Veteran's Day - One mother's thoughts on having a son at war

Wishing everyone a happy Veteran's day. I found this clipping that my maternal grandmother, Gussie (DeSpain) Munday had posted in the newspaper. It is about how she (and probably the family) felt about her son, William L Munday, being in Germany and the war.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Album page 24 & 25 revisited

Back in 2010 I was posting from a photo album my aunt had in her possession of family pictures. One of the postings titled Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 24 & 25 showed a picture of the Dripping Springs School my maternal grandfather (Richard S Munday) and his siblings attended in about 1904. It was a good group picture but I had always noticed how light parts of it were and it didn't allow you to see all of the children's faces.

I played around with it a little today and wanted to share the new touched-up version.

While it is really just darkened, darkening it allows the children's faces on the right to be seen better.

As an aside I would be interested if anyone knows any of the other children in this picture. While my great-grandmother listed 11 children as you can see there are way more than that in the picture.


Please let me know if you are related to anyone of the children in the picture.

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

Mystery Monday - Are these the Warders I'm looking for? part 2

Last Monday, I posted the beginning of a search for the Francis and Susan Warder who had written a letter to my 3 great-grandfather, George Munday, in 1815. If you would like to read that posting go ahead I'll wait - click here

OK are you all caught up? Boy you're a fast reader....anyway onward and upward.

Mystery Monday - Are these the Warders I'm looking for? part 1

In Saturday's post (found here) I covered an 1815 letter written to my 3rd great-grandfather, George Munday, of Prince William County, Virginia by Francis and Susan Warder.

First let me say that I have looked in the book about the Warder family titled, "A history and genealogy of the Warder family in Virginia, Kentucky and Illinois" on Ancestry and can not find this Francis and Susan Warder.

I dug around a little bit on the 'net for Francis and Susan Warder. But because no address, city or state was listed on the letter, I really didn't have an idea on where to start looking.

Sibling Saturday - 1815 Letter from Francis and Susan Warder

Years ago my aunt allowed me to copy a letter that had been handed down in the family. (A lot of my research starts with my aunt having something handed down in the family.)

Anyway, the 1815 letter is from a Francis and Susan Warder to my great-great-great grandfather, George Munday. It is addressed to George while he was living in Haymarket, Prince William County, Virginia. It is a xeroxed copy and in pretty decent shape. Here is how it looks:

Sunday’s Obituary ~ Waller Munday's death 1909

Here are a couple of obituaries that were glued into the family bible for the same person. Waller Munday was my grandfather's brother who died when he was 20 years old. I took these photos before I had my flip-pal scanner, so - sorry for the blurriness!

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny M's Memory Bk pt12

Well, I took off last week because of going to the National Genealogical Society Conference in Cincinnati, Oh.

So now, back to the Memory Book that my grandmother & great-grandmother's created. This week's page is an extra sheet of paper that was stuck between two pages.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny M's Memory Bk pt11

Okay, now for all the news that was the news in the microscopic town of Dripping Springs (also known as Wisdom), Metcalfe County, Kentucky on July 7 1960.

Old picture made new

I have a picture that one of my maternal aunts had allowed me to make a copy of years ago. It is of James William Munday, my great-grandfather. When my aunt first allowed me to make a copy of it, I noticed (well how could I not) that the picture had seen better days.

But like any glad to have it type of person I made a copy of it and gave the original back to my aunt and went on my merry way.

So a couple of years ago I scanned many (unfortunately, not all) of my family pictures and added them to my computer, this well traveled picture being one of them. A few times I have opened the picture up in Picasa and worked on it with the retouch tool that Picasa includes. I had slowly noticed a difference but really thought I would never be finished with the retouching giving how worn this picture is.

Well today, I worked on this picture quite a bit more and think that I have finally gotten it to the final stages. I wanted to share it with you guys to see what you think.

I was shocked that when, after all of the scratches were removed, I clicked the "I'm feeling lucky" option that according to Picasa is the "one click fix for lighting and color" to see this image:

Wow! I was totally blown away. I think I will print out a high quality copy of this and mail it to my aunt that allowed me to copy her original so that she can enjoy it as much as I will.

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

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny M's Memory Bk pt9

Okay, I'm a little late today with the posting but my husband and I came back from vacation and I think I finally know what people mean by jet lag. I have been playing catch up all week long.

Anyway, here is the next installment of my grandmother/great-grandmother's memory book. When last we left my grandmother, in last week's posting found here, she was writing about what Zelma was doing. So this week we find out that....

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny M's Memory Bk pt 8

Here is this week's installment of my great-grandmother/grandmother's memory book.

This story is written by my grandmother, Gussie O. DeSpain Munday. Let's see what she has to say:

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny M's Memory Book pt 5

This week's installment of my great grandmother & grandmother's memory book is interesting. Here it is:

"Aunt Lou Wilson died February 13, 1936 She is my mother's oldest sister Sallie May Buckners mother. Aunt Lerie Foster Woolridge died 1952 Sept 30"

Interesting because I am getting better at telling which woman wrote which entry by recognizing their handwriting. This entry was written by my grandmother, Gussie O. (DeSpain) Munday, about the oldest sister of her mother, Alice Josephine (Foster) DeSpain. Aunt Lou Wilson was born Lou Alvery Foster and married Joseph Reed Wilson. Lou as she was known by was born Oct 5 1866, to Josiah Foster and Sarah Frances Fulks. Oh, yeah by the way they were 1st cousins!

Aunt Lerie Foster Woolridge was a sister to Lou and Alice Foster. She was born Jun 1 1872, married 1st George Green Walker and 2nd to Frank Woolridge. A transcribed copy of her obituary can be found here.

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

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny M's Memory Book pt 2

OK, so here is the next page from the memory book that I started posting last week, found here.

Treasure Chest Thursday - Granny Munday's Memory Book beginning

OK, I guess I have taken a long enough time off from posting. I'm starting back up with another Treasure Chest Thursday series.

This is a book that my maternal aunt has allowed me to scan. I used the Flip-Pal scanner that I received for Christmas from my husband to scan this book turned journal in which her grandmother and my great-grandmother, Emily Calhoun (Slemmons) Munday, kept notes. She died in 1936 in Metcalfe County, Kentucky. The material that is in here after that would have been added by my grandmother and her daughter-in-law, Gussie Otto (DeSpain) Munday.

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 24 & 25

Well here we are at the last two pages of the album.

Here are pages 24 & 25:

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 23

Well here we are drawing toward the close of this album. It’s sort of bitter sweet, but have no fear! I have plenty more pictures that I can post. :)

This is page 23

Treasure Chest Thursday - Slemmons Photo Album page 22

Here are the next to the last two pages. I am pretty excited about finishing the album so that I start sharing more of the interesting things that I have for this family. So with that said I'll get on with the show.

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 21

Here we are again with more pictures from this cotton-pickin’ album. :) I mean I really like posting these pictures that way other people can see them and they can be "saved" for posterity.  But come on how long is this album? Well I looked at it and there are four more pages before the album is done. So that is four more weeks before it is over. I think I can do that....no I know I will do that. Ok, enough of my non-private pep-talk to myself on with this week's edition.

Treasure Chest Thursday – Slemmons Album page 20

I’m back. Sorry for missing last week. I was in the middle of trying to setup my new laptop. Anyway, up until now I have been posting the Slemmons album pages in pairs. Of course all of the pages until now were only one picture per page. Well now we come to the part of the album where there will be multiple pictures per page. So rather than making the postings too large, I will start posting one page per week.

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.