The Bluegrass State - part 1

Kentucky

(Sightseeing)

November 23, 2017 - November 27, 2017

While staying on the north side of the Ohio River in Aberdeen, Ohio, we visited Maysville, Kentucky, just over a bridge.  As I said, Maysville was the hometown of Rosemary Clooney who, for those too young to have heard her sing or seen her in movies, was George Clooney's aunt.  George grew up in Augusta, Kentucky which is just a way's downriver from Maysville.  Reaching back further in time, Maysville was founded by Daniel Boone, among others and it became a very important port, especially as western expansion began.  Rivers were the main way people got around prior to trains as well as important commercial routes to move goods east and west or north and south.  Because of it's position just across the river from the "free state" of  Ohio, it was also an important stop on the underground railroad.

Aberdeen, Ohio as seen from Maysville, Kentucky

We happened to be there over Thanksgiving and we had a delicious Thanksgiving buffet at an Italian restaurant located right on the banks of the Ohio in Maysville. Watching from the restaurant as well as from our campsite were were struck by how many barges were being pushed or towed up and down the river.  It's a very busy waterway.

Front of a raft of barges being pushed upstream.

I guess this would be a sort of tug boat although very different in design from what we typically see in Puget Sound.
In this case it's pushing a raft of barges upstream.  From what we could tell the barges appear
to be tied 3 across and anywhere from 4 to 8 barges long. It's a huge load!

The city is filled with wonderful old brick buildings built years and years ago.  The brickwork and window treatments are so solid and visually interesting. I just love the feeling of strength they exude.

The city has recorded it's history in a series of interesting murals painted on the city's floodwall.  After our Thanksgiving dinner we drove around to see as many of the murals as we could find.

A small sampling...

This mural represents the part Maysville played as part of the Underground Railroad.
It shows various items which were used to communicate to escaping slaves the route and timing for their escape to freedom.

1900's waterfront.
A representation of the important roles the Ohio River and the railroad have played on Maysville's prosperity.

This mural depicts a county event called Germantown Fair which includes a horse show. 
This event has been going on for over 150 years.

This mural celebrates a visit by the Marquis de Lafayette in 1825.
Lafayette, who came from France to help us in our war for independence, was a hero to many Americans.
As a result, there are many towns named for him throughout the country.

This mural celebrates a Native American bison hunt in the Maysville area.
These were woodland bison rather than the more familiar plains bison.

This mural celebrates native daughter Rosemary Clooney. 
It represents a parade held to celebrate the premier of her movie "The Stars are Singing" at the local Russell movie house.
The premier was held in Maysville at her insistence.  About 20,000 people attended the parade.

We were interested in seeing the National Underground railroad museum in Maysville but we found it was closed for the Thanksgiving Holiday so we went instead to the Kentucky Gateway Museum Center.

The museum features local Kentucky history and had a special showing by a Ukrainian artist.  The thing that really caught our attention however was the Katherine Savage Browning Miniatures Collection. This exhibit is a MUST SEE!  Mrs. Browning started collecting miniatures over 40 years ago and her hobby has taken her all over the world!  All items are 1/12 scale miniatures (1" = 1') and are made by the best miniature makers in this unique field.  Unfortunately pictures were not allowed in this gallery so I can't show you the incredible work done by these artists but you can see some examples at the following link: KSB Miniatures Collection.  When you see the pictures you probably won't realize the items are miniatures.  The workmanship is absolutely incredible.  You'll start at the "Home" page but be sure to check out the following: "Christmas Exhibits", "About - Exhibits", "Blog."  You'll only see a small sample on this link.  The actual exhibit space in the museum is 3300 sq. feet!  It is mind blowing!

Saw these obituaries in the local paper in Maysville.  Anyone see anything unusual about them?

We next drove to Lexington, true bluegrass country and home of thoroughbred horses.  As you drive around the area there are miles and miles of fenced pastures surrounding huge mansions with fancy gated driveways.  Clearly there is a lot of money in this area.  We stayed in a campground on the grounds of the Kentucky Horse Park which, during the season, has hundreds of things to see and do.

The Horse park itself is huge. In addition to the campground there are numerous horse attractions to see including a wonderful museum.  I love horses and was sad not to be able to see some actual horse events. That is one of the issues when you travel "off season".  We did go to the museum and walked through some of the special barns in order to see a few of the horses still in the park.

There are numerous tribute statues to famous horses around the park.

A Clydesdale horse. 

An Arabian horse on the left and a Frisian horse on the right 

Some of the more interesting things we learned in the museum:

• In the first Kentucky Derby (1875) 13 of the 15 entrants were ridden by African American jockeys!
• Seven African American jockeys have been inducted into the National Museum's of Racing's Hall of Fame.
• Although there are many types of draft horses, the most common are the Shire, the Percheron, the Belgian, the Clydesdale and the Suffolk.  (Note: the Frisian horse in the picture above is a draft horse from the Netherlands.)
• Activities involving humans and horses include: Polo, Rodeo, Reining, Dressage, Para-dressage, Driving, Vaulting, Eventing, Jumping, Endurance, Racing and Harness Racing.  

Kentucky is where President Abraham Lincoln and his wife Mary Todd were both born but under very different circumstances.  He was born on a farm in the country and she was born to wealth and privilege in Lexington.  She was the fourth of sixteen children from two different wives.  Here are some pictures from the house she grew up in after the age of 14. Until then she lived just across the street.  Not all the furniture is original to the family but is generally representative of the time period and degree of the family's wealth.

The property originally included a separate kitchen, slave quarters, kitchen garden, outhouse, etc.  Clearly Mary's father was a wealthy man who provided very well for his sixteen children.  He died at the young age of 58 and despite being an astute businessman he died without a will.  This caused problems within the family when one of his sons from his first marriage challenged the proposed settlement of the estate, forcing this house to be sold.  It was subsequently used as the base for several businesses, the last being a sort of hardware store.  Pictures from the time the house was purchased in order to preserve it's historical value show the various rooms in a state of total disrepair.  The work involved to restore it to it's present state was enormous but the outcome is stunning.  It's a beautiful home, well worth seeing.

The Buckeye State

Ohio

(Sightseeing and seeing family)

November 14, 2017 - November 22, 2017

We got a late start (which I must say is fairly typical) leaving my aunt's place and of course we needed to dump and get propane.  The dump station my cousins told me about cost $10 so we passed on that option and decided to dump at our next campground.  The propane dealer we found was a gas station with only one person working.  It's kind of hard to handle the store and pump propane from way across his lot but he managed to get it done. It felt good to have that taken care of.  Having heat when it's cold is a good thing.

We drove through Toledo and on down to and through Ashland to a campground on Charles Mill Lake.  It consisted of a large number of permanent sites with various types of recreational vehicles parked on them but hardly anything was occupied at this time of the year.

Charles Mill Lake

A lake like this must draw huge crowds in the summer.  There are numerous coves and bays, many with docks which were all pulled in for the winter.  Houseboats seem to be popular as there were quite a number of them pulled up onto the land waiting for spring.

Tom, my first cousin once removed and his wife Irene live in Ashland.  Tom and my mom are first cousins.  We spent the first of two and a half days with them at their home.  These two are both so talented.  Although Irene does many artsy things she is an amazing painter.  She painted many of the pictures in their home and they are beautiful.  Tom has a complete wood shop in his basement and he's a whiz at home improvement projects as well as making furniture.  They both bemoaned the fact that they can't ski or go boating any longer, both of which they love.  They lived in Glenwood Springs, Colorado for many years so they did a lot of skiing there.  They also once lived in Coeur d'Alene, Idaho where boating is absolutely first rate.

The second day we went over to see their grandaughter's horses.  Andrea has been around horses all her life and has a really special connection with them.  She's even written and published a book called "Confessions of  a Horse Crazy Girl."  She not only trains horses but also trains riders.  She currently has 5 horses and the one pictured below will actually give a horse version of a kiss to her.  I just couldn't catch it at the right time but it touches the side of her cheek with it's nose then, without moving it's head, it moves it's upper lip back and forth on her cheek. Wish I had thought to take a video of it!

Andrea getting kissed by her horse.

The day we left we went out to eat in Ashland, taking off towards NE Ohio from there.

Tom and Irene

Sometimes a wrong turn can be a good thing.  While trying to get ourselves straightened out we went by an Amish barn raising!  Unfortunately there wasn't a good place where we could just stop and watch but we did manage to get this picture.  It's missing a lot of interesting subjects such as the huge number of horse and buggies parked and tied (separately) all over a field to the left.  It was quite a sight.  We later saw a postcard showing a barn raising and it said they put a barn up in a single day which I find astounding!  I imagine there is a lot of planning that goes into getting all the materials needed to the site not to mention organized.  I also suppose that each man has a specialty or certain tasks to perform.  It seems like it would be chaotic but it couldn't be put up in a day if that were the case.  We were sooooo glad we made a wrong turn.  Irene told us about seeing a 5 horse hitch pulling a wagon one day and that would have been a sight to see as well.

From Ashland, we drove on up to Punderson State Park near Burton, Ohio to see a young friend of ours from Seattle.  Her parents are good friends of ours and Laura was present and took pictures at Adrianne's birth.  We had hoped to surprise her but the surprise was on us when we were unable to make contact with her. On the way there we say lots of evidence of Amish farms as shown below.

Shocks of hay in the field.

Burton, Ohio is on the western edge of the 4th largest Amish community in the U.S.  While we were there we spent a very rainy day driving around the country looking at Amish houses, buggies, stores, restaurants, etc.  I was amazed to see how many people were out driving their buggies here and there in the awful weather.  We ate at an Amish food restaurant (very tasty), sought out an Amish hardware store (lit only with lights run by a battery (a flashlight would have helped)), and wandered through an old general store.  It was really interesting but, given the choice, I'll take electricity and modern conveniences.

This is the one picture we got of a horse and buggy, only because it was "parked" while the owner went into a store.
I don't know if the horse is covered only while it waits or if it had it on while it trots down the road. 
What I can say it that most of the horses had no rain cover on them at any time. 

From Burton we drove to Alum Creek State Park north of Columbus, Ohio, then drove to Aberdeen, Ohio.  On our way to Aberdeen we stopped at Serpent Mound, an ancient animal effigy mound, thought to date back to about 1000 AD.  It's unclear what significance the mound had to the people who built it but it really is interesting.  There is a large observation tower (built in 1900) which helps to view the mound.  Unfortunately the museum was closed but we climbed the observation tower and wandered around the area.

View from the observation deck, looking toward the tail.

View from the observation deck, looking toward the head.
If you look close you can see the undulating curves of the mound.

This picture is from the Serpent Mound website.  It shows the true beauty of the design.

In Aberdeen we stayed at a campground right on the Ohio River. We had a very strange experience at this campground.  The office was closed and locked with nothing to indicate what to do or how to pay.  There must have been 50 RV's parked in long term rental spaces.  Not a single person seemed to be around anywhere. We decided to park and wait for them to come to us. We stayed 3 nights and no one so much as came by or left a note about what and how to pay.

The town of Aberdeen has seen better days but right across the river is the town of Maysfield, Kentucky, home town of Rosemary Clooney!  More on that in the next installment.

More of the mitten - part 4

Michigan's Lower Peninsula - continued

(Sightseeing, genealogical research and seeing friends and family)

October 10, 2017 - November 13, 2017

We had gotten some potentially bad news while at a quick oil change shop in Bad Axe.  They thought we might have blown head gasket in our Honda CRV.  They couldn't have been nicer, not even charging me for the oil and antifreeze they put in the car. When does that ever happen????  There was no place nearby to fix the problem so I decided we'd have it looked at when we got to the Port Huron area since we planned to stay there for about a week.  Again, long story short, it turned out to be a leaking cam shaft seal which was fixed with a minimum of effort and cost.  Whew...we were happy to have dodged that bullet.

We stayed in Marysville, near Port Huron in a Thousand Trails Campground, of which we are members.  Off again on again weather from bright sunshine to drenching rain.  When you're inside an RV when it rains hard, you know it.  Poor Barney just couldn't understand what all the noise was about.

Fall colors adding to the beauty in the woods.

Barney enjoying the leaf litter.  He'd be even happier if he could just get to the spot where there's sunshine.

Lots of big "puddles" after a rain storm.

Leaf patterns left on a sidewalk.

Once the car was finished we headed over the Blue Water Bridge between Port Huron, MI and Sarnia, Ontario, and made our way to Auburn, Ontario where some of Laura's "Roetcisoender" cousins live.  If any of you have ever met someone by the name of Roetcisoender, you've met one of Laura's cousins.  It's a "made up Dutch" name deriving from the original Swiss German name of Rutishauser.  A single Rutishauser man made his way to the Netherlands in about 1798, married a Dutch woman, and through the years the name began to morph into Roetcisoender.  All Roetcisoender's descend from this one man.

Driving north along the Lake Huron coast we discovered a beautiful area - lots of farmland and nice small towns.  It also helped that it was a beautiful sunny day.  We settled into our campsite and went to visit Hielke and Teresa R.  Hielke is a half second cousin to Laura.  Their respective grandfathers were half brothers.  We had a delightful time with them, looking at pictures, hearing how they both happened to come to Canada and about their lives since arriving.  Several of their children stopped in to meet us and say hello and a group of us went out to a meal in a nearby town.  It was really pleasant.

Our campsite!  That's us on the far left.

More of the campground.  As you can see, it was virtually empty.

Nice river flowing by the campground.
I can imagine the early French fur traders paddling down rivers live these in the 16 and 1700's.

The picture doesn't do this tree justice.  It's beginning fall colors were beautiful.

Hielke and Teresa.

Selfie of the half second cousins.

From Ontario we crossed back into Michigan and headed to a campground near Holly, Michigan so I could meet a second cousin of mine who lives nearby.

View from our campsite in the McGinnis Lake State Park.

Another view of the park.  The fall colors were much more beautiful than this picture would indicate.

We visited my cousin Joanne at her beautiful condo in Grand Blanc where we spent a nice afternoon chatting and having lunch. We had fun discussing various common relatives and I showed her the various pictures I'd collected of the family.  As a genealogist it's fun to tell people things they didn't know about their relatives.

My cousin Joanne and I in her condo. 
Those beautiful painted objects on the wall behind us are masks which were imported by her brother CJ from Costa Rica. 

I think they are incredible!

I know the top two are masks but I'm not sure about these although a mask is part of the design in these three.

The designs and colors are so unique.

From our campground near Holly we drove around the countryside to check out the areas of Holly, Fenton and Rose Center where my Connor ancestors had once lived for many years back in the 1870s and 1880s.  Holly and Fenton are quite grown up now whereas Rose Center is just a blip in the road.  It's a nice area and I enjoyed seeing where my great-grandfather grew up with his siblings.

While driving around we stopped at a local cider mill and bought some fresh cider which was delicious.  While looking around their shop at pictures of how the mill looked through the years we saw this advertisement for Samson folding tables.  Cost at that time: $3.95!!! The "woman of the house" is shown smoking a cigarette in a cigarette holder while setting down a tray full of wine glasses.

The add says:
All Purpose Folding Tables
Strong enough to stand on!
Have all these extra value features
Washable surfaces - strain-proof - colorfast
Double braced - gives absolute rigidity
Continuous tops - can't collect dust
Tubular steel legs - can't snag hose
Smart design - beautify all rooms
Ideal gifts for all occasions
Packs flat - saves space
Protects carpets and rugs
The busiest tables in the house!
As Advertised in the Leading Magazines

 We get quite a kick out of old ads like these.  Makes you want to run right out and buy one!

We moved to another campground a short distance away so I could see my former college lab partner from the Michigan State Medical Technology program.  We met in our sophomore year when she was switching over to the Med Tech program and I had just transfered to Michigan State in order to get into the Med Tech program.  We were fast friends from the start. The course content was very regimented and there were only about 50 people in our class.  We more or less marched lock step from class to class for 3 years.  Phyllis and I were lab partners in every class, be it chemistry, microbiology, parasitology, microscopic anatomy, etc.  It was a rigorous course but we sure had a good time.

We spent a fun day with Phyl and her husband Dave.  They live on a beautiful lake in Metamora, Michigan, quite near where more of my ancestors lived back in the 1920s-1940s.  We completely failed to get pictures while we were there so I'm including some from a previous visit back in 2003.

View from their deck

My buddy Phyl

Dave starting work on a stream with a waterfall in their side yard.
It's now complete it and absolutely beautiful.

Phil and Dave have some interesting interests.  They built a kit car together then restored a number of old cars including an old 1927 Chevy.  They use to "collect counties" by which I mean they have both been in every county in the United States and they once walked 800 miles along the Appalachian Trail. Phyl refinished a player piano and is now refurbishing a bunch of the music rolls they use. I feel like a slug when I think of all the things they've been involved in. 

A poor picture but a great car.  We went out for ice cream cones in it.

The day after we saw Phyl and Dave we drove around the area to see the places where my ancestors had lived.

This is the farmhouse in Columbiaville where my maternal great-grandparents lived from about 1910-1935.
Although this picture is from 2003 it looks about the same today. 

This farmhouse in Metamora is where my maternal grandparents lived in the 1940's.

This is the house in Oxford where my paternal grandmother lived from 1934-1964.

We tried hard to get a good picture of these skeletons we spotted while driving around.
The are completely made from 1 gallon milk/water jugs. We thought they were very original and clever.

From the Metamora area we drove to the Belleville area where we stayed at the Wayne County Fairground campground.  That allowed me to visit some additional second cousins who live in Plymouth and Troy, Michigan.  They are both first cousins with Joanne whom we met in Grand Blanc.  We got together for a chat over lunch and as typically happens, we forgot to take any pictures.  I guess, someone needs to give us a slap upside the head.  That said, I'm inserting a picture  from our 2003 trip and an old picture from 1992.

Barbara Ann in 2003

Virginia (Ginger) in 1992.
We were both at Michigan State at the same time but had never met before.

While were in that area we went to a very old cemetery in Plymouth to see if I could find my 3rd great grandmother's grave.  It's locked so you have to get a key in order to get in. The records they have for the cemetery are not very good and totally unorganized but they gave us a copy and off we went.  Although I was unable to find the grave I was looking for we did find half the marker for her 2nd husband Milton.  She is supposed to be buried right beside him but we found no marker.  Many of the stones have fallen over and are half buried in the dirt.  Others are broken and just laying against one another.  It would be a good project for a genealogy society or an eagle scout to try to 1) clean up the records and 2) get all the markers set upright in the cemetery before they are completely lost.

Partial headstone for Milton Young.

Next we were on to Grosse Ile where I was raised.  My brother and his wife live nearby in Wyandotte and cousins (my aunt's 2 children) also live nearby.  We stayed in my aunt's driveway and had ourselves a good time visiting and checking out the old "hood."  Grosse Ile is an island at the end of the Detroit River.  It's population has doubled since I left in 1968 so there were lots of houses where formerly there were only woods.

My brother Rich and his wife Phyllis.

My aunt Marie's 5 grandson's.  They would be my 1st cousins once removed.
Warren, Landon, Caleb, Andrew and William.
This was taken at a big joint birthday party my aunt organized to celebrate
her BD, my brother's BD, my BD, and my sister-in-law's BD.
Managed to take only this one picture at the affair!  After that we were all busy talking.

While my aunt and I were looking at some of her pictures I noticed that virtually none of them identified who was in the picture.  When I asked her about it she replied "well some day I'll get to that." I said there was no time like the present so we started in.  She kept pulling out pictures from all sorts of places but, over a number of days we finally got everything identified that we could.  In the process she found some really nice unused photo albums so I picked out some large pictures from various categories (her family, my uncle's family, their joint family, etc.) and put them in the photo albums.  I think we both felt good about getting it all done.  While we were doing that project, Laura worked on taking pictures of items in my aunt's home which had come to her from various family members.  Sort of an inventory for her sons and their families.  She then put the pictures into a Word document with an explanation of the item and were it came from.  By the time it was done it ran to 54 pages!!!  We put a copy on her computer and sent it off to both sons as well.  Another thing to feel good about and sort of payment for her allowing us to camp there.

Once again we forgot to take pictures.  How can a person be busy labeling pictures and another busy taking pictures and yet forget to take pictures of your hostess!!  Pretty sad - but once again I have a picture from our 2003 trip to save the day.

My sweet Aunt Marie!

Marie is a rug hooker which means that she takes small wool strips (about 1/4 inch wide), and with an implement, hooks them into a linen backing.  You can buy numerous patterns for rug or create your own pattern.  You can buy wool in every color imaginable or you can dye the wool yourself. Marie has even dyed some of own her wool in her basement.  She has a special cutter to cut the strips to her specifications.  She's been doing this for years and yet she's still relatively normal!  Here are some samples of her work!  I think they are not only beautiful but amazing.

This is the largest piece she's done.  It's

This one was turned into a hassock.

In this picture you can really see each loop of the wool strip.

Can you imagine the untold hours that went into each one of these projects?  Unbelievable!

One day we took off to go see Laura's niece who had moved with her father's family to Erie, Michigan.  When we first heard they had moved there and looked on a map to see where Erie was it turned out to be only 30 miles from my home town!  Small world!  We met her for breakfast and heard all about her job and their new home. She seems to be enjoying it here but of course she hasn't been through a Michigan winter yet!

Laura's niece Jewel.

Practically the last thing we did before leaving Michigan was to visit the Henry Ford Museum in Dearborn, Michigan. It's a wonderful museum with, yes, lots of cars, but also many other interesting things.

Some of the many cars:

I'd take any of these cars if someone wanted to give me one.

These old cars were sure great looking.

Planes:

The Wright Brothers plane.

Old Ford Trimotor

Cars with historical significance:

President John F. Kennedy was riding in this 1961 Lincoln when he was assassinated.

President Eisenhower's car - a 1950 Lincoln.

Franklin D. Roosevelt's car - a 1939 Lincoln built lower to the ground so they could get him in and out more easily.

President Theodore Roosevelt's Brougham carriage.

Trains:

Allegheny Locomotive.
It doesn't look as big as it is in this picture.  Believe me when I say this thing is humongous!
They were among the largest and most powerful steam locomotives ever built but
within 15 years they were eclipsed by more efficient diesel engine locomotives.

An 1831 DeWitt Clinton
This was the third train built in America for actual service on a rail road!
Notice how the cars look like stage coaches on train wheels.
The barrels on the front car were held water for the steam engine (not shown)

The dawning of the Recreational Vehicle

This 1975 FMC motorhome was used by Charles Karalt for his "On The Road"
 segments for the CBS Evening News which he did from the late 1960's through 1970's.

A 1935 Stagcoach travel trailer given to Charles Lindbergh by Henry Ford.

Furniture:

 Civil War Section:

Map of the opposing sides in the Civil War.

The Chair President Lincoln was sitting in when he was assassinated.

 Farm Implements of all kinds:

An old steam tractor.

 The Struggle for Civil Rights in the 60's and 70's:

This was the bus Rosa Parks was on when she refused to give up her seat to a white man.

I could go on and on.  We saw many other things at the museum.  Definitely worth a visit if you are ever in the Detroit area.  Right next door is Greenfield Village which consists of 7 different open air areas:  working farms, craftworks, Henry Ford's model T, railroad junction, main street, Edison at work, porches and parlors.  This is actually what I wanted to see the most but the weather wasn't cooperative.  You can get details on Greenfield Village at: https://www.thehenryford.org/visit/greenfield-village/districts/

The last thing we saw at the Henry Ford was the Dymaxion House.  It was once supposed to be the next big thing in housing but it never really took off.  You might think of as an Airstream trailer in the round or like an aluminium yurt.

An actual Dymaxion house in the museum.

At the Dymaxion House we found this museum made advertisement featuring my cousin Andrew,
who once worked at the Henry Ford Museum and Greenfield Village!
Looks like he came right out of the 50's.  Too funny!

Finally we have reached the last of the Michigan portion of our trip.  Still can't believe we spent almost 3 1/2 months there.  It's a beautiful place to visit - especially the NW corner of the lower peninsula and virtually anywhere in the upper peninsula that is near one of the great lakes.