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knoxcotn-digest Monday, July 10 2000 Volume 01 : Number 107
---------------------------------------------------------------------- Date: Wed, 05 Jul 2000 10:13:12 -0500 From: Marian Dunlap <mdunlap@effingham.net> Subject: Re: [KnoxCoTN] Quaker Monthly Meeting In /Around Knox Co. Tn. Records of the Friendsville Quaker settlement have been copied and are available at the library in Maryville, Blount Co TN. Probably the East TN Historical Society also has them available in their library in Knoxville. Marian ------------------------------ Date: Sat, 08 Jul 2000 13:22:56 -0400 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Stout family, Martel (West Knox Co) Is anybody kin to the Stouts that lived at Martel 50 years ago? I've got some old WWII letters that I want to send "home." ------------------------------ Date: Sun, 09 Jul 2000 09:39:58 -0700 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] 09 July 2000: Sunday Afternoon Rocking Forwarder's note: Considering the nature of my mama's shop that I help with, this one was particularly pertinent to me. Just yesterday, I connected with a man in Connecticut <no pun intended>. I have his great-grandfather's engraved name tag in a box of treasures in East Tennessee. Another name tag will probably soon be on its way to France. Last fall, I sent a box of pictures "home" to Ontario to a group of descendants who couldn't have been happier -- especially the 90-year-old man whose house had burned as a child, and whose father's picture was among the batch. Other pictures are about to go to Texas and England. Right now, I'm doing my best to find the rightful owners of some wonderful letters, written by a former slave around 1875. I've got 4 Rubbermaid storage boxes full of pictures, deeds, funeral cards, letters, and even a family Bible to go, but I am grateful to serve as the conduit for returning this stuff. And, it builds good genealogy "karma"! I get blessed with treasures in my own research -- like the cousin who just happened to be at the side of the road when I stopped for directions, or the ancestral stone I was standing beside when I finished praying for quick guidance to the right grave in a 1000-year-old Welsh churchyard... ============================================================================ "The Price of our Past" (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series) Afternoon All, Not so long ago, I wandered the aisles and rooms of an antique mall, gazing with appreciation at the aged bits and pieces of long ago lives, wondering at the circumstances that had torn them from a family that now might not even remember they had ever been a part. Nearby, two well-heeled matrons were having an animated conversation over something one of them held in her hands, and curious, I turned to see what was going on. "Well it has a forty dollar price tag," stated the silver haired lady, a hint of something dubious in her manner. "I think it is well worth that," replied her companion, "I once saw one like it auctioned and going for a good deal more." Suddenly I recognized exactly what it was that had captured the ladies' attention, and before I could think what I was doing, the words popped out, "Oh! I have one exactly like that! I never saw another!" The two matrons turned immediately in my direction, and one's eyes narrowed speculatively. "You have one of these?" she asked, holding up the tiny oil burning lamp, with the word "Handy" raised on the bowl of its surface. "Yes," I replied, "It was my father's when he was a little boy. I am told it rested on a table beside his bed at night, and that he used it to find his way to the outhouse after dark." In my mind's eye, I saw a picture I had long envisioned. It was a summer night in a place I knew well, where lightening bugs lit tiny quick stabs in the darkness, and whipporwills called mournfully. A little boy slipped barefoot through the night with only a tiny lantern to light his way, gazing a bit fearfully this way and that, but struggling to be brave and a "big boy". "What would you take for it?," the lady continued, far less interested in my story, than in the fact that there was indeed another like it in the world and if at all possible, she intended to have it. It was the story behind the lamp that was important to me, and I was upset at the realization that this lady wanted to place a price tag upon it. I was dismayed, and wishing very much I had thought before speaking. "Oh, I couldn't sell it," I replied. And had to repeat again and again, when pressed, that same answer before shrinking quietly away and slipping out the door and back to my car. I realized my mistake of course...impulsive speaking. I had, after all, been in an antique mall where pieces of the past were for sale, and where I myself had purchased such before, and would again. What the ladies had asked was quite reasonable in terms of where I had been, and the information I had volunteered. Perhaps, one of the ladies actually was trying to do what I myself had done before....purchase back a piece of her own past that had been lost, but which she remembered as my father had, resting beside her bed on long ago nights. For lack of the actual piece, she searched for another like it. And I considered those "lost" pieces to our families, and what they meant when they had never been "lost"... I really did not care what the tiny lamp was worth in terms of cash, had never even considered that aspect, and no amount of money could have purchased it, not forty dollars and not four hundred. The lamp was an investment all right, and an investment I was saving for my children, but I figured the dividends not in cash, which is here today and spent tomorrow for things we little remember in years to come, but in terms of the heart and in terms of roots. Roots are both here today and here tomorrow, stories to be told and retold, imprinting upon succeeding generations their family of the past they never had the opportunity to know or to love. There were folks I wanted my children and grandchildren to have a bit of, a memory of....and a tiny lamp was the very vehicle for opening the door to questions. Questions were really invitations to tell the stories...and stories are priceless. just a thought, jan Copyright ©2000JanPhilpot .________________________________________________ (Note: Afternoon Rocking messages are meant to be passed on, meant to be shared...simply share as written without alterations...and in entirety. Thanks, jan) Sunday Afternoon Rocking columns are distributed weekly on the list Sunday Rocking. This is not a "reply to" list, and normally only one message per week will come across it, that being the column. To subscribe send email to Sundayrocking-subscribe@egroups.com _________________________________________________ ------------------------------ Date: Mon, 10 Jul 2000 10:43:41 -0700 From: "Billie R. McNamara" <knox@tngenweb.org> Subject: [KnoxCoTN] Good news about Infospace! I've loved several features of Infospace's people finder for years... Now, though, it's possible to search for a surname or surname/given name combo without specifying a location. That makes looking for a person anywhere in the US a breeze -- and it makes life wonderful for those of us doing one-name studies! Infospace is one of the only places on-line where you can find government phone numbers and addresses (blue pages). You can also leave the name blank and put in a location, then get a listing of everybody who lives in that town. I wouldn't do Chicago, but it works for Crab Orchard <g>. My absolute favorite feature, though, is the reverse lookup. Type in an address and see who's living there today...including a phone number so you can call! http://www.infospace.com -- give it a try! As with any on-line directory, not every number will be listed. But, you can get a clue (which is what we're using this confounded thang for in the first place, right? <g>). ------------------------------ End of knoxcotn-digest V1 #107 ****************************** |