Thanksgiving family 2025

 

This photo of my son shows he still has a great sense of humor. Maybe from living with 4 females in his household for over 20 years. The photo behind his head is his oldest daughter, Audrey.

And of course we had to do a selfie.

Michelle and Russ posed on a cold windy day for photos - including their whole family for their traditional Christmas card. 

One of the first poses…they would spend five minutes out in the wind and cold, then the next five inside warming up.

Kate, Caroline and Audrey, with a photo bomb by Cody

I didn’t go out for more than a couple of their many efforts. But after they’d done them all, I was surprised to be offered a series of myself with first the girls, then Russ and Michelle with me, then just Russ and myself. Michelle caught the first group on her phone!

I had a lovely Wednesday as we all shared how our lives are proceeding.

Since this is being published after Thanksgiving, I will just hope you had a good one, however you shared or didn't, feasted or didn't, and perhaps am glad it's past. I'm afraid I don't have anything "Sepia" related today!

But wait...I'll go look now... the meme of "Something in the Way" might work with how the wind was in the way of all the photographic efforts Wednesday! 

Here's my Sepia contribution this week...

The Golden Gate Bridge construction began Jan. 5, 1933. The bridge was opened May 27, 1937.

Moving around (immigrating!)

  Sepia Saturday 

In thinking of going places for October, I bring back a post from 2013 about an ancestral family which moved quite a bit.

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William T Williams 1824-1898 (originally posted Monday, December 16, 2013)

William T. Williams was born on Dec. 16 1824, in Pulaski County, KY.

His father was Richard Frederick Williams, born in 1792 in Crab Orchard, Lincoln County, KY, who died in 1850 or 1860 in Montgomery County, MO; and his mother was  Nancy Hansford Williams, born in 1796 in KY, who died in 1860 in Montgomery County, MO  (GGG grandfather Richard Frederick Williams had served in the War of 1812.) I'll post more about him soon, going backwards in my ancestry for this family.) Richard F. Williams HERE.

William T. Williams died on 22 Apr 1898 in Weesatche, Goliad, Texas. He was the father of Annie Elizabeth Williams Webb, my great grandmother.

He fought for the US Army in the Civil War, according to war records from Macon County, MO, July 1863-5, when he was 38 years old.  He is listed from the 4th sub-district, "Olio" as residence, and occupation is a merchant.  The original entry was changed later, with a red line through his entry and a remark, "Feb 22, 1865, In US Military Service."  He is not listed as "dead" as is another person on the same page, so it is presumed that he was still in the Army in Feb. 1865.  Everyone on this page is also in 4th Sub-district of Macon County with a name beginning "Wi..."  I can't find any reference to a town called Olio, MO, (though there are rave reviews through Wikipedia of a bar by that name in St. Louis.)

Please note, this post continues below the huge photo, but I wanted you to be able to read it.  (Look in left column for place name Olio.)

He and his wife Dorcas (both born in KY) had settled in Middletown, Montgomery County, MO by 1860 with their children and he listed his occupation as carpenter at that time. His oldest was 12, having been born in MO, putting them there by 1848 at least.  The 6 year old, Margaret, was born in Iowa however.

In the 1850 census 10 years prior to that, he lived in Montgomery County, MO and was a farmer, with 2 children, and now listed as both born in MO.  Their birth dates would place him there by 1845.

Back to the Williams, who both died in Weesatchee, Goliad County, Texas.  How did they get there?  I'd love to know.  The whole family immigrated following the Civil War.  And Annie Elizabeth Williams married there when she was 15, in 1877.

When Annie Elizabeth Williams Webb died in 1942, the death certificate had placed her father, William T. Williams' birth in Iowa.  Isn't it interesting to wonder who gave that information, probably the next of kin, Clara Bell Webb Bruce, her daughter who lived till 1971.

(Note on last placement of his birth in Iowa: 

By the time they all had been living in Texas, it was often difficult to find correct information about grandparents. I checked where Montgomery County MO is located, and it's just west of St. Louis, nowhere near the Iowa border.)

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and also talking about this family in 2012 I said:

I've spent much of this rainy day cleaning things around the house. (Sunday the 23rd Nov.)  Kitty litter (my un-faorite-est) then the 2 aquariums...which is such fun and now my fingers are all wrinkly.  But the chartreuse water is gone and now I have counted the guppies (20 teens, 10 adults) and kept them separated.  The big tank still has my 7 year old angel and some younger but ferocious big fish...oh that's not what I want to write you about.

Today with rain outside, I've happily searched on Ancestry.  Went climbing the tree to my great grandmother's side, the Williams.  She was a relative that my mother probably never knew, because her father had died so young.  The Williams came from Missouri to Texas, and from Kentucky to Missouri.

So I've got all these hints on the Williams tree, all these brothers and sisters about whom I know nothing.

I usually ignore them, but today took the time to look at an interesting name, "Liberty Williams" who was one of the elder brothers to William T. Williams, my great grandmom's dad.  Great times 3 Uncle Liberty.  Liberty and William T were born in Pulaski County, Kentucky.

And their parents were born in the same area as well, both Richard Frederick Williams and his wife Nancy Hansford Williams.  Richard Frederick Williams was born in 1792 in Crab Orchard, Lincoln County, Kentucky,

Richard's father, Frederick Williams probably came from South Carolina, while his mother Cassandra Elizabeth, "Cassiah" Tate Williams came from North Carolina.  They were the pioneers who moved to Kentucky by 1792 when Richard was born.  Their first child had been born in South Carolina in 1787.

And the Frederick and Cassiah Williams family may have moved to Kentucky for a while, but they died in Tennessee, while Richard F. as well as Liberty Williams (and other Williams) moved to Missouri.  And then sometime between the time William T. was 38 and 56 (by 1863) he moved from Missouri to Texas, leaving Liberty in Missouri with all his family!

Farmers all.  They had such a job ahead of them when moving to new territory.

It wasn't just go look at the land, put up a cabin, and sew some seeds right away.  Clear timber.  Find fresh water nearby.  Plow the land.  Bring along some livestock as well, and maybe take a few trips back to sources of seeds, nails, the rest of needed livestock, and hope that everyone stays healthy while each of the people help build whatever buildings were first needed.  Put in a garden, or at least go pick those berries and nuts.  And while waiting for any kind of food to grow, what do you eat?  Not barely enough berries!  (Couldn't resist the pun).  The hunters were out getting deer, squirrel, rabbits, birds and whatever could be shot for food.  Mum would have been taking these carcases and skinning them, or plucking, and cooking over a campfire.

What do you think, campfires were not much different than cooking in a fireplace.  Hauling some iron pots and pans were very important in order to make meals.  Someone was bringing water from a creek or river...every night!  And someone was chopping some logs while the littlest someones just picked up sticks for kindling.

Yes a life that was out in nature.  Sounds idyllic, right?  Not when you think of snakes, cold, rain and many bugs and even heat at other times.

It must have made these very hardy folks, cause William T. lived to be 72.  And his wife, Dorcas White Williams, mother of 8,(6 of whom lived to adulthood) lived to 74 years of age.

I'm so glad I was born when I was.  I get the benefit of medical care and social security rather than an adult child who will care for me in my old age.  AND I get the internet.  I don't know how many of the people in the 1800's could read and write, and certainly it was far fewer in the 1700s.  Those folks were too busy killing their food and cooking it, or growing it and eating and sleeping to bother to write anything, let alone teach the kids how.  Schools were obviously a real boon when towns were formed.  But that's another topic for another day.

Map showing where and when various Williams families settled in Montgomery County, Missouri.

Families through history

 Housing forms of Indigenous North Americans

A house in Texas at the turn of the last century

A jacal in San Benito, Texas circa 1905

a Delaware-Lenape Tribe longhouse outside

a Delaware-Lenape Tribe longhouse inside

by Carl Mydans around 1936 for the Farm Security Administration

Annie Oakley

by Dorothea Lange, May 1942 Woodland, California.

 Families of Japanese ancestry with their baggage at railroad station awaiting the arrival of special train which will take them to the Merced Assembly center, 125 miles away.

American documentary photographer and photojournalist, Dorothea Lange (1895-1965), photographed in 1965 by American photographer, Ansel Adams (1902-1984).

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Today's quote:

Emily Dickenson

The bee is not afraid of me,
I know the butterfly;
The pretty people in the woods
Receive me cordially.

The brooks laugh louder when I come,
The breezes madder play.
Wherefore, mine eyes, thy silver mists?
Wherefore, O summer's day?

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For this week's Sepia Saturday 

Host Alan Burnett says this:

It's a sad state of affairs when you are so old you become a Sepia Saturday prompt. Nevertheless, that is me in the centre of the picture - not the one with the long ears, but the little cute chap taking his first ride on a seaside donkey. I don't look too thrilled at the prospect, and, if truth be told, neither does the donkey. However, like the brave little soldier I was, I posed for the photograph in the knowledge that it would come in useful over three quarters of a century later as a Sepia Saturday prompt. Find in it what you will - cute little chaps, donkeys with big ears, seaside sands ... or whatever. Whatever old photograph of your own it brings to mind, share it on or around Saturday 9th August 2025 and add a link to the list below. And here is a reminder of what is to come for the rest of the month.

 

Launched in 2009, Sepia Saturday provides bloggers with an opportunity to share their history through the medium of photographs. Historical photographs of any age or kind (they don't have to be sepia) become the launchpad for explorations of family history, local history and social history in fact or fiction, poetry or prose, words or further images. If you want to play along, all we ask is that your sign up to the weekly Linky List, that you try to visit as many of the other participants as possible, and that you have fun.

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I always had great love of horses, ponies...but very seldom had any experience of them. A photo was taken of me as a little tot on one. A trail ride as a teen through a park once. Lots of horse adventure books growing up however, and once TV westerns came along, I was smitten. The 60s were certainly full of cowboys for entertainment.

The old photo of cowgirl me and my little sister:

I was 3-1/2 and Mary was 4 months  old.

Roger of Sicily -sources

Text available here:

https://archive.org/details/hubert-houben-roger-ii-of-sicily-a-ruler-between-east-and-west-2002/page/n15/mode/2up?view=theater (originally in German 1907) 200

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Roger_II_of_Sicily/Duwowbx1vuQC?hl=en&gbpv=1 (1997)

seems a duplicate

Alchemy of Clay's articles:

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/normandy-and-sicily-for-rogers-roots.html

And:

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/sir-roger-de-hauteville.html

And:

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/roger-ii-king-of-sicily.html

and...

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/from-sicily-to-england.html

and

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/those-normans-in-italy.html

and

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/05/sir-john-fitz-roger-13867-4-oct-1441.html

and

https://blackmtnbarb.blogspot.com/2017/06/our-rogers-ancestress-dame-elizabeth-de.html

New source about Roger II of Sicily

https://www.google.com/books/edition/Roger_II_of_Sicily/Duwowbx1vuQC?hl=en&gbpv=1

Roger, King of Sicily and others

Looking at the earliest records of the Rogers family tree, I find oh so many errors. Dates where a husband was born after the woman he supposedly married had died, etc!

This is a historic video of rulers of Europe from 200 bc to 2017 current era. 

I was particularly interested in the King of Sicily, Roger I. He's supposedly an ancestor of ours.

But my family tree has the dates all wrong, according to the time-line here. 

After the fall of Rome, for many years (centuries) various Arabic/Moor names were heads of Sicily. (see very bottom on map)

Then in 1072, Roger I is the King of Sicily (and other areas also perhaps)

I've captured several more years after that, as kingdoms of Sicily changed.

Roger I of Sicily, Roger Borsa southern Italy

Simon of Sicily, Roger Borsa some of southern Italy.

Roger II, Sicily, Roger Borsa of southern Italy.

Roger II

Roger II

Guillaume I

Guillaume II

No more "Rogers'" but Tancred I.

Someone in my ancestry has linked these Sicilian kings with the English Rogers. Interesting stuff.

Old cars and new dresses

When your grandmother is a seamstress, your mother takes your measurements and sends them off to here a few months before birthday, Christmas and Easter. Then surprise, a new dress arrives, for both yourself and your little sister!

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Old cars driving on crowded city street - for Sepia Saturday this week.

Here I stand proudly on my 8th birthday in a new outfit (red and blue plaids) made by my dear grandmother back in San Antonio TX. My little sister has the same plaid I think. We're in front of a beautiful Studebaker on the street of our first apartment (5530 Cates Ave) in St. Louis MO. Yes,  I remember not only the address but probably the phone number and another license plate!

When, in 1975, I attempted to show my own sons (then at age 8 and 11) the old apartment building, it had burned down and was an empty lot. You really can't go back. (We drove our camper from Tampa throughout the summer of '75 as far as Wisconsin and Montana to Arizona and back.)

Back to the 1950 photo... besides the AAA emblem on the license tag, I'm not sure if it was still from Texas, or then Missouri. No amount of stretching, changing contrast etc. would let these old eyes figure it out. But the dark colors do remind me of 50s Missouri tag colors.

The main emotion I have? Why on MY birthday did my sister also get a new dress? What about turning 8? Wasn't that something special?

OK, maybe that’s petty. After all my family moved away from Houston, I was without any friends, about to start going to a new school, and my parents were looking for work to support us. I also remember that mid August it was so cold we tried lighting a fire in the fireplace in the new apartment…with disastrous results. Either we didn’t open the damper, or the chimney had been closed off above us. Many coughs and wearing all our sweaters later…

We also had to wait to get our furniture, as it had been put in storage when we arrived and so we stayed in furnished places until we found this apartment in walking distance of the school we would be attending (private, for Christian Science kids.)

I think we had some WW II surplus army cots to sleep on.

Boy life was so different then.

No air conditioning either, and hanging out clothes (washed in basement 2 floors below) was in an ugly back yard. (I was too short to do that.) Mom tried to plant some zinnias, but the ground was pretty awful. No hanging out clothes in the winter, because everyone heated with coal (including us.) Lots of dirty coal dust floated down on everything! Clothes were hung in the basement to dry.

And then that winter we got to walk to school in snow. Nobody plowed the sidewalks! And often they had more snow because the plows went by on the streets! Well, we had at least one day when school was closed...maybe more! We had galoshes for our feet, not that great when snow was more than 8 inches deep! But my dad got us a sled, and we found Art Hill in Forest Park, which was great long sliding down...but then someone had to pull the sled (and my 4 year old sister back up the hill - Daddy of course!)

I did have a good life, all in all. I survived childhood illnesses without any medicine...being prayed over only. My parents stayed together and I eventually figured out their way of silent communication was a form of love.

And my sister and I got a good education.

Sitting on the edge

 People are being rescued who have fallen from our many waterfalls these days. After Hurricane Helene changed the paths of many of our water courses, the falls and pools below them are much more dangerous. But the park service which looks after the grounds, paths, parking lots and restrooms are diligent and trying to keep things safe.

What about those who want a photo with the pretty scene in the background?

Did you notice this is a winter-time shot?

Space Shuttle Atlantis docked with the International Space Station. Who is taking this photo?

Granddaughters dangling their feet over the inland waterway in St. Petersburg FL.

Two granddaughters at the fort in St. Augustine FL

Second cousins about 10 years ago.

The many overlooks on the Blue Ridge Parkway aren't having as much traffic this year, as some of the road has still not been repaired.

Sharing with Sepia Saturday this week, where a young man doesn't look particularly happy sitting on the fake balustrade.

A studio photo of my youngest son at around 3. At least he isn't posed on a fake parapet! 

Today's quote:

When we’re feeling lonely, we’ve lost the idea that we’re all one, and none of us are separate from the whole

Getting there is the journey

 A couple of "before and after" shots...

Starting with Rte. 66 across America:

TAMIAMI Trail (U.S. Highway 41) opened Feb 1, 1929

Actually US 41 across Florida to Miami, is pretty dull.

A postcard of the Western North Carolina railroad between Old Fort and Black Mountain!

My mother, holding the Keystone motion picture camera (8 mm) next to a train which might have carried her grandfather, Charles Herman Miller, in Texas as the passenger conductor. The train was in a museum in Missouri when we visited in the 1950s.

When Great grandfather Charles Herman Miller got married back in 1896, there was this notice given in the Houston Post.

The Houston Post Oct 30, 1896 - perhaps a bit fallible, since Charles Herman Miller came from Germany as a child (unknown how old) and no information has yet been found on his parents. One story is that he stowed away on a ship to Galveston (a big port at the time). Perhaps he had foster parents in Bellville, TX.  Or this was convenient...since the marriage was in Hillsboro TX where the bride's family lived.. quite a way from Houston. But it does give him membership in a secret benevolent order, as a Knight of Pythias. 

Wikipedia lets us know some vague facts about the order...

Membership has historically been open to males in good health who believe in a Supreme Being. Maimed individuals were not admitted until 1875. Members are accepted by blackball ballot.

A member must be at least 18 years of age, and must take the following oath:

I declare upon honor that I believe in a Supreme Being, that I am not a professional gambler, or unlawfully engaged in the wholesale or retail sale of intoxicating liquors or narcotics, and that I believe in the maintenance of the order and the upholding of constituted authority in the government in which I live. Moreover, I declare upon honor that I am not a Communist or Fascist; that I do not advocate nor am I a member of any organization that advocates the overthrow of the Government of the Country of which I am a Citizen, by force or violence or other unlawful means; and that I do not seek by force or violence to deny to other persons their rights under the laws of such country.

By the end of the so-called "Golden Age of Fraternalism" in the early 1920s, the order had nearly a million members. By 1979, however, this number had declined to fewer than 200,000.

In 1892, the Supreme Lodge ruled that the work of the order would only be conducted in English. This upset some members who were accustomed to using German. After this ruling was reiterated at the Supreme Lodges of 1894 and 1895, a number of German-speaking Pythians split off and formed the Improved Order, Knights of Pythias at a convention in Indianapolis in June 1895. The new order was reportedly not very popular, and a movement toward reconciliation occurred a few years later.

The fact that enough Knights of Pythias wanted a German language organization for a while at least, would have been attractive to Great Grandfather Herman Miller, since that was apparently his native language.

Knights of Pythias Castle, Houston, Texas (postcard, circa 1898)

Two other interesting documents are on my Ancestry file on Great Grandpa Miller:

On Sept 11, 1937 he applied for US citizenship, stating his birthday as July 18, 1868.

But wait, he again applied on Oct. 9, 1939.

This time he had witnesses, Willis E. Long, and Jack E. Adams both of San Antonio TX. I would imagine this time there was more caution about Germans becoming US citizens, since Germany was beginning the events that led to WW II.

So finally this widower at age 68, and then age 70 by 1937 may have become a citizen of the USA. 

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For this week's Sepia Saturday post

I love riding through the mountains...much as this person did so many years ago!