Another conversation with an elderly cousin

Some of you may remember a posting I did back on the 1st of May about my recent phone conversation with Junior Hutcherson, an elderly cousin of mine, and our catching up of family news. That posting is located here for your reading pleasure.

Anyway, the reason I mention this is because Jr called me the other day just to check in again. Well, as always we had a really enjoyable conversation. But again I am amazed at what a wealth of knowledge he is. I casually mentioned something that I noticed on the 1930 census. Well, that led to him telling me how my paternal grandparents meet.

Before I tell how the conversation went, I should preface this with some relationships that will make this conversation make a little more sense. First my paternal grandmother, Minnie Shofner Tharp, was the sister to Annie Shofner Hutcherson, Junior's mother. While being his aunt, Minnie was only about 8 or 9 years older than Jr....gotta love the large country families. :) Next, my paternal grandfather, Hurley Tharp, was the son of Simon Tharp & Rhoda Self, they called her Wag. I have added the italicized information in the parenthesis. So here goes the conversation that we had:

Me: "I was looking at the 1930 census the other day and noticed something that I had never noticed before."

Jr: "What's that?"

Me: "That you, your mom, dad and Edward (Jr's deceased brother) was living 3 houses/farms from Hurley (my grandfather), Simon and Wag and siblings. Did my Minnie come to visit you all and met Hurley because of them living close to you all and this is how they meet?"

Jr: "It most certainly is. Minnie was staying with us, I'm not really sure of why but she was, and had been for a while. Anyway, dad was cutting hay and had hired Hurley and Hursle (Hurley's brother) to help. Mom and Minnie came down to the field to give us something to drink and you know that he (Hurley) had the nerve to wink at my aunt {he giggles then}....and that's all it took. My aunt was never the same after that."

WHAT! Wow, yet again he is telling me a story that I have NEVER heard. Now, mind you these are not grandparents that died before I was born or I didn't get to spend much time with or only saw on holidays and was lost among a plethora of other grandchildren. No, I was an only grandchild of these grandparents. I saw them ALL the time. I spent about two weeks a year for about 4 or 5 years with these grandparents. But I had never heard this story.

Now I know it is not an earth shattering revelation or a hidden family secret that has finally come to light. But it is still pretty amazing to me that after all of these years of research something as simple as finding out how my grandparents met has been learned.

Again, as I had stated in my first posting after a conversation with Jr, it just goes to show that you have never heard all the stories that people have to tell.

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


Picture comes from Graphics Fairy