Saturday, Aug. 22, we were off early, driving east towards are next stop, Columbus OH, listening to "Midnight Rising: John Brown and the Raid That Sparked the Civil War" , by Tony Horwitz. Between that informative & engaging book, a 3 part documentary on Ulysses S Grant we'd watched before we left Charleston, & a visit to the Lincoln Presidential Museum & Library in Springfield, IL, we felt we'd be ready to digest Harper's Valley, MD, the si...

An Incredible Family Day in White Hall, Illinois. Part 1. On Friday, Aug. 21, 2020, we left Chicago for a very special "Back to the Past" Experience in tiny White Hall, Illinois, where my grandparents lived & raised their family. With help from cousins, we were able to visit the homes & farms of our aunts & uncles, guided by a cousin who offered to "ease you way". She proved most valuable, as she seemed to know every single perso...

If you have followed this blog, you will already know that Les & I are firm Francophiles! We have spent every summer in France since 2012, when I started writing this blog. In one of the 3 small French houses we've owned, enjoying a terrific view from each of our terraces. We've thoroughly enjoyed "viewing" French life not only from the terrace, but from our many incredible experiences down below, in the thick of things, these past 9 summers. But,...

Family Matters It's August 20, & we've one more week left in our French Summer. After 11+ weeks of hot, dry weather with blue skies, I'm sitting on the terrace at 4:00 in the afternoon, sipping a cup of HOT tea with a sweater on. Is this some signal from above that it's time to leave? The lavender is cut back, the figs are ripe, the lawn is brown, & my plumbago needs a haircut (& so do I!). That's another hint…it's almost over. But what a sum...

About 3-4 years ago, Les & I did Ancestry's spit test. A bit surprised with the results, we realized that the percentages of our "parentage" didn't seem to make sense. How could I be much more Irish than English, when both sides of my family came from the Midlands (Derbyshire & Yorkshire) in England? How could Les NOT be ¼ each German, Italian, Finnish & maybe Jewish, since he had grandparents or great-grandparents that came from those countries? An...