Just a post to say...

that this blog is pretty much dead. I will only in the future post on my photo, cemetery, and maybe my World of Warcraft blogs. This one is the past, I no longer feel the need to reach out in anger with words. Oh, I'm still angry and depressed, I just don't see that anyone cares or listens so it's all internal now. Just me and my thoughts. And my camera.

Aaaaaaaaargh

New computer a few months ago. It went deep fried within a week. New new computer now. Scared to put anything on it for fear of losing it to another deep fried. It won't accept my old programs that I used to fix photos and do html. It doesn't like half the websites I try to go to. And I lost my old password list.

Not sure what to do now. Can only play World of Warcraft and cry because I can't go anywhere and I can't do anything and can't afford ANYTHING.

I HATE 2010.

Looking into the past

I thought I'd spend some time and pixels on posting some of my genealogy information, in the hopes that maybe someone out there googling for the same people might stumble across this page.

I'm going to start on my mother's side, I know more about it. Going back a few generations brings me to the following(I will call where I am starting "generation 1"):

Generation 1

• Emanuel Clayton Shriner(1873-1942, Maryland) married Mary Carter(1891-1915, Indiana), probably in California and probably in 1909 or 1910. They are found, married but living as lodgers with someone else, in the 1910 census. They are buried in Oakdale Cemetery, Glendora, California

Generation 2

• Emanuel Shriner(1827-1897, Maryland) married Adeline Wetzel(1832-??, Maryland). They are found in the 1880 census living near Emmitsburg, Frederick County, Maryland. Emanuel is buried in Friends Creek Cemetery, Friends Creek, Maryland. Not certain where Adeline is buried. Adeline is in the 1900 census as widowed, but I do not find her as a 'Shriner' in the 1910 census. Possibly she died in this time frame.
  

Generation 3

• Peter Shriner(1800-1860, Maryland) married Sarah Jane Fleagle(1805-1860, Maryland). They are buried in Friends Creek Cemetery, Friends Creek, Maryland. Sarah's last name found through other people's information found on Familysearch.org or Worldconnect.rootsweb.com; I cannot confirm it yet through any documents. Sarah died before the 1860 census was taken, and I do not find them in the 1850 census.
  

Generation 4

• the parents of Peter Shriner are unknown. Johan Valentin Fleagle(1762-1845, Maryland) is the father of Sarah Fleagle, assuming she is indeed Peter Shriner's spouse. Johan was a fifer in the Revolutionary War and has a Revolutionary War Veteran marker on his tombstone. He married Margaret E. Hahn(1770-1842, Maryland). They are buried in Baust Church Cemetery, Tyrone, Maryland. The surname is also seen as Fleegle, Fluegle, Flegal, Flugel, and possibly other similar ways of spelling.
  

That is all I will post for today.It's about all I know on this section of my family. I'm sure the way I typed that all up isn't the 'right way', but as long as I get the information out there.

I started here because Mary Carter is my most mysterious roadblock. Even in a 1947 written family tree, her parents are listed as 'unknown'. She had one brother(as far as anyone knows), Harry, born in 1887. He died in 1912. In 1900, at age 13, he is listed as being an 'inmate' at the Julia E Work Training School/Brightside Orphanage. This "school" was for orphans, troubled kids, and mentally challenged children. *IF* he was an orphan, Mary(who would be 9 years old), is not listed as being there as well. He died young, age 25, so it is possible he had a disorder that made him difficult to keep at home. Or he could have just been a bad kid. However, even after searching nearly every Carter household in Indiana, I have not been able to locate Mary in order to find out who her parents were. She died when her only son was 3 years old, so perhaps once I order the death certificate I will find out more. Until then, I like getting this information out there...just in case!

Bones of the Cedar Bucket, part 3

This sculpture was created from the charred remains of the world's largest cedar bucket. Sculpted by Murfreesboro-Rutherford Art League member Carl Morris Brandon. Carl brought to bear much of the remains including charred nails.

Red Cedar (or Juniper) is one of nature's many gifts to Middle Tennessee. in "Bones of the Cedar Bucket" the natural grace of the tree limb, the beauty of the red heartwood and the skill of the artist are all represented. The last vestiges of the world's largest cedar bucket are used to represent the bones of the human hand, symbol of the artist's creativity, making beauty out of destruction. One mad cut the cedar, another made the bucket, someone set a fire, the artist creates a memorial.

At the time, July 2008, this sculpture to the memory of the bucket sat just inside the entrance to the museum in Cannonsburgh Village in Murfreesboro. It is still unknown to me the fate of the rest of the remains of the charred bucket. It is still unknown whether or not a new bucket will ever be built. You can never truly replace history, but you should never forget it.

The night the bucket burned; part 2

In the early morning hours of Father's Day, June 19, 2005, an arsonist went to the historic village of Cannonsburgh in Murfreesboro and set fire to the World's Largest Cedar Bucket. By the time the fire department arrived, most of the bucket was a total loss. The upper half of the bucket was scorched, the roof of its shelter had burned through, and the walls of the next door blacksmith were blackened.

Two days later, I hurried down to see it with my own eyes and was horrified at the scene. The marvelous bucket, which my daughter and I had just visited and photographed a few weeks earlier(for the umpteenth time), was in ruins. Surrounded by crime scene tape, the smell of burnt wood was overwhelming.

As you can see, the bucket wasn't burned completely to ashes, but the damage was done. The guilty party-to my knowledge-has never been found. Local blacksmiths have vowed to rebuild the bucket, but it won't be the same. A local artist has taken some of the charred remains and created a sculpture that now stands in the museum at the village.

Big Red Bucket, a 3 part story

The World's Largest Red Cedar Bucket. This bucket was originally built as a promotional item in 1887 by Tennessee Red Cedar Woodenworks Company in Murfreesboro. A height of 6 feet, weight of 800 pounds, and capacity of 1,556 gallons. It spent time at its factory in Murfreesboro, with trips to the World's Fair in Chicago in 1893 and St Louis in 1904. It was sold to a grocer where it sat from 1950 to around 1965. It was sold to an amusement park in Georgia. It was eventually brought back to Murfreesboro in 1976 where it was placed on display at Cannonsburgh Historic Village.

Cannonsburgh was created as Murfreesboro's 1976 Bicentennial project. The buildings around the village, for the most part, were brought from around the county and some date back as far as the 1830s. The bucket sat next to the blacksmith shop, and across the path from the grist mill.

June 19, 2005, arsonists visited Cannonsburgh late at night and set fire to the Bucket. What was left was mostly charred remains.

Snow expected!

They are predicting 2-4 inches of snow for the Middle Tennessee area! I have been waiting a few years now for a really good snow in order to get out and take some cemetery photos in the snow, particularly Stones River National Cemetery. If I can get out and get any photos, I will certainly post them here.


**update: they have downgraded us to only maybe 1-2 inches. That stinks. I WANT SNOW!

**update 2: 11:03am on Thursday, still no snow!

The New Year

Time to think about the things I want to get done in 2010. I think last year pretty much sucked. I have my fingers crossed that this year will be better.

• Work on my personal website more.

I did get some things done on it last year, fixing up a new look and sectioning it out more. Now I just need to add more of the hundreds of thousands of photos I have to it. I really want to work on the cemetery and historic places sections. Those seem to be what I have the most.

• Add more and better photos to my Flickr page.

I don't have a 'premium' membership, so I'm only allowed around 200 photos. I just want to make sure that I upload the best and most interesting photos I have and hope that it leads people who look there to my personal website to see more. I don't get many views right now though, not really sure what I need to do to get more out there. Maybe I should comment on other photos I like more, and that will lead others back to my page. Not certain.

• Get back to posting more often on my Photo of the Day blog and Cemetery of the Day blog.

Maybe I'll just get over my fear of rejection and link my 'photo of the day' to some of the contests that they have. And maybe link the other to some cemetery blogs I've come across. Either way, they need help and they need me posting more often and not playing games so much.

• The big one, of course, is to get more organized.
  

I have stacks of photos all over, they need to be scanned and re-filed. I have boxes of tourism pamphlets that I've considered scanning and organizing somehow. A box of maps that need filing. Books need to be straightened out. Copies from reference books at the library need to be placed in notebooks. I even need to go through the cups of pens on my desk and throw out the ones that don't work anymore!

• And finally, get out more!

If only I can convince the hubby. January and February really are the best times to get out and see things, when all the foliage has died back and there are no bugs or snakes! So much to see, so little time. So much to do, time to get started!

Battle of Franklin 145 years reenactment

On Saturday, November 28th, we attended the Blue and Gray Days and Carnton Plantation in Franklin, Tennessee. As a part of this day, they had a small reenactment. I wasn't certain if this was supposed to be a show of what happened in this area at the time of the Battle(somehow that didn't seem right), or just a small show for the people who came to pay their respects. Unfortunately, we happened to be standing next a group of teenagers who had very little respect. Shame to think of how many of those who died that day were the same age as these punks. And yet one hundred and forty years ago, the boys of this age fought bravely and had respect.

I hate to compare this small reenactment to the one five years ago that took place at a plantation home in Spring Hill. It was massive and quite impressive. Today there were only about 20-30 soldiers on each side, and two cannons each. Their dedication to recreating and keeping alive the memory of those who fought and those who died so many years ago does not go unnoticed by me. It is the closest those of us now can get to feeling as if we were there. And for someone like me, who reads and researches so much about this period of time, it is truly thought provoking.

I'm not much of a photographer I think, but I imagine myself as a Matthew Brady or Alexander Gardner when I watch reenactments, or visit the reenactors in their camps. I've posted just a few of my photos from Saturday here. A few of them I've done a little playing in Photoshop to see about getting a more historical look and feel to the photos.

And a big Thank You to these reenactors, for all you do.

Battle of Franklin 145 years later

It is the 145th Anniversary of the Battle of Franklin. This past Saturday we attended the Blue and Gray Days at Carnton Plantation in Franklin. They had a small reenactment and a luminary lighting.

This post will be about the luminaries. There were 10,000 of them, for all the casualties of this horrific battle in 1864. We arrived at Carnton at about 1:30pm. Sunset came around 5pm. As the sky grew darker, the sight of so many lights was stunning. I stood across the Confederate Cemetery from them, and I couldn't help think about the lights that were taken away so many years ago, and lay under the ground here before me.

I hope these photos can give some sense of the amazing sight of so many candles.

Just when you think

you are out of the woods. And JUST when we had finished paying off the broken wrist that my daughter managed back in April-she breaks it again. Yes, on a lovely early November trip to the Smokies, on a beautiful day that I will get to spend with my mother and my husband. Daughter is going with my sister and nephew to a Boy Scouts cavern trip, and before they even leave the parking lot, she falls while racing around and breaks it again. There goes the weekend. And the Christmas money.


We have had a bit of time to visit some local places lately, and some local events, and I will be posting about those in the next few days.

Things have been crazy

I was pretty upset for awhile after July 4, as can be seen in the post below.

The rest of the summer was a mixed bag.

Our air conditioner went out, it was rough for a few days. And then my daughter and I were told to go spend a few weeks with my mom in Sevierville. I felt bad for my husband having to stay at home in the heat-but at least he wasn't home all day in it like we would have been.

So we spent a couple of weeks near the Smokies. I got out to visit quite a few places that I had been wanting to see for a long time. John Sevier's home, Sam Houston's schoolhouse, several cemeteries and other historical places. And I got to spend time with family.

I'd like to say I will post photos, but I won't lie-I've been playing a LOT of World of Warcraft lately and I just can't seem to bring myself to work on my website-as much as part of me REALLY wants to get it done. C'est le vie. :(

And now school has started, and the kiddo has already brought home a cold that she shook off in one weekend-but has stuck with me for just over a week now.

And the car has so many things wrong with it that I fear driving it around during the day-and the AC on the truck doesn't work. So I sit at home...and play.

Well, at least we were lucky enough to get out for a Titans game(hubby's boss gave him the tickets), and I got to take loads of photos at that.

Sigh.

Memorial at LP Field

Fitting that today is July 9th. We went to the memorial for Steve McNair at the Titans playing field, LP Field, today. We went early to avoid the crowds. And I couldn't bring myself to go to the actual funeral home and viewing. I wanted to remember Steve where he made us happy.

There was a photo board, notebooks to sign, and a video playing on the jumbotron. I don't recall much of what I wrote on the notebook, I could barely see what I was writing, I just couldn't stop crying.

I took a few photos. Just a few. It was a beautiful Columbia Blue sky. I remember as a kid, back in Houston we always said that God was an Oilers fan, that was why the sky was Columbia Blue. I thought about that today.
This poster was just outside the gates. Someone had placed some candles near the base of the pillar.
The photos of Steve.
Flower arrangements and mementos.
Video of Steve's life on the jumbotron.
Steve's name on the "Ring of Honor".

Thanks for the memories Steve.

Remembering a Titan

There are times when life is shown to be bigger than a game. Yesterday was one of those days.

I live near Nashville. I moved to Tennessee the same year that the Oilers moved from Houston to Tennessee. If I'd gotten a dollar for every time someone asked me "are you following the Oilers?", well it probably would have paid for the U-haul truck. But no, I was following my mom and just starting over in my life. But the Oilers had recently given me a reason to be happy that I was moving to the same place that they were. It was Steve McNair. He really hadn't played very much by the time I left late in 1996(he was drafted in 1995), but we knew he was going to be good.

And good he was. Even great at times. He was everything I loved about football and he was what I expect out of people. He loved life. He gave back. He never complained. He never wanted the credit for the good but always took credit for the bad. He played no matter what. His heart was as big as Nashville and his smile was as wide as Tennessee. Yes, I cursed him when he defected to our hated rivals in his final years, but I still loved him.

Yes, I met him once. We went to one training camp practice day back in 1999. It was a very hot August day, but Steve, out of all of those that came over to the fans, stayed and signed for everyone that was there. I still have that card. And the two jerseys(Oilers and Titans), the bobblehead, the action figures. And I was excited to know that after retiring, he was coming back to Nashville to live. And I am shocked that it is over so soon.

So many people I find lately who think it is all about them at all times. I mean, the jerks who obviously don't care about anyone but themself and continue to shoot fireworks until late in the night-do they think everyone else in the neighborhood cannot hear them? But they don't care about anyone else. And the people in game who think their fun is more important than MY fun. Really? Would you block off all of the other checkout lanes in the grocery store so everyone else can't check out because you think it's funny? No, whether it is the internet or being in a vehicle, people just think they can get away with whatever they want to do, regardless of the consequences-because usually there are no consequences. And for some reason, so many people in this world have gotten in their heads that it really doesn't matter how what they are doing affects other people, so they will just do what they want. It's all me, me, me. Sometimes I feel like I am the only person left with a conscience.

Sorry for that ramble, but Steve was not one of those people. And with all of the celebrity deaths in the past week, I am saddened by this one the most. Because Steve wasn't really a "celebrity", regardless of how many people knew who he was and the stage he played on. Steve was Superman and Clark Kent at the same time. Steve was a true hero when most sports figures really should not be.

I'm going to miss you Steve. I still can't believe this has happened. I had hoped to wake up this morning to find it all a bad dream. But it wasn't. And I will be sad for a long time.

The Unlucky photographer

That's me.

I've been perusing quite a lot of Flickr lately. I've noticed that many of the best photos(or at least from the photographers I like the most), get the best shots with the right light. Whether it be bright, sunny, no clouds in the sky days, or the perfect light of sunrise or sunset. And I hear that some won't even post photos from days that was cloudy.

And then there's me. I wish I was a photographer I guess. I have taken thousands and thousands of photos since I bought that first Pentax back in 1984. But me, I have got to be the worst or unluckiest at getting shots.

I can't buy sunny days to save my life. If there is a great day to be out taking photos, well that's a day that I can't get out to take some for whatever reason. And if I can get out, by the time I get to what I want to photograph, the clouds have shown up and ruined the day.

The things I want to photograph always seem to:
Face north when it's winter
Face east in the evening and west in the morning
Look terrible without foliage and I find them in the winter or I find them in the summer and you can't see them at all because of all of the foliage
Or of course, nobody feels good and we don't feel like stopping at every single place just to take a photo, so I take it from the car and it's 1.blurry 2.cut off half 3.crooked 4.shows all the dirt on the windows or parts of the frame.

Sigh. I can't win. Makes me wonder if I should even keep taking photos. But I know I want to because I just love doing it. Even if I am the only person(as it always appears) that likes looking at my photos. They are a record of what I've seen. My memory can't always recall all of these things. Plus they help record things that will be gone(are gone now) before they are gone.

I just wish I had better luck actually getting the photos taken. :(

YaY Penguins!!

Pittsburgh Penguins are Stanley Cup Champions! Hooray! I've been a Pens fan for a long time, my third fave team behind the Preds and Bruins, so I was a happy camper last night! I think I'll be wearing my old Jagr jersey around all summer. :)

Almost as important, the Wings lost. I can't fricken stand them. And their lovely fans sitting up in the stands booing the whole time after the game. Nice. Losers. I will always root for the Lions and Tigers, the Wings can rot for all I care.

My website

isn't working for some reason. The service page says there are no problems, but the pages won't come up. I hate when it does this. So I log out of Warcraft to work on adding some pages and it's not working. Does that mean I should go back to playing Warcraft?? I guess so. Or spend hours reading other blogs and staring at photos on Flickr. I'm always worried that I screwed something up to make it not work. But it should be fine-I can log into my account, everything is up-to-date, it doesn't list any outages and says 'no problems reported', I can log into my ftp(not sure if I can upload anything though), but that page just takes forever to load and then only shows a white page. :(

Or I could search Google maps and street view trying to figure out where this house is located. I think it is near Springfield, TN, as the photos around in the original photos folder show the Robertson County Courthouse right before this-but I have looked all around Google maps in that area and cannot find it!
Windmill House somewhere near Sprinfield, Robertson County, Tennessee


update: went to the library, come back and now the website works just fine. Just a kink for awhile I suppose. Sigh.

Road trip

It's the little things that make me happy. Really, all I need is my husband and daughter in the car headed someplace I've never been(or even someplace I've haven't been since I got my new camera). After sitting in our den for a week, missing my kid at camp, feeling like I've never felt before, we got out Saturday to get some Vitamin D from that big shiny thing in the sky.

Our trip took us down I-24 towards Chattanooga. We exited in Manchester and picked up State Route 41 South. This is the Dixie Highway and was the north/south route prior to the Interstate coming through. Along this little stretch, near the small towns of Hillsboro and Pelham, I got photos of 2 "See Rock City" barns. The road then climbed up onto the Cumberland Plateau and we were in Monteagle. We drove east a bit, but then backtracked towards Monteagle and points west.

Just past Monteagle is a town called Sewanee. Located here is the University of the South. We stopped and walked around and took tons of photos of one of the most beautiful places I've ever seen. The gothic architecture, the towers, the stained glass windows, it was amazing. And then we got hungry. There isn't much in Sewanee(not that we could find anyway), so we headed down the road. The road meanders down the mountains towards the west. The first town you come to is Cowan. They have a nice little Railroad Museum(we didn't have time to go in, but we stopped and I got several photos of the train and downtown area). But no fast food here either. Finally, a few more miles down the road we come to Winchester, county seat of Franklin County, and a Burger King(which thrilled the kid, she got Pokemon cards).

Unforunately after that hubby's back started to ache and my stomach started to ache, so we headed up towards Tullahoma to catch I-24 home. And I spent the rest of the day on the couch in pain watching D-Day shows on the History Channel.

Hopefully will post some photos soon.

Lonely, I'm so lonely

My baby is at camp this week. I've never really been away from her for this long. Oh sure she spent a week with Grandma when she was about 5, but she was with Grandma! She is 10 now and she is spending a week over 2 hours away with nobody I know!! I know she will be having so much fun, she won't even miss me. But I worry. She is going to be doing things I wish I could watch her do. Swimming, canoeing, archery, ping pong, arts and crafts. And I am thinking about her with nearly every waking moment. It's been a day and a half and I feel sick to my stomach most of the time and I had trouble sleeping last night.

I am sure she will be fine, but is it so wrong that I jump every time the phone rings? I know it's quiet, really REALLY quiet around the house-just the way I like it-but I just can't wait until Friday gets here!

Civil War bones found in Franklin

While I am extremely interested in this story, I'm scratching my head over the news stories I've read so far.

This one from ?Columbus, Ohio? actually says...

About 2,000 soldiers died in the 1864 Battle of Franklin. Nearly all who died were Union soldiers.

Uh, what? Let's try 10,000 casualties*-7,300 were Confederate! Nice try yankee.

Then there is this one from Fox News 17 in Nashville(you'd think they get the facts straight) that says this:

Historians believe the body belongs to a Union soldier, who may have been killed around November 30, 1864.

That's when the Union Army was pursuing Confederate soldiers as they retreated from the Battle of Nashville.

Yes, the Battle of Franklin was November 30, 1864. But the Battle of Nashville was December 15-16, 1864. And if they meant "Battle of Franklin" from the date, well this guy was found at the base of Winstead Hill, which is where the Confederate higher-ups(namely Hood) watched the slaughter unfold. It is just over a mile south of the Union's line of defense.

So this soldier could have died as the Union made their way north from Spring Hill and was quickly buried where he fell(most likely of an old wound or disease) before the trenches were built near the Carter House. Or he died on the way South after December 16.

Or is it possible that this soldier was killed during a cavalry skirmish that occurred on April 10, 1863 when Confederate troops moved north from Spring Hill just to scout whether the Union held Franklin or not. Forrest was one of the cavalry leaders here and he was moving north along the Lewisburg Pike, which is just east of this site. There were Union pickets in the area and there were roughly 100 casualties on both sides.


I'm not an archaeologist or a certified historian or anything. My guesses on when this soldier died are just that, guesses. But they are educated guesses. How do these news sources get away without any fact-checking? Oh wait, they do that every day, why should I be surprised?


As to the site where the remains were found, I am ambivalent. On one hand, yeah they are going to stop the construction and do more searching, and yeah another golf course built on battleground bites the dust. But for what...more townhouses and shops. I'm already disgusted at the site of that Target sitting next door. And not to mention the Pizza Hut that was allowed to be built on top of a known mass grave. What a sad thing to see. To see the difference between such historic places like Gettysburg and Franklin. Yes, yes, we lost. That's no excuse to forget what happened and act like it never did happen. What a shame, Franklin, what a shame.


*want to clear up "casualties": "casualties" are listed as dead/wounded/captured. For Franklin, Union had 189 killed, 1033 wounded and 1104 captured. Confederates had 1750 died(or died from wounds within a few days), 3800 wounded and 702 captured. There were more Confederates killed in this 5 hour battle than the whole 2 days at Shiloh(often called the Bloodiest Battle of the Civil War).