Farewell to Flora: Family, Food, and Fotos

Funeral shots and Family courtesy of Grumpa with captions by him:
 

Funeral:

Looking back at the family and friends as Bishop introduced those dedicating grave and closing prayer.
Wayne dedicated the gravesite and one of his sons closed the service there.

Friends meeting friends and Daniel with wife and Wayne’s son next to the Stake President who was Aunt Flora's Home Teacher for years.

Ray and Debbie made it to the Monday service and stayed till Tuesday at 6PM (with Grandmary re-hydrating in the California heat.) [Ray and Debbie are Grumpa Max's cousins from his Uncle Wayne and Aunt Teddy UT side of the family.]

Louie with Angela and Daniel’s wife and baby girl. [Louie was Flora Annie's husband.]

 Funeral Family dinner:

This table was mostly Flora Ann’s kids and grandkids. Gabe, Daniel’s wife, Daniel with baby, Nyla with one of the grandchildren (one of Luke’s I think), Abe with two of his girls, Ray and one I don’t know

Same as before but the two girls are Abe’s: oldest is theirs and other adopted.

This table I shot because Lurane’s first husband, Jerry, and Lisa’s husband Karl were in it.

 Group shot without Pat and his children. Next shot has them in it but I ended up cutting off the left side.

 

 I didn’t count the heads but Aunt Flora has a big family. Only one grandchild and her two children missing, maybe.

Sunday Evening Dinner:
The dinner served about 150 with me just taking a few shots.

Below are family candid shots of some of the 75 kids grand-kids, and great grand-kids that attended that meal.

Above is Lisa in white, Pat's daughter in black, Kyle in blue and his new girlfriend.

Billy (Bill) is in print shirt, Peggy beside him.

 Wayne’s wife, their youngest daughter with a sibling's kid, (Grand)Mary and Louie in background

Wayne’s married daughter and her baby, one of Luke's sons, Wayne’s middle daughter, and another of Wayne’s single sons.

The oldest members of the family staying out of the way. [Editor's note: my brothers made cracks here about faces and red solo cups being appropriate for every family gathering.]

The yard and pool were full of kids. Some of the kids were allowed a Sunday swim and others were not. Doesn’t mean they didn’t get wet.

At this table we had Luke with glasses on head, Daniel, Luke’s wife, Angela with one son and one of Daniel’s adopted girls.

 Tom’s son up from TX without family, Abe getting drinks for his family, another of Wayne’s single sons.

What a legacy!

Family Trees: So Many (Broken) Branches

This will be a series of family genealogy posts all circulating around an obituary... so, I'm warning you.

You can skip ahead if not interesting to you. But as the family library/archivist/documentarian, I'm going to post these, so they are SOMEWHERE for future generations.

You know how people always make a list of things they would do if they won the lottery?

A new car!

A new house!

Vacations!

Cruises!

College funds!

Endowments Funds!

But more realistically, debt reduction!

Yes, to all of the above, but I would LOVE to have the resources to employ a team from "Who Do You Think You Are?" to  track down the information on a particular line of my family tree. That of my Grandpa Jack.

Maternal Grandma Ollie did such a good job back-tracing her family lines, back in the day before the Internet. My paternal lines are starting to come together - thanks to unique family surnames.

But my mother's father's side of the family?

Well, therein lies the mystery - and really only three to four generations back.

Bear with me ...

This is Grandmary (on a beach!)

photo c. Grumpa, this summer, Oregon Coast

 This on the left is her father's headstone, Grandpa Jack aka Jasper, and

 (right) a picture of a picture of Grandpa Jack. I don't have an actual copy of a photo, and this is a lousy one at that. This original is in Grandmary's possession. There aren't that many photos of Grandpa Jack. This is 8 years before I came along. He's holding up some of his tobacco crop; he was a farmer. The "Agrico" logo on the matte is for a fertilizer company.

 
This is the headstone for my great-grandmother Mary Ann, Jack's mother.

Here's where things get interesting.

Grandpa Jack had a brother, Ira -- pronounced in Southern as "Ory." You try taking an oral history thinking you hear Ory and it's written IRA! Not at all confusing. And the nicknames --- a curse for future genealogists.

Grandpa Jack and Great-Uncle Ira had the same mother, Mary Ann, but different fathers. Half-siblings, yes, AND different surnames. Ira's family used Mary Ann's surname of Bass. So very "interesting......." Something is up there, no?!

Anyway ...

Uncle Ira had children, Grandmary's cousins.

This is a picture of Uncle Ira with his wife Flossie.

taken at Cousin Ida's house in NC, 2010

This is Grandmary on the left with her cousin Ida on the right, c. the North Carolina road-trip of 2010.

See a similarity? (Reminds me: I need glasses - like last decade.)

That genetic legacy is on two sides of a branch of the family tree, and traces down to me, to my brother J, and to his daughter Amber. We can trace it back to great-grandmother Mary Ann. We'd like to trace it further back, but the family history is murky. So many questions, like: Why weren't Ira and Jack raised together? Who were the fathers? Who were Mary Ann's people? What was the story? Must have been a doozy. It's not been told. Also, where is the rumor-family connection to a possible Southern Native American tribe? SOME people in the family can tan like you can't believe. Others of us -- so, so, so, pale to the point of ghost-like.

Sadly, the connections to the past are being lost to time.

We learned this summer that another North Carolina relative, Grandmary's cousin and Cousin Ida's sister, Pauline - aka Ms. Polly - also died in July.

I had only visited Ms. Polly a few times, but Grandma Ollie made a point to keep in contact with Grandpa Jack's side of the family once he passed, and Grandmary continued/continues to do so. I am glad I got to visit back in 2010 and see Ms. Polly for the last time. She was frail even then, and you could see the decline, but she still made an effort for our quick visit.

I had to shoot these surreptitiously.  You need to be discreet when on a proper Southern "rock and talk" with the older generation of relatives.

I much prefer this picture from her obit. That's really how I remember her from when I was much younger.

Obits - for genealogical purposes 

Pauline “Ms. Polly” Bass Gardner

 

Goldsboro Daily News (N.C.)

July 19, 2014

July 19, 94, Pikeville (N.C.)

Pauline “Ms. Polly” Bass Gardner, 94, passed away on Saturday, July 19, 2014 at Wayne Memorial Hospital surrounded by her loving family.

Pauline was born in Johnston County on January 19, 1920, to the late Ira and Flossie Mitchell Bass. She was married to the late Grover Gardner. Pauline was a member of Pleasant Grove Free Will Baptist Church. Although Pauline leaves a vacant place in our hearts, we know she truly earned her special place in heaven. Pauline will always be remembered as a loyal woman of faith, love and respect for everyone who touched her life.

Funeral services will be held at 6:00 p.m. on Sunday, July 20, 2014 in the chapel of Seymour Funeral Home with the Rev. Barry Stallings and Rev. Anderson Barnes officiating. Interment will be on Monday, July 21, 2014 at 10:00 a.m. in the Pikeville Cemetery.

Pauline is survived by her daughter Pat and husband Nick Sutton of Pikeville; sons, Jimmy Gardner and wife Joan of Pikeville, Kenneth Gardner and wife Mary of Pikeville; sisters, Helen Thorn of Goldsboro, and Ida Padgett of Goldsboro; seven grandchildren, and ten great-grandchildren and three great-great grandchildren.

In addition to her parents and her husband she was preceded in death by her sisters, Hilda McManus and Maebelle White and brothers, Ira D. Bass and Eurice Bass.

The family will receive friends following the service at Seymour Funeral Home and at other times at the home.

The family request memorials be made to Lancaster Bryan Sunday School Class, % Pleasant Grove FWB Church, P. O. Box 36, Pikeville, N. C. 27863

Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.seymourfuneralhome.com

The Goldsboro News-Argus (N.C.)

Published in Obituaries on July 20, 2014 12:39 PM

Pauline Bass Gardner

Jan. 19, 1920-July 19, 2014

Pauline "Ms. Polly" Bass Gardner, 94, passed away on Saturday, July 19, 2014, at Wayne Memorial Hospital surrounded by her loving family.

Pauline was born in Johnston County on Jan. 19, 1920, to the late Ira and Flossie Mitchell Bass. She was married to the late Grover Gardner. Pauline was a member of Pleasant Grove Free Will Baptist Church.

Although Pauline leaves a vacant place in our hearts, we know she truly earned her special place in heaven. Pauline will always be remembered as a loyal woman of faith, love and respect for everyone who touched her life.
Funeral services will be held at 6 p.m. Sunday, July 20, 2014, in the chapel of Seymour Funeral Home, with the Rev. Barry Stallings and Rev. Anderson Barnes officiating. Interment will be on Monday, July 21, 2014 at 10 a.m. at the Pikeville Cemetery.

Pauline is survived by her daughter, Pat, and husband Nick Sutton of Pikeville; sons, Jimmy Gardner and wife, Joan, of Pikeville, Kenneth Gardner and wife, Mary, of Pikeville; sisters, Helen Thorn of Goldsboro and Ida Padgett of Goldsboro; seven grandchildren,10 great-grandchildren; and three great-great grandchildren.

In addition to her parents and her husband, she was preceded in death by her sisters, Hilda McManus and Maebelle White, and brothers, Ira D. Bass and Eurice Bass.

The family will receive friends following the service at Seymour Funeral Home and at other times at the home.
The family requests memorials be made to Lancaster Bryan Sunday School Class, Pleasant Grove FWB Church,
P. O. Box 36, Pikeville, N. C. 27863

Online condolences may be sent to the family at www.seymourfuneralhome.com.
(Pd)

WEB-CAST VIDEO CLIPS

There was even a 36 minute recording made of the web-cast of Ms. Polly's funeral service/sermon. Now, that's a first! My Grandma Ollie would NOT know what to do about that.

For the link, please go to: http://webcast.funeralrecording.com/events/viewer/6234/hash:86115587E8FF0965

So much Southern twang, but some stories and preaching bring her to life beyond the words of a printed notice.

Obituaries contain a wealth of family history information. When you can, always include them - and all versions you can find. You may think it's redundant, but sometimes, a slight variation in an obit will have a clue that another version will not. 

Auntie's Day: Honoring the Original Auntie Nettie

The spirits of my family have been really active lately in trying to bring our focus back to them. Between babies sharing family names, the genetic legacies of generations showing up on little shiny faces, and other dreams and visitations  - let's just say, I don't believe in "coincidences."

Like this one, I had already been planning a trip to Canada, near Nova Scotia, when a distant cousin, the author of a biography about our shared paternal grandfather, sent me an e-mail letting me know about a family reunion up in Prince Edward Island --the first one ever - the week BEFORE I was due to travel. Hopefully the family was able to visit family sites and pay homage at relevant cemeteries. I hope to join them in future years and reconnect the distant branches of the family tree. This family connection totally explains the "pull" to P.EI. and Canada that has always been quite strong for me.

But I don't need a reunion, or need to visit a cemetery to remember my ancestors - especially my great-something paternal aunt, the original "Auntie Nettie." I can't forget her. We share a name after all.

I always think about her when I have to explain my name, but it wasn't until recently that I tried to find her final resting place so I could properly pay my respects. Poor kid; she doesn't seem to have a headstone.

Rivertrip 2010

middle of Utah

middle of a cemetery

middle of a search for "myself"

 Where are you little one? Are you here? Or were you here?

I knew that she had died young. The frontier life wasn't easy, and childhood life expectancy was short due to illnesses, but until my father was told about Cousin Frank's book and I found "myself" in the index, we didn't know how tragic her death was.

THE ORIGINAL

6/19/1874-4/23/1878

~daughter of Elijah Hiett M. 1832-1925 {son of John Ellison M. 1801-1875 and Sarah Elizabeth B.M. 1811-1894} and Helen Alcy T. 1839-1915

Elijah Hiett M******: A Pioneer Legend by Frank L. M****** [aka Cousin Frank]

Page 147

Elijah set about building a family home in East Lao, in the County of Piute [Utah]--the county subsequently becoming Wayne County in 1891. However, three weeks after moving into their new home, they were saddened by the death of their young daughter, THE ORIGINAL who, at the age of three, accidentally drank some concentrated lye which was in common use within the pioneer homes. It would have easily been mistaken for other liquids. Now, at the age of four years old, she became the first death in East Loa in April of 1878. Knowing that she was near death she requested to be buried alongside her grandfather and grandmother in Cottonwood, Utah – which was the place of her birth. Keeping the promise made to her, Elijah and Helen made the 200 mile, 11 day journey, to the Salt Lake Valley to place her alongside her grandparents, John [Ellison] and Sarah ... (emphasis my own.)

Can you even imagine? If I understand this correctly, she didn't die immediately, but lingered long enough to have a birthday and make requests to be reunited with her grandparents in her childood "hometown." What a horrible way to way to go. At three or four, she should have been running around the yard, helping with the prairie chores -- probably gathering eggs, feeding the chickens, gathering wood, and water from the stream. She would have been bossed by her older siblings, and in turn played with her baby brother.

Now that I have these clues, I plan to go back to find her plot. More importantly, she deserves a marker. I plan to write to the sexton to see if it's possible for her to eventually have some company. A little urn doesn't take up a lot of room, right? - Even in a plot with a child's coffin? If I'm getting a stone engraved, why not getting it engraved for two?  Centuries apart, we are both:

Daughter, Sister, Aunt 

1874-1878
daughter of Elijah Hiett and Sarah Elizabeth

1972-         

daughter of LeRoy C. "Max" and Mary 

Happy Auntie's Day Little One.

Thanks for the name

(even if no one can pronounce it correctly.)

Recipes from Aunt Flora -- JTR's Peanut Butter Cookies

I'd first like to go on record that I HATE it when tech platforms change and don't give you enough instructions into what those updates/improvements will mean in practical terms.

I thought I was doing pretty well learning how to play in .html codes in the old version of Blogger so that I could get rid of extraneous spacing, coding, and lay photos in as a nice block.

Unfortunately, while the new version of Blogger will let me import more photos at a time, and determine more sizes, it is severely limiting on where you can place photos. You can only center/left/right justify one photo at a time. Even playing in the .html codes didn't resolve my issues.

Thus, the only way I could get all these photos in one post is to strip them down the side .. for now.

Plus, look at the time stamp [1:08 a.m.]. That's the real time. Instead of posting for upload at 9:00 a.m., I am still awake, baking, and blogging in the wee small hours of the morning.

I started this process HOURS ago--like on a whole different day--both the recipe making, the cooking, and then trying to upload and process this.

I am annoyed.

I am tired.

I should have just not gotten this done on time.

I have sent off a snippy feedback entry.

And now ....

The real portion of this post!

I needed a recipe to satisfy both my guilt for not feeding the IT boys last week and my guilt for subjecting my MailRoom Guy to the unfortunate social issues of my Wonder Intern. MailRoom Guy requested peanut butter cookies, and I owe him a lot. The IT boys like crunchy. The family recipe book had an untested recipe for peanut butter cookies - unlike any other that I had tried previously. Thank goodness for Aunt Flora's family cookbook. Two departments. One recipe.

I made a bunch of missteps with this though. I didn't start making the dough until 7:00 p.m. Then I doubled the batch. As you'll see the photos that just happened to lay in next to this text, I misjudged the volume of dough and the size of the container. (Physics wasn't my strongest subject in high school.) I had to swap out bowls once I figured out I had 5 cups of flour going on. Then I realized how long I would be baking ... 6 cookies per sheet. 12-15 minutes each .... So late. So many cookies. So tired ...

All of this struggle is still not enough to say thank you to the MailRoom Guy. The Wonder Intern was/is ... um ...

Well.

He is a wonder, alright.

As my other granny would say.

JTR aka Janean's Peanut Butter Cookies

1 cup margarine (I used butter, 2 sticks)

1 cup sugar, white

1 cup sugar, brown

1 egg

2 tablespoons hot water

1 cup peanut butter

1 tablespoon baking soda

2 1/2 cup flour

Blend margarine and sugars.

Beat in egg, water, and peanut butter.

Combine dry ingredients and stir them into margarine mixture.

Roll in balls and roll in sugar.*

Press with fork on ungreased cookie sheet.

Bake at 375 degrees for 10 to 12 minutes.

* Usually peanut butter cookie recipes call for chilling prior to the rolling-phase. This one doesn't.

Since I used SO MUCH BUTTER the dough was warm and I just didn't see the point of getting greasy. I knew I wasn't going to be rolling it in refined sugar either. Instead I used my handy cookie scooper. I plopped the dough down on the parchment paper, pressed them down with the fork tines, and then sprinkled with a combination of demerara sugar and crystallized sugar to up the crunch factor.

I have lost count of how many cookies I've eaten (not really, only 3).

It's over 9 dozen cookies and counting.

I'm sure my neighbors will be happy when the kitchen timer stops going off, I stop tromping across my floor to my bureau/cooling racks, and I finally go to bed.

Me. too.

Wait. There's the ding for the last batch. Glory Hallelujah. Now I have to figure out how to get 9 dozen cookies in containers and to work. .... Later, MUCH LATER, today.

Response to comments: It's not the size of the pan holding me back from making more than 6 cookies at a time. It's the depth and quality of the oven. It's not calibrated right, but after almost 6 years, we've come to a sensory understanding of each other. I can tell by smell and then by a quick look. Also, it's not as deep or wide as a regular house oven. I have exactly one cookie sheet that will fit in there. My other ones won't fit in one way, and the the "normal" way, kicks the door open and then things NEVER finish.

Honestly.

One day we'll do a tour of the kitchenette. It's not even a "kitchen" per se according to you or me, or the housing authority. It's the type of kitchen that makes me mock all the people on House Hunters (the US version). Excuse me: Granite countertops, 2 fridges, a US style fridge, an ice machine, garbage disposal, dish washer, grilling devices, 6 burners? WTH. GET OVER YOURSELVES! Do you have a counter top? Do you have a full fridge? Can you shut your oven door with a normal cookie sheet in it? That, a knife, a pot, a pan, and a cutting board, and a burner ... that's all you really need.

Those European houses where there is a coil, a fridge under the counter, and a hole in the ground? They would LOVE my kitchenette!

Recipes from Aunt Flora -- Peggy's Granola

Another girls' weekend. Another potluck menu to plan. As ever, I was delighted to contribute my fair share of baked goods for our breakfasts. In addition to plans to bring pumpkin bread, apple bread, and a orange-flavored/raisin/nut breakfast bar, I looked at the menu to see what we possibly could be missing. Our 'party coordinator' said that there would be fresh fruit and juices for breakfasts as well. When I think fresh fruit, I also think yogurt and granola.

Coincidentally, I had the makings of a granola in my pantry, and was waiting to try yet another family recipe, and so...

Voila.

Enjoy this, while I enjoy my granola and other breakfast treats on a beach in New Jersey!

Peggy's Quaker Granola

2 1/2 cups regular oats
1/2 cup brown sugar
1/2 cup nuts, and/or sunflower or other seeds
1/4 cup bran or wheat germ
1 teaspoon cinnamon
1 teaspoon vanilla
1/3 cup honey
1/3 cup melted margarine (about 5 1/3 tablespoons)
1/2 cup raisins

Mix all well except raisins. (I mixed the dry ingredients together first, stirring well to break up the clumps of brown sugar, and I added a handful or more of extra assorted nuts. Then I added the wet ingredients and mixed well.) Bake at 325 degrees for 20-25 minutes. (I stirred after 15 minutes, and then baked about another 15 minutes.) Then add raisins (and some craisins), (mix well) and let cool.