduced will show up as better health in my lungs. Fingers crossed.

Anyway, as I write this I'm doing a breathing treatment with a nebulizer. I haven't changed my treatments, nor did I stop any of the cardiac medications that I was put on following my May heart attack with a stent inserted on my heart. My cardiologist did see me already, and says I've increased my heart volume from 30% to 50%, which is low normal. (A heart doesn't pump out all the blood that's in it at one time. 60% is normal.)

Anyway, I've decided to spend some time focused on my ancestry again. So I'll start soon, and be submitting some new compilations here again. I'll start with my Rogers/Swasey ancestors of my father, George Rogers Jr.