TBT: My Great-Great-Uncle Austin

My Aunt Cathy has been a wonderful source of information when it comes to Family History - not just names and dates, but great stories too.  That side of my family is from Southern Virginia and it seems there was always something going on.  The following is an excerpt from an email Cathy sent me about my Grandpa's uncle, Austin (1902-1979).

Austin

Dad called him the "free spirit" of the family - always did what he pleased.  Dad also liked to point out that he was left-handed.  Before I came along, apparently he was the only left-handed person in either Dad's or Mom's families.

He didn't get much schooling - Dad thought he didn't go beyond 5 years at school, and the 1940 Census backs this up, recording that he only had up to 4th grade level of school - but Dad said that he loved to read - always had a paper-back book folded up in his back pocket - and so he taught himself a lot that way.  He especially loved Westerns.  He also loved baseball, and could quote you any and all baseball statistics for the teams he was interested in.  He desperately wanted to join the Uniformed Services in some way when World War I came along, but he was rejected, supposedly because of his hearing

The 20s and 30s were a time of extensive use of trains for travelling, you know, and it was also the time of "hobos" and people jumping on board trains to "ride the rails".

Southern Railway Company, early 1900s (possibly 1920s) at Danville, VA
source

One of Dad's favorite stories about Austin:  one day he walked into his mama's house totally black with soot  - skin, clothes, everything covered, and not a speck of white skin showing through.  He announced that he had ridden a train all the way from Washington, D.C. to Danville on the top of the train!

He finally got a job (my guess is that it was in the early 40s) as a security guard at the Pentagon.  He liked that job, and was well liked by the people he worked for.  He was laid off in the 50s, though, because he wasn't a veteran (World War II veterans were being given priority for jobs of this type over non-veterans).

But then he got a job, which he kept until retirement age, at the Hay-Adams Hotel - a very upscale place, located on Lafayette Square, practically across the street from the White House.  Dad says he was a sort of door greeter/guard, and he was given a room and board there, and again he was well-liked and very happy there.

Halloween Decorating

The kids have been hard at work over the last week or two making Halloween signs.

They make pretty good wallpaper, don't you think?  I prefer it to the actual wallpaper in the house.

Below is my contribution to the decorating in the house.  I made all of this at the beginning of the month and thought I'd add to it later on.  Of course, I never did.

We also decorated sugar cookies the other day.  I'll let you guess whose is whose.

Pumpkin Carving

Last night we finally carved our pumpkins.  Jack, especially, has been eagerly awaiting this activity.  It was fun that The Bigs were all big enough to help this year, although none of them wanted to dig out the guts.  Ewwww!  My Dad sent us some Halloween Surprises earlier this month, which included a book of carving patterns and tools, so our pumpkins are much fancier than they've ever been before.  The kids really enjoyed choosing the patterns to use for the pumpkins and loved the final product too.

Luke would turn his head away whenever Ben tried to
get him to touch the guts.  Later he started saying "Ewwww!"
whenever he saw the guts on the table.

Eliza's pumpkin: Gothic Bat
Jack's: Goofy Spook
Cat's: Pumpkin Trio

Not your ordinary Sunday

Yesterday was the Primary Program.  I realized that these annual presentations just get more and more fun as we have more and more kids participating.

Cat was very well behaved and looked so grown up sitting up there.  She's becoming a lovely young woman.  Jack was in the back row in the corner, so he wasn't easy to see.  That was probably a good thing because he wasn't the model of perfect behavior.  Cat and Jack both did a great job of saying their short little one-sentence parts.  They weren't nervous; they remembered what to say; and they spoke clearly enough to be easily understood.

Eliza was the funniest of our kids.  She was the designated Waving Kid of the Primary Program.  She smiled and waved at us when she first sat down up front, so we smiled and waved back.  Then she did it again a minute later.  And again two minutes after that.  And again and again and again throughout the program.  It was so great.  She also started doing her own hand gestures to one of the songs.  Her class didn't get speaking parts, but instead sang "Jesus Wants Me For a Sunbeam"  and did a great job.  But the smiling and waving was definitely the best part.  She told me later that so many people had told her she did a good job.

  

After Sacrament Meeting, it was time to take Luke to nursery for the first time, but he wasn't having it.  Cat wanted to be the first to drop him off, and I thought he might be less clingy with her than he would be with me, but that wasn't the case.  He didn't want her to leave.  So after a few minutes I sent her to Primary and went into nursery with Luke.  I tried to sneak away a couple of times and each time he would see me, he would run over and cling to my legs.  When I finally managed to get out of the room without him seeing me, he just erupted immediately.  Once I went back in with him, he wouldn't let me out of his sight, even during snack time, until Ben came to relieve me during the third hour.  At least Ben and Luke got to work on an art project together.

I have a feeling it's going to take a while for Luke to be okay with us leaving him in nursery.  If only he could see that a couple of hours of playing with toys and singing songs and eating snacks is much more fun than a couple of hours of sitting in a stroller and being told to stay quiet during Mommy and Daddy's classes.  One day.

Pumpkin Walk

I was out of town most of the day on Saturday, but that didn't stop Ben from not only taking 4 kids to the Pumpkin Walk, he also brought along a friend from our neighborhood.  He shared the following about this outing:

We had a blast at the Pumpkin Walk Saturday afternoon. There were a lot of activities for the kids. We started off by visiting a booth and learning about water conservation. The kids each got a little coffee mug and hot chocolate mix for having listened to the presentation. Then we went by another booth and got a free doughnut. That was the highlight for the kids. Jack and Jonathan (a friend from our neighborhood) were having a lot of fun together. All of the kids dressed up because if you wore your costume there you got a doughnut. After our doughnut we looked at the carved pumpkins on display. The kids loved it and pointed out the really cool and intricate ones and asked me to carve our pumpkins just like that. I swear they had professional artists do some of those pumpkins because they looked amazing. I tried to tell the kids that we were going to do something easier but they weren't having it. 

After that we did some of the little activities and games that the kids could play and then get candy as a reward. Then we went to a booth that had some animals on display. They had a snake, lizzard, skunk, and a gigantic rabbit and small tortoise out so you could pet them. The tortoise and rabbit were inside a fenced in area about 5' square that you could get in and pet them. That was the highlight of the day for Luke. Luke was dressed up in a extremely cute lion costume, which, by the way, received several compliments because of how cute he looked. He was overjoyed to sit in the pen and pet the tortoise and the rabbit. They were both very docile and just let him pet away. Kids would come and go but Luke just wanted to stay. One parent put their little girl in there with Luke. She couldn't have been much over 1 year old. She went to pet the tortoise then she started petting Luke as his back was turned to her and all she saw was a big lovable fuzzball to pet. That went on for a little while and me and the other parent just laughed and laughed. After that I literally had to pull Luke away from the petting area. He didn't want to leave the animals. 

After that we watched a little science show where a lady was adding hydrogen peroxide to a catalyst with some dish soap inside a carved pumpkin. That caused a reaction that exploded through the eyes and nose of the jack-o-lantern. It shot suds for about 10'. The kids loved it and Cat immediately wanted to recreate the experiment at the house. 

Cat put makeup on Eliza before they left.

Superman, a scientist, Rapunzel, and Lukey the Lion

Easy to see how a 1-year old could think that Luke was another thing to pet in the pen.

Puking Pumpkin!

Cat enjoyed talking to the Scientist after the demonstration.

Favorites from the Pumpkin Carving Contest

Fun Run

I've shared on the blog how I don't like Cat and Jack's ongoing school fundraiser: having the kids, faculty, and staff pay money to "dress down" (wear something other than uniforms) on designated days.  But this weekend, the school had another fund raiser that made a lot more sense to me.  They had a Fun Run, complete with t-shirts for all participants and door prizes for a few lucky families.

The kids have been excited about the fun run and mentioned once or twice that they should train for it.  They didn't seem too worried about it, though, so I didn't make it happen.  Then, the afternoon of the race, they both wanted to train.  I told them I thought it wasn't the best time to start training.  Watching an episode of "Bo on the Go" seemed to them to provide a good opportunity to warm up, at least.  And when we arrived at the park, Jack immediately started doing sprints.

Warming up with Bo.
It's a little surprising that they were able to move at all with all those toys on the floor...

Let's DO this.

Nothing to do with the race - just cute Eliza and Luke hugging.

There were two options for the racers: a one mile course, and a half mile course.  Cat and Jack were both feeling pretty pumped and had no qualms about running the full mile.  Unfortunately, since the only training they had consisted of a 20 minute kids' show, I was afraid they would be in over their heads.  Cat took off in a full sprint and was one of the leaders for a minute or two, but ended up needing to walk here and there.  By the end she was pretty tuckered out, but was still the second or third girl to finish.  (She is naturally fast.  Just think how well she would have done if she was playing soccer this season...)  It didn't help that the course wasn't marked very well and all of the runners, and the observers for that matter, were confused about where the milers needed to go in order to finish.

Cat's the second one in the picture.

"Where is the finish line???"

I couldn't see Jack very well during the race, but he must have run pretty consistently because he was less than a minute behind Cat.  Since he didn't know where to go to finish the race either, he hung out with me for a few minutes, but decided to go ahead and run the last part when he saw that there was more to it.

Jack is running in the red shorts.

Almost done!  For real this time!

Eliza was really sad that I didn't sign her up for the race, but I decided it would be okay for her to just run along with the other half milers anyway.  So she joined the short race, with Ben accompanying her, and she was absolutely thrilled to be a part of the action.  Ben said that he kept telling her that she could slow down but she just wanted to run the whole time.  You go girl!

After the races, the runners received celebratory doughnuts and miniature bottles of water, then door prizes were awarded.  We were one of the lucky winning families and Cat chose an embroidered t-shirt for us.  (The massage gift certificates were all taken at that point.)  Jack and Eliza even got a few minutes on the playground, so it really was great.  I'm proud of my little runners!  Now if only I could motivate them to go running with me some time.  Maybe next time there's a fun run we'll actually train before the day of...?

TBT - The Pancho Villa Story

This is a story from my Oma's family that has always awed me.

Here, Oma shares it in her own words.

Oma's mother (seated) with Aunt Angela

My Aunt Angela (Tia) related this true story of her early marriage to Antonio in the silver ore mining in the mountains in Mexico.  They lived on a huge hacienda, where families lived under care for everything.  The men worked in the mines and the ladies took care of the children.

At this time there was a revolution among the people of Mexico.  They were rebelling against the President and his army.  Among the poor working class there came across a fearless leader named Pancho Villa.  He raised a big army but had no money to maintain such a big army, so he would raid the small villages and take food and goods to supply his banditos.

My aunt was the overseer of the hacienda and around her stomach wore a belt with many keys.  These keys were used to open supply rooms of food, clothing, guns, picks and shovels and ammunition, all of which Villa needed.  When he raided them (?) they would be very frightened and would seek refuge and help at Tia's hacienda.

Tia would know when he was coming to get supplies.  Days before his coming she would take some of the supplies, she'd hide them away so when Pancho Villa came there was some left that he could take to help him with his army.  In this way the hacienda was not destroyed.

Through this wisdom she saved many lives and families during those most difficult times.

Years later Pancho Villa (the bandit) became President of Mexico.

Happy Birthday Mema!

TBT has been bumped to Friday this week, for today we are honoring our one and only Mema.

Mema is celebrating a big birthday and I thought it would be fun to use a song from the year she was born to make a slideshow for her.  Boy, did I luck out.  "You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You" is a great song for Mema - she is so incredibly loving, and makes everyone feel more important because of the way she treats them.  If anyone makes others feel like "somebody" through her love, it's Ben's mother.

We love you and hope you have a wonderful day!

Song:

"You're Nobody 'Till Somebody Loves You,"
sung by Dean Martin

Portraits

Another reason to love Luke.

The other day Luke made a mess on the floor and when he heard me say that we should clean it up, he toddled over to the oven handle, grabbed a dish rag, toddled to the spill, and started wiping it up.  That's my boy!

The Regatta

I was so excited that we were able to go to the Giant Pumpkin Regatta this weekend!  It hasn't worked out the last year or two, and this year we didn't even get there in time for the racing, due to a family event, but we went anyway, hoping to still see some action.

We all got a kick out of the fact that there were people sitting in hollowed out enormous pumpkins, rowing them around.  So cool!  We just walked around for a little while, checking out the pumpkin boats and taking in the excitement around us.

Of course we had to take a picture with this baby, which probably weighed about 1500 pounds.

Then when we walked over to the area where a forklift was pulling the pumpkin boats out of the water, a kind gentleman asked us if the kids would like to get in.  Yes!  Even though Cat was grossed out by the wet guts in the hollowed out part and Eliza was holding on to Cat for dear life and Jack refused to get on the pumpkin until he saw his sisters safely seated, they thought it was pretty cool.

Then the kind gentleman gave the pumpkin a spin.

Once he helped the kids get back to the sidewalk, the gentleman asked if I wanted to get in and I was pretty surprised, but I figured, when else will I get to sit in an 800-lb. pumpkin?  So I did.

And once I was in, he asked if I wanted to row around and I was pretty surprised, but I figured, when else will I get to row around in an 800-lb. pumpkin?  So I did.

It was impossible to steer, maybe because I was sitting on the outside and was nervous that I would tip the thing.  I bet I'd be an awesome pumpkin-boat rower if I was prepared to sit in a pile of pumpkin guts and could row better.  Notice how in the video (below) how Ben tells the guy to tip me over.  Love you too, babe.

I chatted with the gentleman's wife for a few minutes and it turns out they had raced a giant pumpkin, which they grew, for the first time and she was so geeked out about it that it made me want to grow my own and compete in a Giant Pumpkin Regatta.  I even started reading about how to do it on the Utah Giant Pumpkin Growers website and it sounds like a lot of work.  But I still kind of want to do it. Weird?  Well, you're not surprised, are you?

To see a news story about the regatta, (with footage of people actually rowing the pumpkin boats) click HERE.  I would love one of those trophies on my mantel.

The news story didn't talk about the fact that the winner (the guy with the fancy trophy) actually broke a World Record by rowing a giant pumpkin 100 meters in less than 2 minutes.