A random dream and a couple more days

6-9-10

Happy Birthday Daniel!!!

I will hopefully get to some Ohio story telling here in a bit. I think my big day to write will be Friday since it appears that as a birthday present, my boss is not here that day. Woo hoo!!

Is it odd to have a dream in which I watched a movie with Phylicia Rashad in it along with Dakota Fanning in black face? In all fairness, it was more like how Robert Downey Jr did in Tropic Thunder, but still.

Glee is over until next season. I am sure I will start to get the shakes next Tuesday when I don’t have it.

I decided to be all dolled up this morning. I have not blow dried my hair in what seems like ages and I am even wearing different shoes from my standard uniform of my flip flops. I felt the need to be pretty this morning. I was hoping it would wake me up a bit.

My sunburn is turning into some tanning. Hopefully it doesn’t shift into peeling. I will also need new foundation since it appears that my powder doesn’t match anymore. LOL!

I need a nap

I always feel bad when people send a joke around that I think is “cute” yet they want you to think it is the funniest thing ever.

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Tuesday was courthouse day. There were gobs of records we needed including birth, death and marriage. These were all documents that would provide more backup for dates in the genealogy line.

We headed down to the courthouse in Marietta. It is one of those cool old buildings that looks almost like it could have been in a movie. It was interesting to walk in to see a sign sporting a swastika and one that was backwards. It was an explanation showing how when it is facing one way, it is Nazi Germany, if it is the other way, it means peace and good luck. This explanation seemed out of place until a little while later I noted the floor tiles which were covered in the non Nazi style symbol. I suppose that could have been a bit of a problem if you didn’t know the difference.

I didn’t know how we would be able to look the information up. Was it something where we had to request data from a clerk? Would there be a wait?

The good (and bad) news was that we did it all ourselves. They ushered us into this nice little conference room where the walls on two sides were lined with giant dusty books filled with hand written ledgers. They were so cool. The records went back to about 1867. Births were in some books, deaths in others. The organization was confusing at first. I was given the task of looking up names in the death records. I didn’t think it would be so overwhelming.

I opened the first book of deaths which was the oldest records. It was loosely alphabetized, yet not. The handwriting was hard to read and I was almost scared to even touch the pages as they looked pretty fragile in places. I was no longer in my element. Tombstones, no problem. I could find those easily. This was beyond me.

Andy had gone swimming that morning, so he showed up later to the courthouse. Holly, Papa Brenan and Carolyn were immersed in their computers and records, looking equally confused. Carolyn, not as much as she had done this before. But either way, it was clearly an overwhelming process.

When Andy arrived, he asked what the plan was so I explained to him what we were doing and how I just couldn’t get the way this was set up. So he and I dove into the book with determination to figure it out.

Once we figured out the books, they became incredibly interesting. The simplicity in which we used to document a death or birth was almost refreshing. It was one line. It would say the person’s name. It would indicate their age and occupation. Then it would say when and how they died. Line after line of folks suffering from consumption or diarrhea. Sometimes it was just old age. Sometimes it was child birth. Sometimes it was cancer. All of it entered in handwriting on large sheets of lined paper. It was so strange and yet normal.

Some of the other books were interesting, too. There were books with forms filled out for people coming from another country, denouncing their allegiance to Queen Elizabeth or whatever various leader of their birth country was. That was just so cool.

After about 5 hours of searching, we came up with really great information. Andy and I decided we needed to earn our keep and we were determined to come up with an amazing find each day. We done good! We found a marriage license for I believe great grandparents. Woo hoo!

By 2 o’clock, we were fried. It was a lot of data in actual handwritten books as compared to what I was used to which is gobs of computer documents. We were tired while excited while spent while hungry while inspired. It was a lot of emotion flowing.

We were in the maps office when Andy said that we needed to get some kind of lunch soon. Papa Brenan pointed Andy in the direction of the vending machines, but luckily he wasn’t having any of that. We were able to get away from records for a while and went to have some “authentic Mexican food” near the hotel. It wasn’t bad, but I saw no reason to return.


After lunch, our next stop was a genealogy center. I had no idea places like this existed. Of course, I never did any genealogy before. It was similar to a library, but it specialized in specific families and lineage. What was cool was that it wasn’t just official books, it was notebooks or folders filled with research done by families. In fact, we could put stuff there. There were books with pictures and different historical accounts of happenings in the town. It was a sea of information, and we had to paddle around hoping one of them would help us stay afloat.

Once again, Andy and I prided ourselves on finding books or documents that might be helpful in a grand way. I came across a giant book that had a whole page talking about a Brenan, so that was cool.

What was fascinating was how much information was in books about people. And not just books. There would be newspaper articles with gobs of dirt on people. One example was that we found the newspapers from when I think it was Frank Brenan’s store burned to the ground. All of the stores on the block that burned were mentioned, but not just mentioned, they had full info. What was lost, whether or not they had insurance, info on where they live, etc. There was no privacy.

Towards the end of our time there, I started thumbing through random stuff and came across an article about a young woman who drown herself in the river. Today this would be a minor blip in the paper, if it was mentioned at all. This was a full page article. She wasn’t an important member of society, and it didn’t seem as though people were upset or even shocked by the news. Yet the article went into detail about her mental illness, the suicide note all the way down to what she was wearing. It was bizarre. But then it made me consider all of the hoopla about things like Facebook these days. Once again, our society has gone back to a mode of full disclosure. All of our grievances are aired out in a public forum. We have our likes, our dislikes, our pictures our hobbies all out there for the world to see. You might argue that this is not the same as a small town in which everyone knows everyone. But you have to think bigger. No longer are we confined to communicate with our physical neighbors only. We have global neighborhoods that are created by us. Of course, there is always the nosy neighbor that watches you from behind the curtain or the one who gossips like crazy. There is the neighbor that seemed nice at first but then you realize he is a racist a-hole. Or maybe just the quiet neighbor that seems like a horrid witch, but then she sees your puppy and she comes to life. I think that if we view the net and all that it brings to us as a neighborhood, we won’t be as afraid. Sure, we should still lock our doors and make sure we watch what is going on, but remember, most people are not bad. I know that in my physical neighborhood I have witnessed amazing things because of the good that human spirit can be. I have seen the same in an online setting. People need to stop trying to break it all down and see what we can do to destroy it. Look at it as if we have gone back to Mayberry and just make sure to not over react to everything.

We could have probably stayed at the center for hours and hours, but with only a week of research, you can’t stay in one spot too long. After this stop, we headed out to a couple more cemeteries.

One of the cemeteries we found Celia Brenan’s tombstone. It was broken, but what was funny is that we thought it was only in two pieces at first. After some further investigation, we determined it was in fact 3 pieces and it included an infant daughter named MaryAnn. This was all news to us, so this was an amazing find. It was a shame that the grave was so broken down. We attempted to take pictures with all three pieces but it just wasn’t going to happen, so we have two together and one next to it. Thankfully we can mostly read it, so this is good.

After this cemetery, we went back to the hotel to get cleaned up as we had reservations at this restaurant that was a converted historic house. Boy was I glad I packed a nice shirt and vest!

The house was darling and what a cute idea to make it a restaurant. I don’t think we really needed reservations since we were really the only ones there. Small towns seem to close shop pretty early and we were at a nice place at 7:30 on a Tuesday, so truly, it wasn’t a busy time for a place like this.

The food was fantastic. There were three items that looked promising. Mind you, it was a menu with only like 7 things, so this was pretty good odds. Andy was so sweet and he promptly told me what he thought was the safest thing for me and told me what was an adventure and what was a full on out of the ordinary meal I might like. I went for the middle ground and was pleased with the results. Andy also took the liberty of ordering wine for himself, me and Holly, so that was cool. I also was good and tried humus. It wasn’t bad! I had some yummy cheese with this dressing on it, too, which was awesome. All in all, I was quite pleased with the food.

At this point, Andy and I realized it was 8:30. In 30 minutes Glee would be on! Of course, we could have just waited till we got home, but since he is as big a Gleek as me, it seemed like a fun way to watch the show.

We got in the car and we said we needed to get back to the hotel. Papa Brenan decided this was the time to get all pissy with us. They wanted to drive around. Andy said that they could just drop us off and then go out and about. No dice. On top of that, we needed to stop and get Holly some Diet Coke, and pick up Carolyn’s car, which was still at the courthouse. We quickly rushed to locations and then dropped Holly off at the store which was next to the hotel. It was at this point we realized we had forgotten the car. CRAP! Andy told me to go start the show and to fill him in and he would get everyone back. I sprinted in and got there just in time.

Luckily, being that this is a small town, Andy only missed the first 10 minutes. I was able to fill him in and we set up shop to watch the show. Andy was in Holly and my room. Holly was content doing stuff on the computer, so the three of us were golden. Or so I thought.

Papa Brenan came in no less than 3 times. He would talk over the show and made a nuisance of himself. Dude, we spent all freaking day pulling records for you and you can’t give us one freaking hour???

Of course, he would leave when it was a commercial. Sigh.

I decided to do my video chat with the boys. I had not had a chance to do so before since we always got back too late. And what with Andy and Holly there, it would be a good time. Bobby was very talkative whereas Dax just danced and danced. It was so cool to see them. Video chat with kids, though, is always hard since they can’t really keep the conversation going too long. But it was a nice visit with them.

After the chat was over (not the best episode, but satisfying) I still needed banana time. Crap! I opted to borrow the car keys and go sit in the car. This worked out well. Holly seemed way ok with the idea of me just being polite to go talk to him without bothering her. She told me I didn’t need to, but it wasn’t suspicious. Woo hoo!

When I got back to the room and got online, Ken asked me if I could get back on video. Dax was having problems sleeping so he brought him out. I talked to him a while and then told him he could sleep with Mommy Cat, which seemed to appease him. I felt like Super Mommy!

Once again, we stayed up too late. This time, we talked about a bunch of things including Evie and politics and things like that. I was nervous since she is conservative, but in reality, we have some very similar views on things, which was cool. It turned out to be good sister bonding. I think I turned in around midnight thirty.

Wednesday morning we planned out our attack at the Bob Evans. Carolyn was going to hit up some more courthouses and we were going to go get Becky from West Virginia to do some more searching, this time in West Virginia.

We hit up a handful of small courthouses to pull records and then headed back to retrieve Carolyn. For some reason much of this day is a blur. I was running on fumes in terms of energy and my homesickness was taking over. We also seemed to be out of cell service much of the day, which was driving me nuts.

On the plus side, I ended up getting to know Becky better since she sat in the back with me. She is super nice and very knowledgeable about lots of different things. Talking with her kept me awake and re energized me somewhat.

After we dropped Carolyn off we headed back to Ohio. At this point, we went to were Stella would have grown up. A house that was built by her father. It was a cute house and we arrived while the renter was mowing the yard. This would be an uneventful thing except that the yard was at a 70 degree angle and super high up. We were impressed!

He was kind enough to let us not only come up to the house and take pictures of the outside, but inside as well. I was able to take pictures of where Stella probably slept and took pictures of her street where she would walk down from her house to Marietta College.

Dinner was shockingly early this night. We went to a place that was like a bar and had a nice meal. It was our last dinner in Ohio!

We got back to the room and I excused myself to go talk to Ken in the car. I got to see a storm rolling in which was awesome. I went inside to get my camera. As I approached the room, I noticed that the door was closed. I had left it open to get back in since our keys had been having issues so I just used the deadbolt to keep it open. Holly must have closed it so I knocked.

No answer.

Crap.

I knocked several times and even texted her. I heard her phone go off and I laughed. I was stuck! I tried texting Andy since I didn’t want to wake them (not likely, but still) to give Andy the keys. He didn’t answer. I ended up putting a message on Facebook, which amusingly prompted several texts asking if I was ok. LOL! Thankfully, Holly was just in the shower. She felt all bad, but really, it was very funny.

I, too, took a shower and we got all ready to go home the next day. I was getting anxious!