More free Genealogy

Today I had a splitting headache for most of the day so I was slowed down a bit but I did manage some updates to the genealogy pages.

Biographies of William Fleming, Calvin Conaway, and George Bennett, the first two of Marion County, WV and Bennett from Orange County, Indiana. Uploaded and linked Death certficates for Billy Huffman, and Linda Durbin and Marriage certificates for Isaac Bennett + Linda McDonald, Charles Elledge + Dixie Huffman, and Leon Helm + Dixie Huffman; and gravestone photographs for Byron and Rebecca (Bennett) Miller; Joseph Elledge; Caroline Frentress Elledge, all at Ames Chapel Cemetery in French Lick, a gravestone photo for Dakota Ryan Elledge at Memorial Park Cemetery in Saint Joseph, Mo; and the gravestone photo for Cora Emily (Maddock) Elledge at Spring Grove Cemetery in Cincinnati. I also typed out some will abstracts for James Clelland, Caleb Conaway, William Fleming (son of John), Boaz Fleming, John Pierpoint and Josiah Prickett from microfilm 250081 which has a lot of Monongalia County records.  I also added a short record of the death register for Conaways and Goulds in Monongalia County, and extended the Gould deed index (grantor) for Marion County by several years.

I need to get back to transcribing deeds for Marion county, West Virginia.  I still have a pile of them to complete. Thus ends the genealogy updates for another day.

Kansas City Chiefs have new Training Camp

Bricky red skyline of Downtown St. Joseph

Well, after a few years of wrangling Charlie Shields, Missouri Western and the City of Saint Joseph have come up with a plum for 2011 and beyond – the training camp site for the Kansas City Chiefs. It hinges on one criteria, getting enough money to complete new athletic facilities, new parking, and a couple new ballfields to replace the ones that will be under the new parking lot. The Chiefs, the University, the City and the County are kicking in, and yes, probably the taxpayers before long (besides the general use funds that will go to it already).

Some of Saint Joe's old architecture

About time the Chiefs got their camp nearer home and supported somebody’s economy within their fan base instead of the money going to River Falls, Wisconsin in Packer territory. For my hometown, this is big news and it splits the community between the grumblers and the enthusiastic. The grumblers are ahead in the count. Too often in Saint Joe the grumblers win. Saint Joe has about as low a tax base as any city its’ size in the US – taxes are peanuts here, and the services reflect it. That’s the thing taxpayers don’t get. They want good schools, parks, police and fire protection, the streets salted and plowed the second it snows BUT they want someone else to pay for it. Anyone. Just not them.

Columns from the razed Robidoux Hotel stand sentinel

Passing a tax in Saint Joe is about as easy as passing a boulder sized kidney stone. It doesn’t happen often and never without a bunch of screamin’ and hollerin’. So, as the city’s economic base crumbles, Snorkel-Economy just the latest casualty of the economic meltdown, people naturally want to avoid higher taxes but for crissakes, Saint Jo’ you have to have some taxes – or else no services.

Robidoux Row - a Museum for the city's founder Joe Robidoux

The Chiefs situation is just one more blown opportunity to get the community rolling if this thing fails to materialize now that the Chiefs have said “Pony up and we’ll do it.”  Communities grow by an aggregation of attractions/amenities, services and conveniences. Saint Joseph has the convenience of a centralized location with good highways right through it, a river, a major airport just minutes away but it always seems to fail when it comes to capitalizing those other two things – services and attractions/amenities.

Rococco front of the Missouri Theater downtown

Add some ridiculously stupid government that can’t get anything done without deadlocking themselves in ego fights and ‘who’s in charge’ tug of wars and it’s not hard to see why the city always seems seems to teeter on the precipice if economic disaster. Poor services because of low taxes, mediocre schools, and a dearth of quality attractions, unless a second rate river casino is an attraction. I mean, this is a town that proudly hails itself as the home of Jesse James – a career criminal!

Pony Express Statue - Where Johnny Fry took the first ride

Thing is, it’s not a bad town to raise kids and it could be great if they’d just do a few things. Hire a professional curator to operate and run the museums for one. The city has a great but underutilized and poorly operated museum system, yet as a history buff I can state this is a very fascinating place with some great possibilities. Protect the parkway from developments of any kind. The museums are in place, their artifacts and the history they represent are great – they just need some funding and direction. The Chiefs camp is another step. It brings people here. It gets the name on front burners in season and increases tourism. I could be a pessimist and say oh hell, they’ll blow it again but this is my hometown. I’d like them to win one for a change.

Belt Highway - St Joe's Fast Food Mecca

The Swan and the Drake

There is always time for a love poem, and for me, that means my wife Renee.

the bridge to my heart...

The Swan and the Drake

You sustain me,

You sustain me through tribulations,

through trouble and trials

when no other can.

Thus vast yet empty

I walk naked

And alone in the night.

I step into ether

And am two-as-one,

The joy of the crowning find,

The chalice.

Rises the white bird of my soul and hers

From hopes and smoke

And words flung into electrons,

I am phoenix’d.

Flys she with me,

South -

From the stark white life,

Warm -

She learns to swim,

The swan and the drake.

Renee

: I love you

I love you

I am.. .amazed by you

In so many ways.. .

More Free Genealogy Added

Chugging along, adding a few more items, including a biography of Waitman Conaway, with photo and sources from several resources, a short biography of James D Joseph, who married nancy Conaway of WV and moved to Butler Co, Kansas, where he became a successful banker. The Thomas Maddock register and .pdf descendant book I promised yesterday, delving into the lines of this immigrant from Ireland who went to Cincinnati after arriving in Maine. Finally, a few minutes ago I completed assembling the biography of Aretas Brooks Fleming, the once Governor of West Virginia, with a good photograph. These last came from Google books but they do have to formatted and the images removed from the file and sharpened up a bit, so maybe I saved you some time anyway. I’m still working at it today, next adding some more deeds to the Gould of Marion County Deed index. Digging, digging, digging….

Legend of Aloysius Curveball!

Camping out waiting for another post? Well, grab a snack, and keep that flashlight handy. It’s gettin’ dark out there…

Dad painted our house one June when I was about 5 or 6. He painted it white, and it took several weeks, painstaking perfectionist that he was, all white, with green trim, and every inch free of runs and neatly cut in as if the paint was laid with a ruler.  Then he resodded the front lawn but it rained and rained for days after he’d skinned the old grass  and he had to put the sod on hold. Meanwhile there was this huge pile of mud in the yard, an irresistable chocolate earth playground. Soaked, squishy, mud pie packing and mudball rolling big ol’ pile of forbidden mud. Quite forbidden. Which made playing in it all the better.

Where or how I got my imagination I do not know, but I suspect it was a giant jape the angels played on my poor mother and father, because you know what I saw when I was six and looked out there at that giant heap of mucky clay? A pitcher’s mound. And I imagined I was the greatest hurler of all time…I WAS ……

ALOYSIUS CURVEBALL!

“Nice arm, young fella,
Do you think you oughta stop now?”
Mailman Joe grinned at me.
No way, I thought, winding
Up and firing another juicy mudball.
I’m Joey Jay, after all,
Steely-eyed Redleg facing down
Those Brooklyn Birds – SPpla-at!
Try and hit my aloysius curveball
You pinstriped rat! 5 year old boys
Throw curveballs in their minds-
I had the best bender any ghost batter
Ever faced, even the mailman saw that.

I stood in drizzling mist, early June in ’59,
Proud and tall (tall in my own mind)
And blurred another mudder at the wall.
Someday, I thought, squatting to squish
Another dripping glob, Daddy will turn on
His radio and there I’ll be – chucking
Blazing fastballs – one and two and three!
Enthroned in favorite chair, beer in hand
Dad will yell “SHUT UP!” point at box,
“I want to hear my boy for once!”
The mudball kid, with his aloysius curve -
Granted audience with the Frightful Man!

(What really happened now)
When you’re 5, with accordioned socks
And everyone else in the world is tall,
You’ll get your frightful audience alright,
If you fire mudball strikes against your
House’s freshly white and painted walls.

©Chuck Elledge2008

More free genealogy Added

Today I mostly worked on the genealogy pages, adding a descendant register for Big John Conaway, and a download .pdf of him, as a Descendant Book, complete with sources and details, notes and stories.  I also uploaded another half dozen death certificates for different family members, Conaway’s and Maddock’s. Still not even a tenth done getting it all online. Takes time, plus I’m still actively working on the genealogy itself, so that needs time, too.

Tomorrow another register and accompanying .PDF of another family line, that of Thomas Maddock, of Cincinnati.

Then, I’ve had several people asking me to add more poems and galleries and stories to the regular posts. I hit 48 visitors yesterday, my highest count to date and in the 10 days since I started the blog’s it’s had 154 hits. That may not seem like much to y’all, but to me it’s amazing. That’s about how many hits I thought it would get in its whole first year.  They seem to be split down the middle on genealogy pages and browsing the posts.  To all who are browsing or reading, thanks for stopping by! Leave a comment even if its to say “Boy are you a dumbass”

~Grandpockets~

Christmas Gallery 2008

Its snowing like crazy outside now, already a couple inches down and more falling fast! It’ll be sledding time tomorrow!

I can go out with the grandkids and fall on my tookus a half dozen times just to let them laugh. Kordell will be happy – he got a new Rocket Sled from Santa.

Attack of the Paper Rippers

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Santa themed in blue and silver this year but all the kids can think of is getting to those gifts!

They were ripping ‘em open as fast as they could, then tossing them into piles behind them,

forgotten once open so they could get at the next one.

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Hey, hey the gang’s all here…sister Lucretia, her hubby Joey, home on leave from the Army, and Renee, baby nephewDan Jello (DeAngelo but I like I’ve said, Grandpockets nicknames em all), Sadie and Ezzie – and the paper shredding is just getting started.

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A little tired from all that hard work ripping stuff open. No wait, just examining her new Cabbage Patch doll ver-r-ry closely, I guess….

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We’re happy, we’re happy, oh, so happy, we are!

Lots of presents, lots of presents, makes us happy so far

at least ’til we’re sixteen and wanting a car…

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Ezzie is getting into it, when you’re 2 the paper is almost as much fun as the presents inside, well, almost, but if you get a Princess package…Wow!

Princess is the hot thing for our girls, I’m ready to puke princess pink if I see one more gee-gaw done up in “Princess”.

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Niece Ezzie is going to ride that dman bike, now, inside or out – and woe to the fool who gets in that girl’s way! Up and down the hall, into the kitchen, and did you know, if you’re 2 and very small you can turn a bike so sharply it will make a huey in the bathroom?

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Grandpockets isn’t stunned. Really, I always have that glazed over half dead look on my face. The T-shirt was Sadie’s gift to me – it has her picture on it and on the back it says “Daddy’s Little Princess” Can you say thumb and wrapped around?

I try not to but she can…and does. Her mama was gonna spank her the other day and she twists around and says  “I want Daddy to do it!”  Tell you anything?

Dan Jello says “I wanna stay! I wanna stay! More presents, damn you! Get me outta this monkey suit! Do you hear, me? SomeBODY pick me up! Now!”

And someone always does, too. Babies always get there way.  Spoiled li’l things.

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Grandson Payton thinks he’s slick. He thinks he’s going to get Grandpockets with a snowball if he acts innocent. There is no innocence in grandchildren. They are devious, cunning little creatures.

He’ll pelt me…I’ll pelt him. It’s a war no one can win. See? Lessons in world politics right in the front yard.

Yuck! @!*@! You ate that right off the car! I wonder how many hydrocarbons a grandchild can ingest before becoming an environmental hazard in their own right? It’s not the hydrocarbons he swallows I am so worried about. It is the noxious emissions.

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Sister Cissy hasn’t learned how to be devious yet. She telegraphs her intentions quite clearly. Unfortunately, the necessity of snapping the picture required that I stand bravely in the line of fire. I think she knew that. Perhaps she’s more devious than I thought. She’s a child creature. Of course! She is both brazen AND devious! You can’t win with these little guys – on a primal level they are smarter than us – and they know it!

Sadie has retreated to the safety of the car. I will still get her back. It will be a most satisfying splat, too. A big wet gishy snowball right upside her pink hooded lil’ head. What worries me is I think she is luring me on. Payton must be lurking behind the car. Ezzie is smart. She’s getting the hell outta Dodge.

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Just when you think you might have to put ‘em back under that rock they came from they go and clean up after themselves. Ezzie shows her housekeeping skills. If the child learned to vacuum outside of that one single track it would help, but, oh well, at she does help. You may have notice that my children – nieces, nephews, daughter, all love being half nekkid. We consider it a major accomplishment to just keep a  diaper or shorts on the damn little nudists.

It all just wore Dan Jello out. A kid can only scream at adults for so long then ya gotta get some shuteye so you can get up fresh and start all over again. Babies – ya gotta love ‘em. The only creatures known who do nothing at all except shit, scream, snack and sleep but manage to look cute doing it.

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And finally Christmas Day is done,

the gifts unwrapped,

the snow wars won

It’s time to snooze without a care

In hopes St. Nick will soon be there.

After all it’s never too early to start dreaming of next year…

Attack of the Ice

How it all Began...

Last night about 5 pm  it was 60° outside, wet and melty, this morning its all frozen solid in sheets of ice. Big icicles on the eaves and tree limbs and walking out the door is a an invitation to go “ass skating”.  The snow is melted off now so it isn’t even good sledding weather – just cold, and brown – that midwest drear that get the winter blues a-goin’. Winter is gorgeous when there is fresh snow and ice – but old snow and snow melt puddles are dirty and brackish, a Saint Jo townscape all done in browns. The orange cone monsters are out too – street crews everyhere, and those signs  “Your tax dollars at work” – proclamations that we’re too stupid to realize that for ourselves.  Six guys are working on the Belt and I see three of them sitting on the truck watching the other three work. The sign should say “Half your tax dollars at work.” That’s when I even see anyone there. Usually its just a long file of orange soldier cones congesting three lanes into one without a worker bee in sight. Our subdivision has a great idea to save money, though.  Don’t do a thing to the roads – let the potholes patrol the speed limit. Saves on road crews, tar and gravel and on police enforcement. Locals call them speed slumps.

Speed Slump at Work

Speed slumps are most useful – mini skating rink, local swimming hole, speed enforcement, and eventually becoming gravel quarries – at which the neighborhood will need to incorporate them and hire a personnel manager.

I write poetry at odd times and more in winter than summer since I’m inside more, I guess. All the road crews and orange cones and delays get me to thinking and I write about it:

Its winter whiteness now
preparing the roads for the season
of eternal road repair,
a slow lift and collapse like bolsheviks:
the white revolution,
fought against asphalt and pancake sidewalks
ice upended like flapjacks
come spring, like breakfast for the roadcrews
that whistle “The Great Pretender”
while they fill blacktop buckles
with tar slurry syrup
in the heat
they’ll repeat
when the cold jester follows
undoing their labor.

They tar and gravel cars here
before they salt and slosh them.
Its winter whiteness now,
except for the edges
where the myth is sullied
and dirty, gutters of exhaust
fumes made visible
our dark environmental secrets
exposed by the snows.

©Chuck Elledge2008

At the Zoo Don’t Feed The Animoes

I love the zoo. Now is a great time to go see the polar bears. I love the zoo in winter. No one else is there. That is because they have more sense than I do. Some exhibits are closed, of course, but lots are open. Polar bears, and penguins and wolves. Even reindeer. Really. Real live reindeer. I tried to talk to them but they pretend not to be able to. Sometimes you can find a Lion to Ride.

Sometimes its fun to give a glance to the giant funny elly-phance. They huff and puff and give great blows from their funny pachydermal nose. And even if the only thing you see is a marmet chirping happily…

It’s still a blast to see what you can see. Perhaps an ape behind some glass so kids can watch him pick his…

The thing to know is sun or snow, the zoo is sure the place to go! Just remember rule number one…PLEAZ…

Don’t Feed the Animoes!

At the zoo, I never feed the animoes
Afraid they might eat my feet or my noze
Striped Tigers are snacking behind too-tall fences
They bolt down their food until it’s past tenses
Lion’s are gnawers – I don’t want any closer
Being lunch for a lion isn’t good for composure
Hippos are hippy, and fatty, and huge
But the thought of us in the potamus doesn’t amuze
Those horny ol Rhinoze – how grandioze
Who’d want a nocerus to step on their toze?
After a while, we got to the ‘dile
A child for breakfast would make that croc smile!
Now speakin of lunch I can hear a low rumblin
All this walking and gawkin has my tummy a grumblin
So, lets take out a samwich and pull up our chairz…
But I’m keeping an eye out for those darn Grizzly Bearz!!

©Chuck Elledge2008

Updates and Busy Work

I’ve been busy today trying to increase the amount of genealogy on site for interested family researchers. I’m finding out it’s time consuming – not only the transcribing but formatting it, adding the links, uploading photocopies and pictures, etc. and then making sure everything works.

Some of the new items added or updated include:

Added: William Bennett – Jonathan Peter Deed 9 Jan 1847 with photocopies of original

Moved around and changed the index pages in the genealogy section to sort the different families:

Added: Bennett-Miller-Speer-McGrew-Pittman Index

Added: Maddock-Munro/Monroe-Burke-Mulholland Index

Added: William Davis Moore Biographical Sketch and some supplemental information

Added: Moore-Peterson-Mick-Lucas-Prather Index

Updated: Elledge – Conaway Genealogy Pages Hopefully this makes the different pages easier to find and helps researchers looking for a specific family to go right to the parts they’re interested in

Added links to Houston Miller Jr and Sr. info and photos from Carole V. Beringer’s Blog at Avelyn’s Avenues

And I made a regular post to the blog “Christmas The Day After”