Hi WikiChatters,
Thank you, Chris, for hosting! Laura, praying for your recovery!
Busy week. The wife left for SC on Monday to take care of our daughter who is recovering from having 18 inches of her large intestine removed due to a constant battle with diverticulitis. Daughter came through fine, but had to go back to the hospital yesterday due to 102 fever. Heavy duty antibiotics. the CT scan showed everything holding together well, so the docs figure it's a post-op infection. Wife won't be home until next Wednesday unless something else comes up and she needs to stay longer.
Wednesday, I made the sad trip to Charlotte with my mom and stepdad to attend the funeral of my mom's last surviving sibling, World War II veteran Ralph Sidney Underwood, Jr. Mom's took this one pretty hard, but she held up well. I got to see some cousins I hadn't seen in over 20 years, which was great. Here a pic for y'all...
https://www.wikitree.com/photo.php/4/41/Underwood-4515.jpg
The funeral was held at the historic Paw Creek Presbyterian Church, one of the Seven Sisters, Presbyterian churches founded around the same time in Mecklenburg County, North Carolina. My ancestors helped to found that one and also two others of the Seven Sisters, Hopewell and Steele Creek.
I found a little time during the get-together afterwards to walk through the large, old cemetery at Paw Creek. This was a very nostalgic experience as I remembered as far back as 50 years ago my grandparents, Ralph and Reamer Neal Underwood, frequently walking me through this cemetery, pointing out this grave and that of relatives and ancestors from long ago. It was a history lesson for me. They shared stories about people and of times before. Often, my grandma would take me with cleaning supplies to work on the stone of her grandfather, Pvt. George Alexander Neal, Co. A, 11th North Carolina, wounded at captured at Gettysburg,
I was sad after it all. Uncle Ralph dying, my cousins (and I!) looking our age, youngest 50, oldest 72. And missing my grandparents.
A bright spot: the pastor of the church is a g-grandson of Confederate veteran Larkin and Amelia Lawing Hipp. Amelia was the sister of my g-grandmother, Hettie Lawing Underwood. So, we had a great time talking in a corner about genealogy, history, and such. Now I have another project.
It's good to be back home amonst my WikiTree family.