Welcome to another edition of the Weekend Chat, my fellow WikikChatterers! And greetings from Cathey’s Creek, where those eaters of tree leaves, the bag worms, have just made their appearance (but not on our trees… yet). My Grandpa’s solution for these pests was a long stick, with two nails holding a lighted, kerosene-soaked corncob. How he never burned down those dried out, 70-year-old barns amazes me.
On the Home Front 1: A beaver made an attack on one of our river birches, but fortunately only two lesser trunk sprouts (not the three main trunks). Last year, one tried to take down a black gum, but shellac and cloth wraps saved the tree. Earlier this year it was Japanese beetles munching on the leaves of sycamores, poplars, and Virginia pines. So far, the trees have been resilient, surviving these threats.
On the Home Front 2: Ten tons of topsoil arrived and the shoveling began yesterday. Since the Flood of April 9th (link for those of you who missed it) we have been reconfiguring our front yard to try to lessen the damage if it happens again. Unfortunately, 10 tons of dirt is not a lot of dirt.
On the Genealogy Front: I’ve had a mixed week. Little work was accomplished on the family I shared with you last week. I received very kind communication from a member encouraging me to work on my Galloway ancestor: William. Since I’m afflicted with NBAPC Syndrome (No Biography After Profile Creation), I thought I’d better get on the ball and do some. So, William was included in the batch I worked on this week. I’ll need help figuring out how to source the land grant info I got from a state archives website.
And… in the process of looking for something else, I stumbled across a passel of the first profiles I did early on, profiles for which I am now embarrassed. I’m embarrassed because these were for my beloved Grandpa’s brothers and sisters and their spouses, and, if you’ll forgive me, the sources sucked! So, I decided to tackle my favorite uncle that I never knew: Matthew David Underwood (NOT finished yet, but photos there). Two reasons this great-uncle is my favorite:
--We share a birthday! My mother wanted to name me after him, but alas, my dad didn’t agree.
--Uncle Math was born with a cognitive disability (1910 census: did not attend school, could not read or write, and was listed as “insane”), and thus he was 1) made fun of when younger, 2) an embarrassment to some of the family members for most of his life, and 3) he had a kind and gentle heart. An uncanny resemblance to me.
Uncle Math’s lot in life was to do farm work. He lived with his parents helping on their farm until his mother died in 1935, and Math moved in with my grandparents at the age of 48. (In a sense, my great-grandfather willed Uncle Math to Grandpa.) It would not be an easy relationship.
Instead of focusing on the less positive, let me tell you one of my favorite stories about Uncle Math that my mother told me a year or so ago. To put this story in its setting, this was in the South during Jim Crow and all that that entailed. About a mile or so from my grandparents’ farm was an African-American church, Woodlawn Presbyterian. Despite Grandpa telling him not to (it wasn’t right), Uncle Math would occasionally, during the 1940s or 50s, slip away on a Sunday to visit with the folks at that church. The members, who knew of his mental disabilities, loved it when Uncle Math visited with them, and would always seat him at the front of the church. The thing that pleased Uncle Math to no end was that they called him, Mr. Underwood, a name that he rarely, if ever, heard.
A gentle lesson for us all. And now, let us celebrate each other in the Chat!