Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album pages 18-19

So here I am another week with the Slemmons’ Family photo album. I’m getting near the end of it. You know as a genealogist w/ADD it has been extremely difficult for me to stay focused on getting all of these pages posted every week. But I also know that if I don’t keep at it I will not get it done. Sadly, the outcome of many, many of my projects.

Amanuensis Monday - William Wayt's Will

Over at Transylvanian Dutch John Newmark has a weekly blogging theme of Amanuensis Monday. I thought that this posting today would fall into that category. What is an Amanuensis you ask?  

Amanuensis: A person employed to write what another dictates or to copy what has been written by another.

The following is the will of my 4 great-grandfather, William Wayt. I transcribed this will years ago when I had a Geocities website (who remembers geocities? Yeah I know about reocities and will blog about that later). But NOW that I have a handy-dandy digital camera, I can take a picture of the will in addition to just transcribing it!

How do you all do it?

I am constantly amazed at the caliber of the writing skills of the people that are blogging about genealogy.  I truly blame all of you for me not posting more. You see I am constantly reading all of these wonderful blog postings that you all are creating and by the time I get done reading them my computer time is over. :(

I haven't mentioned it before but I have ADD and as most people that have it, I've had it my entire life. Of course given my age they didn't call it that when I was growing up. It was usually labeled, "Deborah isn't applying herself in school" or "she's extremely bright but she tends to zone out during class." Of course as I look back on my life, I realize that if I had known all of the tricks that I use for remembering then that I know now no telling what kind of higher education I could have gotten.

Saturday Night Genealogy Fun - Make your own Headstone

Randy Seaver of Genea-Musings blog has a Saturday Night Genealogy Fun every Saturday Night and tonight's mission is as follows:

"Your mission, should you decide to accept it, and I hope that you do, is to:

1) Think about how you want your gravestone to look. What do you want on it as a genealogist? As a child, sibling, parent, spouse, friend? Maybe some sort of witty saying?

2) Tell us about it in text, or create your own gravestone using the online services of companies like Headstones and Memorials. Remember that you have only a limited space to work with and that the bigger they are, the more costly they are.

3) Show us your stone, or what you would put on the stone, in your own blog post, in a comment to this post, or in a Facebook status or comment."

Tonight I decided to take part. I thought I would have a little fun with mine! I don't plan on being buried. Jim and I are going to be cremated, but if I was going to have a tombstone, I think I would like it to look something like this. So here is my tombstone that I recreated on the website Headstones and Memorials.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

National Twins Days!!!!

Thanks to the August 1st posting of Miriam at Ancestories: The Stories of My Ancestors, I found out about Twins Day. Well to be honest, I had heard of it before but didn't know the exact date until her posting.

So I thought I would post a picture of my great-grandfather, Benjamin Lewis DeSpain and his twin sister Ida Leann DeSpain Marcum. B L, as he was called, and Ida were born on 1 Sept 1872 in Green County, Kentucky. I don't remember hearing when this picture was taken and it isn't written on the back of the copy that I have. But Benjamin didn't die until 1958 so they are at least in their seventies when this picture was taken.

Left to right: Charlie H Marcum (husband of Ida); Ida DeSpain Marcum; Benjamin Lewis DeSpain; and unknown man.

If you are interested in seeing B L when he was younger, check out my posting of an earlier picture of him in my Traveling Stove Agents posting on 3 August 2010 found here.

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album pages 16-17

Here we go again. MORE pictures from the Slemmons photo album. We are now up to pages 16 & 17. Here they are:

Traveling Stove Agents

I ran across this in my maternal great-grandparent's pictures.

This is from the time that traveling salesmen would travel the countryside to show their products to people so that they may order them from a company.

The man and woman that are on the right are my great-grandparents, Benjamin Lewis DeSpain and his wife, Alice Josephene Foster. 

I can hear the conversation:
B.L. - "Sir, I can't afford such an expensive thang, why the one that I have is working jus fine!"
Alice - "Oh honey, this one would heat the food so much faster and wouldn't make as big of a mess when we go to clean it."
Stove Agent - "Now, sir if the price is an issue my company will set you up on a payment plan of just 3 dollars a month."
B.L. - "Just 3 dollars ya say! Well, I don't know, let me think on it a bit."

This is the back of the picture.

Someone wrote information on the back that states:
August 21, 1906
Stove Agent                                                  Raymond was baby
Papa 34                                                            6 mo 3 wks old
Mama 29
Ivo 2 yrs 9 mo.

Ivo and Raymond are the children of Benjamin Lewis Despain and Alice Josephene Foster (or as called on the back Papa and Mama).

Hope you enjoyed, glad you stopped by and please come back again ;)