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

Sigh.. Merry Christmas

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Sigh... I feel much like Santa in the above picture. A bit tired and just want to snuggle up and sleep. Right now we have no pet, so the snuggling will have to be with Frank... which is even better.

I hope each of you had a wonderful Christmas. Ours was great. We had dinner at my Mama's on Christmas Eve. The food was good for the most part and we ate too much. My dressing didn't turn out the way I wanted it to. I guess it has just been too long since I made it... it was edible. My sister-in-law made a sauce of cherries and pickled beets. Frank liked it okay, but it was a bit too pickled beet for me. I'm not fond of beets. My carrot cake turned out great. My Mama makes a great Rave Cake... she directed my brother how to make the cake and he did very well at making it. My brother also made pecan pies that were pretty good. We all ate too much. I didn't eat anything else the rest of the day.

On Christmas Day we went to Frank's sister's home for pizza. They make great pizzas. Our grandniece and two grandnephews were there and they were a joy to watch. Hayden and Jeremy are under a year old... Jeremy will be one in January and Hayden one in February. Jeremy's brother, Nathan is about two years old. Next year there will be two more grands for the Christmas party.

There was also pound cake, chocolate covered peanuts, and some ginger snaps... all home made by our niece and niece-in-law.

Needless to say we ate way too much. Later in the afternoon Frank and I went for a mile walk. I'm slow, but I can do it without hurting much. I only ate a small apple for a snack later in the evening.

We really shouldn't eat for another week.... but don't think that is going to happen :-) We'll just walk more.

Today we plan to rest.


We called our children yesterday. Sonja got a job, but for only Christmas Eve. The day before Christmas Eve she sees a man in the grocery store buying a lot of sugar. She told him he must really have a sweet tooth. He opens up his jacket and shows him the Honey Ham emblem on his shirt. He is the manager of Honey Ham. She tells him that she has been trying to see him for days about a job. Anyway he hires her and she worked all of the hours they were open Christmas Eve... maybe 10 or 12 hours (I couldn't hear her that well). She got paid $7 and something an hour. The manager watched her all day and she did things for extra sales... plugging the turkey breast and when they were out of 8# hams she would sell them on the 9# ham. Sonja said other workers were getting small packages... 3# hams.. at the end of the day. The assistant manager gave Sonja her package and said the manager really wanted to let her know that her work was appreciated and they would definitely want her back at Easter. Sonja didn't open her package until she got home. It was a big package and inside was an $83 ham! Sonja was so excited talking and she was so proud that she impressed the manager. Sonja was proud that she did better than those 110# blond 20 something year olds. It's too bad the job was for only one day. She is going to go to Good Will and buy a bicycle so she can expand her job looking. They have no car. Which is good because Sonja is the worst driver.

David was tired. He and his wife, Tish, spend Christmas with her parents. Tish's sister, niece and brother live with her parents. Hannah is about 7 years old and David and Tish are like her second parents. David said there was a new puppy in the house... a lab/pit bull (what a mix!) Anyway it cried until David let him sleep on the couch with him.



A family is a unit composed not only of children but of men, women, an occasional animal, and the common cold. -- Ogden Nash

Rainy Day In Georgia

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It is a rainy day today. Which is great, we haven't had much rain this month. The rain is light and soothing. The only bad things about the rain is that our joints hurt and it makes it a bit difficult to go for a walk. I had made it to three good walks a day by Wednesday... then yesterday I got only one in. My three good walks probably add up to a mile. Today I may only get in about 5o laps up and down our hallway.

Our son and daughter-in-law came to eat with us yesterday. Frank did a great job with the meal... everything was delicious. I tried not to eat too much in order to help my stomach not to be irritated. I did well with the meal that was served at about 1 pm, but the evening snack of pies is what my stomach didn't like.

Frank asked me what I wanted to eat today. He was hoping for brunswick stew made with the leftover pulled pork. I told him just some rice and maybe a little meat and a veggie that doesn't have much seasoning. Rice seems to calm the burning of my stomach.

Enough of decrepitness :-)

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Most of the time when our daughter-in-law visits she winds up taking a nap on our couch. She says our couch just pulls her in. Yesterday, although both of us were sleepy, we talked together a lot and naps were forgotten.

In one of the conversations with Tish she mentioned that she had some containers that cat litter comes in and was going to paint them and use them for storage for her craft projects. A light bulb went off... I have some old craft books she might like. I showed her the box of books. Her eyes lit up. She took about half the books. Yeah! I got rid of stuff that I no longer use. My son was mumbling about finding places for more crap as she took the books to the car :-)

I always give my son books I've read so he can take them to a book exchange store. He would only take two of the books this time. He said that John Grisham is so popular that the store has too many copies of his books. One of the books he did take was a John Grisham book that he hadn't read, The Innocent Man. The other was Water for Elephants by Sara Gruen. Someone had recommended the book to me and it is a good book, but had more curse words in i t than I'm used to. I need to find more reading material... but just might try more of Mark Twain short stories. Mark Twain's short stories are hard for me to read.... much different than his Tom Sawyer book. The short stories contain a lot of politics and I don't enjoy politics :-)

Here our elections aren't over yet. We have a senate run off and a couple of judge run offs. The senate campaigns are nasty and I don't really like either candidate. Frank all ready did early voting and got me an absentee ballot... so one thing for me to do today.

After dinner my Mama and brother came by and so did Frank's parent's. So for a while a lot of people in the house. Well... for our small house. It was a great day and we were both exhausted by the end of the day.

All y'all make it a great day!

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Wherever you go, no matter what the weather, always bring your own sunshine. -- Anthony J. D'Angelo

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