Family Reunion

We had our 10th annual "C.D. & Bertha Curry Mullins" family reunion tonight. We usually have a big dinner and play games on Friday night, then have lots of activities and food and entertainment on Saturday night. Several family members dress up like famous people and lipsync to their songs. We've had Dolly Parton, Kenny Rogers, the Judds, the Dixie Chicks, Patsy Cline, the Blues Brothers, the Soggy Bottom Boys, and many others over the years. We always have a good time and great food. This year, because of two recent deaths in the family, we scaled things back and simply had a pot luck dinner at the church fellowship hall. Of course, simple just isn't in the Mullins family vocabulary. We had baked ham, chicken & dumplings, lemon chicken, mac & cheese, green beans, corn casserole, layer salad, pasta salad, potato salad, mashed potatoes, corn bread, rolls, apple pie, coconut cream cake, brownies, bread pudding, and chocolate cupcakes. Am I making you hungry yet? We played a white elephant gift game and, believe it or not, I won a cookbook! I missed having my daughter and her family there, and my son and his family. But bright and early tomorrow morning I'll be on a plane heading to Austin to visit my son and his bunch. I wish I could spend part of the week in El Paso, but I don't think my daughter will be home anyway since this is her week to go to camp.

Here's a picture of my mother and my aunt, Nona, showing off some giant cupcakes that one of my cousins baked. Unfortunately, both of them had pieces cut out and while Mom's is just leaning, Nona's fell over just as I took the picture.

Genealogy Madness!!

This week I have been taking advantage of a 14 day free trial on Ancestry.com. This stuff is so addictive! I started out just looking for some information about my husband's grandparents. We took pictures of their graves a few years ago and that got us interested in some other Rhodes graves in the same cemetery. Little did I know that would lead to an obsession with reading census records for hours at a time going all the way back to the 1800's.

There is a website which lists all the gravestones in their little cemetery in Brushy Creek, Texas, with all the information on the stones. That helped in looking through census records to find the names of other family members and how they were related. Then I started working on his grandmother. The women are much harder to trace because usually only birth records list their maiden names. Then I started looking for my ex-husband's family since they are the ancestors of my children and grandchildren. His mother's maiden name was Smith!!! Try searching for that on a census record. I knew she had a brother, but that wasn't much help either, since his name was Bill Smith.

The funny thing is, after you go back and read about people, you get more and more excited every time you find them again on the next census. I've read WWI and WWII draft registration cards and made notes about who had blue eyes and how tall they were and how much they weighed, as if there's going to be a test.

Today I got the biggest thrill since I started this. I was looking for my grandmother, Mary, in the 1900 census. I knew she was born on Feb. 14, 1900, so I wasn't sure she would be on there. Sure enough, when I found her family in the Wayne Co., WV census, there she was listed as being 3 months old. But the thrill came when I moved to the top of the page to make a note of the date of the census. There on the very first line of that page was a six year old boy named Willie Elkins. That may not mean anything to you, but I knew as soon as I saw it that I had found my grandfather!! They must have grown up a few houses from each other because the census takers went from house to house taking down the information about who lived in each household.

It makes me cry now thinking of the two of them as kids growing up. I'm sure they never dreamed back then that someday their granddaughter would read about them on a census report and be so excited she would both laugh and cry over it.

I've got to go, now. I only have a few days left to find out everything I can about Willie and Mary Ann, or else I'll have to break down and pay the annual fee!!

Ten Things aka Ten Fathers

My daughter does Ten Things Tuesday and lists (oddly enough) ten things she is thankful for on her blog every Tuesday. I have been thinking about a Father's day blog and kept thinking of different fathers that I am thankful for, so I decided a Ten Things type blog was in order.



1. My Heavenly Father. God has richly blessed me and my family. He is my strength, my friend, my comforter, my shoulder to cry on, my redeemer, my protector, my peace . . . well you get the idea. He is my everything and words are not enough to thank Him for who and what he is to me.



2. My Husband, Kirby. He is not my father, nor is he the father of my two children, but he is the man who would move mountains and swim oceans for me and my kids. He constantly urges me to spend time (and money) on my children and grandchildren. Some blended families have jealousy problems, but he usually treats my kids better than he treats his own! And don't even get him started talking about those beautiful, genius grandbabies, Bailey & Maverick!! I'm so glad you came into my life, Babe.

3. & 4. My Dad, Sponcil and my step-dad, Bennie. I did a post on April 17 if you want to read about these two great men. I'll just repeat here that I was very blessed to have them in my life. I'll see you both again someday in that land where we'll never grow old and there will be no sickness or death.

5. My father-in-law, Ed. Kirby and I are so excited every time we get to spend time with his mom and her husband in Texas. We always have so much fun together and Ed always gives us a hug when we leave even though everyone says he isn't one to show his feelings or be very affectionate. We can discuss everything from the Bible to the next door neighbors and anything in between, and Ed always has something funny to say. Thanks for always making time for us, Ed. Happy Father's Day.

6. My son, Todd. My son is a step-dad to four kids, and he is amazing to me. If you spend time with them, you can see the love and respect and trust they have in him. I truly believe that he found his calling in life because these four wonderful kids just needed a foundation to grow on, and he's definitely built for that job!! I love you, son!! Happy Father's day. Can't wait to see you all when I come to Texas.

7. My son in law, Jake. What can I say? He is the father of the two most adorable, most handsome, most brilliant, most incredible little boys you ever saw. I know every grandmother thinks her grandchildren are the best, but I'm not kidding. These boys are not like any other grandchildren!! They really are better looking and smarter. And I've been around a lot of babies in my life. Seriously. Thanks, Jake. Happy Father's day.

8. My ex-husband, Jerry. I know. Weird that I would mention him. I admit he has his short comings (but then who doesn't). I only bring him up because he is the father of my two kids. So I'm giving credit where credit is due. He's still part of their lives and I apreciate what he has done for them over the years.

9. George Washington. Hey, he's the father of our country, isn't he? I've been reading a little about our history lately, and if you haven't read about our founding fathers, you are missing an exciting and fascinating look at some brave and brilliant men. I know, it's not politically correct any more to give any credit to a bunch of "rich, white men" but what they did is nothing short of miraculous. I'm thankful to live in a country where I'm free to think and say what I want, and openly worship God. At least for now. We need to pray for this country and it's leaders or we could lose everything the founding fathers built.

10. Which brings me to our Military dads (like Jake). Thank you for the sacrifices you make for our freedom. Happy Father's day to all you dads who are serving in the military. May God bless you and protect you wherever you are today.

Blogging Blues!!

I've had a really hard time blogging lately. I just can't get in the mood. It seems like so many things are going on, but I just don't feel like writing about it. I guess it's sort of writer's block or something. I've been reading a series of books by Lawrence Block about a thief/crime solver named Bernie Rhodenbarr. I've read several and have a couple more that I bought at the flea market in Myrtle Beach. Between reading, I've been doing some research on Kirby's family tree. His brother being here helping with Rusty has us talking about their Rhodes family grandparents and other people they remember. Then I found a web site where someone had gone to the cemetery in Palestine, TX and made a list of every headstone. That got us looking into who some of the other Rhodes headstones belonged to. I can see why people get so caught up in tracing their ancestry. I'm fascinated by some of the things I have found and these people aren't even my ancestors. The really funny thing is to look at census records. They have so many mistakes in them, but I guess that is to be expected when you are writing down names and ages of people who don't read or write themselves. One of their relatives is listed as Paul in 1910, Paris in 1920, and Pariah in 1930. But he has the same wife and children each time, so it must be the same person. In between reading old census reports, I've finished the wallpaper in my kitchen and pulled off enough of the paper in the hallway to make a big mess. The bad thing is, I haven't picked out any paper for the hallway, so the mess I have will be there until I decide what I'm putting up in its place. Meanwhile, I printed some pictures for scrapbooking (like I really have time to work on that).