Friday, January 16, 2009

MRI and Family History

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Brr... high of only 44° today. That's cold for SW Georgia!

MRI --

I made it through the MRI ! It wasn't easy. My heart pounded the whole time. My nose was inches for the machine.. so really not much space. I could only see to my left a little. When the tech said this is the last set... I was so glad to hear that. Then she said she had to redo a bit. She said the reason being there was movement. There was no way I could move. My neck was cradled in a brace and she stuck something between it and my ears. She said the movement was probably caused by heavy breathing... and I was doing a lot of that! The noise of the machine was awful even with ear plugs. It seemed the louder the noise the heavier my breathing. I won't know anything until sometime next week.


Family History --

One of my hobbies is genealogy. I love going to courthouses and looking through records. It doesn't matter if the family is mine or not. I have to have Frank with me on such endeavors. The record books are big and heavy. It has been a while since we've been to a courthouse for research. Maybe a task for later this year. A lot of our vacations have been genealogy related... that is being hooked :-)

Jefferson Davis Memorial Historic Site in Irwinville Georgia houses some items of my family. The items are from my 2nd great grandmother, Penelope Ann Prudence Porter. She is the grandmother of my grandmother (my Grandma Swain who was pictured in my last post). My g-g-grandmother was born 22 June 1841 and died 16 July 1895. I don't have a cause of death for her. She was the mother of eight children with my g-g- grandfather, Julius Erasmus Porter; four girls and four boys. I know very little about her. Her marriage to my g-g-grandfather was her second marriage. She had one child from her first marriage who died in childhood. Her first husband died during The War Between The States. I don't have a record of her marriage to Julius... and I've looked everywhere that I can think of for it. They may have just jumped the broomstick.

Clicking on the pictures below should enlarge them.

The first picture is of blouses that Prudence wore... three names and in most records she is Prudence Ann. Prudence Ann owned land, so she was a woman of wealth.


Mildred over at Nalley Valley talked of mourning jewelry made from hair. My g-g-grandmother had mourning beads. They aren't made of hair. She probably did have some jewelry made from hair because of its popularity back then. I'm thinking she probably wore these when her first child died and when her first husband died.



This is one of her shawls. To me the fringe looks to be made from horse hair (with my family it could be mule hair). I couldn't find anything out about horse hair being used in shawls. I suppose the fringe could be from another type of animal hair.


I wish I had a picture of Prudence. A cousin sent me a scan of an old pamphlet with her picture, but all that shows in the scan is dots and no features can be made out.

There is suppose to be a picture of Julius E. Porter at the museum. It has been under restoration though and I have not seen it. I do have a picture of him and his second wife, Mary Ann. I'm just going to link to that picture . The spinning wheel is awesome!

Most of my family were poor sharecroppers. A few though owned a bit of land as my Porter ancestors. They still worked hard for their crops to have food on the table.

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I've had one of those days that it takes forever to type. So many typos... I transposed letters that are three leterts apart :-)

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This packrat has learned that what the next generation will value most is not what we owned, but the evidence of who we were and the tales of how we loved. In the end, it's the family stories that are worth the storage. --Ellen Goodman


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6 comments :

  1. Zaroga, I am so happy to hear from you today. Glad the MRI is over and that you can rest some over the weekend. I know it's hard not to think ahead to finding out about the results. You will be in my prayers.
    This is the most interesting post. I love all the items you have pictured and the link to the photo. What fascinating items. I hope this year you will feel like getting out and doing more geneaological study and I hope you share with us.

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  2. Glad you got your MRI over with. Praying it all turns out well.
    You think your cold..our high today is 7. Were stuck in this pattern for at least a week. Come on spring!

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  3. Sending you all the best and prayers for good results from you MRI.

    Your items are so interesting along with your information. Thanks for showing us:)

    Linda C

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  4. Hi Zaroga, Hope the mri turns out to give you the needed answers. I was a genealogy addict also. Oh I love the court houses and cemetery's. And all the family treasures. I had tons of research. An some memorabilia. I have my grandmas Cristal glass looking beads. I do not know what they were called. But yours are treasures too. My Aunt who is 80 had her moms cloths in a laundry hamper. It was fun to look at them. I wish I would have taken more photos. I have none of them. But do have her dads family bible photos with contents on photo. I am glad just to see them. I was not raised with My real dads family so I learned all I could from 1999 up. I gave up when I had a break down. My real dad shared some of his life with me DEC 99 to Feb 2001 when he passed. It was a learning experience. It made me so grateful for my step dad who raised me. Sorry I am going on.
    Love your post.
    Big hug.

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  5. The MRI sounded awful. I hope all turns out ok.
    I agree with the family stories being the best inheritance. The beads and shawl are really interesting.
    I've heard that Homerville has one of the best Genealogy libraries in the state. I stopped by there once but I can't remember what I was looking for since my relatives were not from Georgia.

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  6. Thanks so much everyone for your wonderful comments. I really do appreciate them. I also appreciate your good wishes. Things have been one thing after another lately, but taking them one moment at a time we'll get through these difficult times.

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Thank you for visiting my Nook. Your comments are much appreciated.

Make it a great day!

Zaroga