Happy Birthday, Alene!

Flashback Friday....Baby.Baby.Baby!

Baby Ryan

Baby Jamie

Baby R.J.

Welcome to the World!

Ryan, Jr !!

Happy Birthday James!

Flashback Friday....So Long.....

Ruby, Garland, Betty

It was already 45 minutes past the time we should be leaving to make sure we didn't get stuck in traffic on the way to the airport.

After a week of seeing Ruby and Garland together, I hated to say the words:

"Well, Ruby. We should probably be getting on the road."

She looked down and said, "Oh, okay."

Garland, who never misses a beat....eased the heaviness in the air by perking up and almost shouting...

"Okay, Goodbye then!"

...like we were leaving to go pick up a pizza or run an errand.

That is Garland. He always has the perfect words: just the right thing at the right time.

Making a joke when things were too serious.

If he told you about a flaw in someone, he would counter it with a compliment.

Telling a story to bring a point home. And often the point would not be what you expected.

At his outburst, I laughed out loud.

Ruby shooed him.

Gayle gave the "that's my dad" look...

And Garland smiled a big smile...

even tho the look on his face was of a man who knew his time was short.

Ruby said her goodbyes and was overcome with emotion and went to the porch.

As she left, he said:

"So long....I'll see you on the other side."

....and I mentally changed my "status update" to:

"That moment when two old friends say goodbye, knowing they will probably not see each other again....... : (   "

Happy Birthday, Casey!

Ruby Tuesday

 At the Lowell Library...kickin' it old school with the one and only Ruby...of Ruby Tuesday fame.

I have been doing a lot of reading about Lowell History on the Lowell Library's excellent website.

I read about some scrapbooks and wondered if the Library had them in their files.

Ruby and I stopped by to ask questions and we found that the Library has lots of local history resources and friendly workers to help you find them.

Ruby was in her element as this is how she did ALL of her research (way before computers existed).

She found this treasure in an old Lowellian before I could even get back to my seat:

Bob Vandercar 

(Ray Rinkenberger to the right of Bob)

We asked for information on the Kenney family and the librarian pulled a thick folder out of the filing cabinet.

She said, "Oh, you're in luck...there is a whole book in here!!"

I was proud to point at Ruby and say, "Oh, yes! And she wrote it."

What an honor to spend a "Ruby Tuesday" with Ruby herself!

Directions to here:

When we were leaving the library, Ruby stopped at the desk and whispered to the lady...

"If I lived here, you would have to kick me out of here every night."

: )

Sunday Dinner with The Fathers and Ruby

I'm not sure how I managed to NOT get Ruby in the picture...
maybe because we sat together collecting Family Record sheets....which made her VERY happy.

Along with the Homework...

There was dinner.

There was dessert.

(home made Ice Cream)

There was research

(checking footprints for Flat Feet)

...and there was skipping!

Jerry, skipping off into the sunset

Flashback Friday...Great Graduate

How can this Great Nephew be old enough to graduate?

Congratulations Casey, all your hard work has paid off!

Ruby Tuesday....our "adopted" cousin

You can read the "Kenney Record" from cover to cover and never come across the name, Garland Fish.
However, over the past couple years, I've come to find out, he is as close to the Kenney/Tilton family as any other cousin that is listed in Ruby's research.

Prior to 2009, I knew that our family was somehow connected and or related to Garland and Ann Fish, but I wasn't sure how.

It was during my first visit with Ruby in 2009, that I finally learned how Garland came to be known as part of the family.

Ruby was telling a story about her brother, Norman and Garland's name came up.

I asked how Garland was related to us.

Here's the story, according to Ruby:

Garland was the youngest child of his family. 

Apparently, after the older children had already left home, Garland's parents separated and/or divorced which was not very common back in those days.

Garland lived with his dad. He told me that he once counted up how many places he and his dad had lived in Lowell and the number was in the double digits. He said as soon as the rent would come due, they would have to move along to another place.

Ruby tells the story about Garland being over for dinner one night at their house.

Norman said to Uncle Keith and Aunt Phebe,

"you know it's sort of rough for Garland at home right now, do you think he could stay with us tonight?"

Uncle Keith and Aunt Phebe said yes, and according to Ruby, Garland never went back home.

He lived with them for the rest of his school years and became "like a second brother" to her.

So, he was unofficially adopted into the Dinwiddie/Tilton family.

It may not be recorded in the book, but if you know how to read between the lines of the official family record,  he is as close to us and our family as any other cousin.

Cousins on Main Street

Barb came into town for a conference and Wes & Debby treated us to dinner.

Wes, Debby, Barb

I love spending time with this guy!

 Monday she came up to Carmel and the Northerners came down for dinner.

We all came from 4 different places/directions and met at the Carmel Antique mall.

This picture is one set of us right after we heard the other set...an aisle over saying, "I don't see them but I hear them!"

Dinner on Main Street.

Flashback Friday...."This used to be my Playground..."

On the morning of Erin's Baptism,
Jeremy & and Kelly swore that they saw me walking the go-cart track out by the mom and dad's house.

Later that day, I learned what no one wanted to tell me.....

.......that my old playground was getting tore up.

So, that following Monday,

I had to go out and take a walk down memory lane and visit my old stomping grounds one more time, before it all got pushed into the ground.

No one can really tell me much about how the track came to be.

What made Uncle Ralph decide to plant this track in the middle of the pasture/field?

I guess I'm gonna have to go visit Don and see what he remembers about the when, the how and the why. 

What I do know and I have been told is:

It was on Uncle Ralph's property.

It was originally a track for horse racing.

There were bleachers at some point.

There was a concession stand.

There was lots of noise. (insert go-cart racing sound...and turning of head in circles here).

It was an oval track with a run off that you could turn back around and enter the oval again.

It was the official meeting point of the Tilton/Vandercar gang of kids.

I have found no pictures of the actual horse or go cart races, but here's a few that if you look really closely, you can see the track...our playground in the background.

If you look just over mom's right shoulder you can see the white asphalt in the middle of the field.

You can see the shape of the track off in the field and there seems to be power poles and maybe some sort of a stand?? (in the upper left of the picture)

Beyond these ridiculously cute and goofy boys, you can see a small building that was the concession stand. A concession stand!!!! There was enough people there to sell concessions, yet I have no idea who made, sold or worked it. 

I do know that years after the track closed, my brother may have used the rafters as a hiding place for "things." Also, looks like a power pole near the track...this may have become a basketball hoop for the Tilton boys, later on.

the curves.
I was amazed that so much of the track was still intact.

But, for me, it was just there...my entire life.

The horse and go cart racers had long abandoned it by the time I came along.

It was just there, for me....a really cool playground.

My personal asphalt track...to ride around

and around

and around

and around

and around

and around

and around

and around

and around.

On foot, on my bike, on my motorcycle.

Around and around and around.

In fact, if I had a dollar for everytime I walked, ran or rode around and/or across that track....

well...I might still live near that track ; )

One of my favorite memories is when Kendel and I decided that we were gonna dig our way to the other side of the world. We figured that if we dug straight thru the earth, we would eventually end up in China.

So, on a very hot summer day, we started digging.

And what better place to plan our journey thru the center of the earth...?

Of course the center of the go-cart track.

We dug and dug and dug.

I'm sure I supervised more than I dug.

But we both were out there for quite some time.

It was hot.

And then we saw it.

You know on a hot day, when you look across the field...how you can sometimes see the heat waves in the air? How the horizon looks like there is a blur and fumes/vapors, how the air is wavy...??

Well, when we saw that...and then it hit me.

It hit me that I had forgot about hell.

I told Kendel to "STOP DIGGING" because we were getting close to HELL.

I pointed to the wavy air and convinced him that it was because the heat off of hell was making the air extra hot.

I vaguely had an idea that hell was "down" and seeing the heat waves in the air, I thought...oh, no, to get thru the center of the earth...we will have to go thru Hell...and I did not want to go to hell, no matter how much I wanted to get to the other side of the earth.

Needless to say, what took us hours to dig...

got filled up in a matter of minutes...cause we were afraid of going to hell.

I am not making this up.

I blame my older brothers for my over active imagination

and I'm sorry to say that Kendel was the one who heard and got sucked into many of my magical thinking theories.

"This used to be my playground..."

If it was your playground too, tell me your stories!

Directions to here:

And yes, of course, I took a piece of the track to add to my collection of special "rocks."

Summer.....

is kicking this Blog and Bloggers butt.....

sorry.

Happy B-eer -irthday Ryan!

Cheers!

Ruby Tuesday

This Tuesday really was a Ruby Tuesday.

I walked past the office at work and heard my phone ringing.

I rarely have the ringer on and rarely answer it at work.

I answered it and it was Ruby.

She was upset and crying.

She had just heard from Garland's daughter that he had been to the doctor and got a bad report. 

His cancer had caught up with him and the doctor predicted he had 2 weeks to live.

She was trying to decide whether to come now or wait for the funeral.

So sad to hear her so upset.

Flashback Friday....Til we meet again.

A few years back, maybe 2000? 2002?

I'm not sure, but it was in the land before digital pictures;

I took dad down to Lake Village to Pauline Sioris' home.

Pauline's sister Ruth was down from Minnesota for a visit and Pauline and her daughter Carolyn invited  Dad and Aunt Gladys West over for lunch.

It was a table full of first cousins catching up and telling stories about the old days.

Cousins...now...and then...

How I WISH I would have had my LiveScribe pen to record the table talk that day!

I remember some of the stories, but at that time I had not studied the family tree enough to know who all they were talking about. I also remember trying to translate much of what was being said to Dad who was not wearing his hearing aides.

One thing was for sure.

Pauline was the go to cousin for the details of the stories.

If you ever met Pauline, you know she could talk a blue streak....

and once she got to talking she started flitting around the house, pulling out props for her stories and showing off family heirlooms.

I remember her opening a hall closet and pulling out a black cape, draping it around her shoulders and spinning around. She said it belonged to (and here my memory fails me) either Great Grandma Hattie or Great Grandma Effie....and it was the cape that Grandma would wear to keep warm when they traveled by horse and buggy.

One of the most touching moments was when everyone was saying goodbye...

Ruth gave Dad a hug and held his hands and said in a voice that sounded just like Great Aunt Lulu, "Do you think we'll ever see each other again?"

It was a memory keepers moment.

One that gets burned into memory.

I forgot a lot of what I heard that day, but I did not forget that moment....and I watched and kept track of the answer.

They did not meet again.

Ruth reached the point that she could no longer travel.

And Dad passed away without ever seeing her again.

Pauline is someone I should have revisited....

She was always happy to talk and to tell story after story.Her health started to fail and she spent short stints in Lowell Health Care until her fate, the same fate that took Aunt Lulu's memory caught up with her and Carolyn was no longer able to care for her at home and she moved to the Nursing Home.

Last year Ruby and I went to visit Pauline.

We found her near the nurse's station in a wheel chair.

I had been told that she constantly talked....and made up rhymes and songs (just like Aunt Lulu did....but not much of it made sense. ( This was also how Aunt Lulu was once she moved to the nursing home).

I knelt down next to Pauline's wheel chair and said:

"Pauline?
I'm Bob Vandercar's daughter."

She turned to look at me and studied my face with her clear blue eyes.

I thought I was seeing a ghost as she had the same furrowed brow that my dad would get when he was trying to come back from the land of far away.
I had never noticed how "Vandercar" that look was...until I saw it on her face. 

I waited a few seconds and asked her,
"...do you remember Bob?"

She smiled and said..."
(hay was the word she inserted at the begining and end of every sentance and what she used when she couldn't remember a word).

I laughed out loud and said...
"Yes...that's right! I brought someone else to see you.

Do you remember Phebe and Keith...."

and she broke out in a sing songy voice...

"Phebe and Keith Dinwiddie....hay."

I said, "do you remember Ruby?"

...she nodded and said "Dinwiddie...hay."

I pointed up to where Ruby was standing in front of her and she said,

"Ruby and Norman and Betty...hay."

I was SO glad that she recognized Ruby.

What a gift and a memory for Ruby to take home with her.
To be remembered.

I looked over at the nurse's station and they were all watching and listening and seemed a little amazed. One of them said...

"do you know the names she is talking about?"

and I nodded yes.

We rolled her back to her room and listened as she strung together names and rhymes and hay...and Jack...hay and Jeanette...hay....and Carolyn....hay and Grandma Effie....hay.

I asked her if she remembered Grandma Effie and she said....

"Grandma Effie....hay....the cookies...hay...and the red dots....hay."

Ruby slapped her knee and explained that Grandma Effie used to make cookies with red cinnamin candy in them.

I took note to tell all the Grandmas that I know...
that all those little things you do for your grandkids will stick in their memories long after their short term memory fails them.

She talked about "Norman being ornery and getting a lickin'....hay (laughing a little)....and I felt so bad for him....hay....and Jeanette...hay...(and here she started to cry a little...remembering Jeanette...who had died very young)...and Jack was so handsome....hay....and her babies. And all this seemed to be interspersed with actual poems and little songs that she may have at one time memorized.

It was clear that Pauline still loved to talk. 

The stories were not as understandable as they were on that day we sat around her table at lunch,

but it was comforting to know that even tho her day to day memory had failed her, she still had and held onto memories of people she loved and good times she had lived.

I was sad to leave her there.

But was glad for the visit.

And even tho it was not said out loud, I thought once again of Ruth's question to my dad, when Ruby and Pauline said goodbye.
"Do you think we'll ever see each other again..."

As it turned out....it was another visit for a memory keeper to treasure.

They did not meet again.

Pauline passed away 4 months short of her 99th birthday.

I hope Great Grandma Effie and her are enjoying a plate of cookies with red dots.

Til we meet again, Pauline.
Rest in peace...hay.

Happy Birthday, Cody!