The idiom DOUBLE-CROSS means to trick someone. Centuries ago, when illiteracy was common, and a person was asked to sign a document, they’d do so by inserting an “X” in place of their signature. This was legal. However, the process was often done under pressure (at gunpoint) which meant that the signing party had no […]
I Had a Mother Who Read to Me By Joyce Ray Wheeler The Reading Mother is the name of the poem from which my title is taken. Written by a little known poet, Strickland Gillilan, the closing words are these: You may have tangible wealth untold… Caskets of jewels and coffers of gold… Richer than […]
LILACS AND SUNSETS When my mother, Nancy Ray, was a little girl, there were lilac bushes all around her house. Each house where my parents lived while I was growing up had at least one lilac bush! As mother aged, she developed macular degeneration which seriously affected her vision. As the disease progressed, whenever she […]
COMEGYS HOUSE Built 1708 Commanding a splendid view of the upper Chester River and the surrounding country, this rare example of Dutch architecture was the home of Dr. F. N. Sheppard and his wife. Mrs. Sheppard is a descendant of Alethia. daughter of the William Comegys who built the house and who was the second […]
The Cake Walk by Jean Butterworth Each year there are many charitable groups to ask for pledges from the generous hearts of the public to support their charity events. Most people have their favorite charity and even add a few each year. Response comes from receiving mail outs, radio advertisement, and TV ads and by […]
I left my young wife and year old daughter in the states after a harried move from Germany and a quick wedding ceremony of a pair of college friends and processed through Ft Lewis Washington. I arrived in RVN in time for our personnel replacement center to react to rockets’ red glare. There we were all five […]
MOVIN STUFF By Joyce Ray Wheeler It is a truism that moving from one place to another is never an easy thing. But when you’ve lived in the same home for 40 years, and when you are changing from a bigger space to a much smaller space, and when you and your spouse are both […]
Do you remember the book mobile? by Dorothy Graham Gast The Christmas I was ten, I asked for and received a 10 book set of reading classics. It had Heidi, Robinson Crusoe, Black Beauty,Little Women, Grimm’s Fairy Tales, Tale of Two Cities, Call of the Wild, Alice in Wonderland, The Secret Garden, and Treasure Island. I read and reread these and finally began to loan […]
From the 1850’s to the 1930’s, more than 250,000 orphans from New York City and Boston were sent westward. The train made many stops along the way as married couples picked out the boy or girl they wanted. Michigan was one of many middle western states to take in 12,500 children from 3 to 16 […]
Aunt Bula’s Tombstone. By Dorothy Gast Aunt Bula was Granny Barton’s older sister that never married. She lived with her mother, Molly Cork, on the old “Red Jim” Cork place about 3 miles northwest of Wesley Chapel Church in Ralph, Alabama. When Molly Cork realized she could no longer manage her farm she made a […]
