Not to worry, I have a list. They won't be done one after the other; they will be done simultaneously. My sister wanted me to work on my Moore ancestors. I began that. My cousin gave me the Riverbank Guestbook which I have begun transcribing and annotating. My friend wants five pair of mittens by Christmas. I want sixty doilies to hand out at the next reunion in the autumn of 2016. Date and place are not set yet. Everything started. Three of us are going to start compiling the Holmes Family Cookbook, to have ready for the 2016 Reunion. That's if people climb on board.
To help me with Riverbank, I started a new ancestry tree. Like any other bed and breakfast/fishing lodge, there are unrelated people who come to visit. People come from all over; some from across the sea. How did they hear about it? Was it advertised? In Sussex, Saint John, Boston, etc? If it was word of mouth, how did these folks know each other? Will I ever know? This wouldn't be so unusual nowadays, but we're talking 1909 to 1915. I just finished writing about Uncle Billy and Aunt Maggie (my great-greats, actually), and saying how they were just plain folk, never went far or did much or had anything to speak of, lived in a beautiful vale but really out in the boonies - and now, out of the blue, this book.
First fellow in the list - a brevet brigadier general retired, from the Civil War, to accept a position as Consol in Saint John, New Brunswick. Had to google brevet. Yes, it's a word. He arrived on Dominion Day, 1909. What day? If you are my age or older, you know. We call it Canada Day now.
Wealthy people with connections came to visit. Farmers down the road stopped in. Some stayed ten days or so. One fellow on the first page was s a musician. Since Uncle Billy played the organ in church and the fiddle at the Saturday night barn dances, I'm sure they had lots to discuss while resting by a tree, timothy dangling from their mouths like their fishing poles dangling into the crick. And Uncle Billy was eighty-two years old.
I still have the quarterly Holmes newsletters to research and write. I've let them slip since last November. I sent them out, but I didn't do much in the way of research. This November's must include some history as well as contemporary stuff. And I know what it will include: this old house, which still exists in Prince Edward Island. That's all the clue I'm giving.
I went gung-ho on the Moores and then Riverbend perked my interest. I took a road trip up to Moore country; some graveyards I wanted to see for several years. I sure had a tour of back-road New Brunswick - dirt roads and all. My ancestors lived in some pretty spots, along rivers, in valleys with magnificant backdrops, and small, lovely villages.
I've been invited to Hampton to visit some long-gone ancestors and their kinfolk, with a tour by Richard and Sandi, after the election near the end of September.
I must, absolutely must, get to Fredericton and talk to the archivist about the restoration of the old map of Petitcodiac that shows Daniel's saw mill site(s). That will be after the genealogy meeting in September. I'm hoping to convince Leslie to go up with me.
I want to go to the creative writing workshops at the library on Saturday mornings. It was a choice: Focus Camera Club, Nature NB Moncton or creative writing. I'd love to do them all, but with volunteering on Wednesdays, I think the others will have to take their turns.
Paul took Mom and I to the Second Chance Antique Store today. I found something and I bought it. Why? Probably no one else would want it, and I did; yes, I know my clay inkpot is broken. Now I need to go to the pond and find a crow feather, or an eagle feather, or a Canada Goose feather. But what did my great-great grandparents use for ink in their inkpots?
It's all part of my plan for someday: my first historical novel. When will it begin? It has begun, in my visits to Kings Landing and the Textile Museum in Dorchester. In the research I did for "A Homestead on the Old Post Road." Someday I will tell Charlotte's story - or a bit of her story embellished with settings, characters, and real life happenings in her era.
Somehow, I have to fit a bit of housework and cooking and other realities into my days as well.
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