The Road from NY to OH

I have been working on my family's history regularly for the past 5 or so years. Ancestry.com is a terrific tool! I am able to spend nights searching for records, and I've had quite a few 'Eureka' moments.

For instance, I was surprised to learn that on my maternal Grandfather's side, we could trace back to the 1200s. Some members of my family have been in the US since the 1600s- I haven't found that any came over on the Mayflower, but they were here. We were in the US before it WAS the USA. I was more surprised to see that most of the 'old names' in my hometown are related to us. Most of the people who were our neighbors when I was a kid, are distant cousins. That made my hometown a little more special to me.

Then on Dad's side- I found out that most of the people I always thought were family friends, were actually family AND friends. You know- family members that you actually like being around. My grandmother's friend Evy; who with her husband Marsh were at all the family functions (including my parents wedding, and mine, and my sister's baby shower), is actually my grandmother's first cousin.

The roots of my family run very deep in Rensselaer County. When I go home now, I tend to look at it from their perspective- in 2010 it remains a very rural area. I like to imagine what these hills and mountains were like to live in 200 years ago. Fortunately for ancestry purposes, the family didn't move much. Not so great for the gene pool (haha!). But they are easier to trace in census data, because they lived in the same area most of their lives.

So I was very surprised when going through the boxes of documents my aunt sent me in the fall of 2008, after my Grandmother passed away. There were various pieces of paper on which different ancestors wrote their lineage. What a gift! One piece had the name of my great-great grandmother, and it said she was born in 1850 in Blackriver, Lorain County, OH. OHIO???? I knew that she and my great-great grandfather, Leonard Lewis, lived in Berlin, NY; my hometown. She is buried in the cemetery by what is now the elementary school, but was the high school when my mom graduated. Her stone is one that we put flowers on every year for Memorial Day. To find out that she had been born somewhere else was baffling, but to find out that it was Ohio, which is where I now live, was intriguing.

I have been spending the past few nights working on Phebe's side of the family- entering her parents and siblings based on the information written down by some ancestor. Perhaps it was her daughter, Mabel, my great-grandmother. Or maybe it was my Grandpa. I'm not really sure who wrote the lineage on the two pages of writing paper-written on the front and back in pencil. I think Phebe's parents were born in NY, and some of her siblings were born in NY, but some were born in Ohio. So I wonder what took the family from extreme eastern NY to the Cleveland area? How did they get there and back? Well, no doubt covered wagon- not like they had cars back then. The trip today would take what, 8 hours? Yeah, 7-8 hours by car. Most of that is on the interstate. So it's not like it's just a hop, skip, and a jump. I cannot imagine how long it took 160 years ago. Weeks, probably.

I don't know if I will ever find out what brought the Van Wert family from NY to OH and back. But I do think it's an interesting mystery, and one I am certainly going to look into.

Storms

The real beauty of winter is not the fresh snow blanketing everything- the quiet it drapes the world in. It is not the mornings of thick frost that looks like an ice storm without the damage. It is not the bitter cold that sucks the air out of your lungs and wakes you up better than the largest cup of coffee ever could.

No, the real beauty of winter is that rarely are there Thunderstorms. Whereas in Spring, it's stormy and we frequently get thunderstorms, and sometimes those storms are severe here in the Midwest- which means those horrible tornadoes. I do not like thunderstorms. I never have. As a kid, and even a teenager, if it started storming as I was going to bed, I would ask mom to let me stay up til the storm passed. I clearly remember one summer night when I was 16 or 17, and we kept getting wicked thunderstorms. It was after we had gone to bed, and I was terrified. I finally got up, grabbed my blankets, and crept into my sister's room. I crawled up on her floor and I felt better, just being with her. I felt a little silly the next morning when she woke up and teased me about being the big sister who was scared and went into the little sister's room.

I remember my first tornado warning. I went to college in Indiana, and in April of my Freshman year I found out what it means to live in the Midwest, particularly in Spring. My friends and I were walking back to the dorm from dinner, and these sirens started going off. Everyone started running. And I stood there like 'huh?'. One of my friends explained it was a tornado siren, and we needed to take cover. As we took cover in the dorm basement, I rocked back and forth, mumbling and crying. I was hysterical. People looked at me and asked what was wrong with me. My best friend explained that I lived in NY, we didn't get tornadoes. One of the other students said 'yeah, but you did tornado drills, right?'. No! For the people from the Midwest, tornado drills and sirens were normal, but for me it was like being trapped in a horror movie. Thankfully it passed, with no damage. Every year I was at Hanover we had a tornado warning. I was scared for each of them.

And now, I have a dog who is terrified of thunderstorms. And it's not Cobalt, the dog who is scared of everything and would probably bark at his own shadow. No, it's Ms. Onyx, the dog who exemplifies the beagle breed standard of 'a lot of dog for the size'. We have often joked that Onyx's motto is 'I might be small but I'm mighty'. She doesn't bat an eye at taking on huge dogs-Erich's parents lab mix Axel, the German Shepherd who lives around the block, rottweilers, St. Bernards, and the assortment of large dogs we meet at the vet. But as soon as she can sense a thunderstorm, she becomes this quivering mess.

Since we've been buried under snow for the past few months, I hadn't really given it any thought when the weatherman said we'd have thunderstorms tonight. And then Onyx kept pacing, coming over to me and pacing around. She was extremely anxious, and I couldn't figure out what was wrong. Then I heard it. Thunder! And the past 8 years of anxiety came rushing back in an instant. So I went over to the couch to comfort her. I was barely seated and she was on my legs, climbing up onto my chest. I kind of fell back onto the couch, because she was insistent that she wanted to be on my chest. I let her snuggle there, and I pet her and rubbed her ears and comforted her. When she felt safe enough, she climbed down and went over to her bed. At first she buried her head under a blanket, but she quickly fell asleep.

One night survived. Months to go!

Meltdown

Ever have one of those days when it feels like the world is conspiring against you and using you as a punching bag? It's not been the best of weeks here, and I am really feeling bruised and bloodied by life. I guess it started yesterday when my coworker, and friend's, mother in law passed away. Even though she was 90, I still feel really badly for my coworker. Anytime someone who is a part of my life loses someone I feel the loss too.

It's been a particularly busy week at work. Lots of payments, applications, and calls. It has been slow for quite a while, but now it is picking up. I suppose it does make the day go by quicker.

Today was Erich's nursing test. He has been studying and studying. He finished nursing school 3 years ago, but hasn't gotten around to taking the test. He won't have his score for a few days, but he is certain he failed it. And I guess that started this down feeling. About 16 months ago, his hours were cut. He went from 40 hours a week (more some weeks) to 15 hours a week on average. There have been weeks he's had more than 15 hours. But mostly it is 15 hours. Everyone knows the job market is tough- it seems to be particularly bad in SW Ohio. We have cut back quite a bit. And we probably could tighten the belt a little more. The bills continue to get paid, but each month we worry a little more. I don't have any skin left on my lip, I'm always biting it out of stress. My face is broken out almost as bad as when I was a teenager. And my bp is high. It has been high for a while, and every month I go to the Dr and he checks it and changes the meds. Next time I might just tell him 'you know what, we're getting by on less than half what we were before, I'm always stressing about bills. Why do YOU think my bp is high?' And then I can charge him $90!

So when Erich said he failed it, I just felt like all the air had been let out of me. I knew for sure that if he passed it, I would cry buckets in relief knowing that things were soon going to get better for us. But if he truly did fail it, he has to wait 6 weeks to take it again- and we wait again. Another couple mortgage payments, more water bills and electric bills and telephone and cable bills. Doctors bills for me, car payments, student loan payments. We are both trying to keep from cashing out the small retirements we have (mine is much smaller than his), but with each passing month it seems more likely that we will have to.

I know lots of people are struggling right now, and we certainly are not the exception. Thankfully we don't have children to care for and worry about. There's still food in the frig, and we still have the electric and water. But it's so stressful for us. I just feel so let down, not by him, but by life.

I was on my way to get a massage tonight. Okay, let me just take a tangent here. For me, massages are not a luxury, they are a necessity to keep my pain levels lower, to keep my body slightly flexible so that I can move. When I go without the massages I end up in pain, unable to get out of bed. So anyway, on my way I was stopped at a red light, and the red light just seemed endless. I sat there, and was just so incredibly sad, and so overwhelmed. Suddenly I was blinking back tears. I almost had a meltdown right there in the intersection, with a line of cars behind me and kids trying out for little league in the field next to the road.

Then I got to my massage therapist, and she tells me about her meltdown today. We understand each other quite well. Our personalities are similar. Our birthdays are four days apart. While I don't get all gung ho about horoscopes, I do occasionally read them for entertainment. I'm pretty sure today's Gemini horoscope said 'go back to bed and try again another day'. I still feel like I'm just going to burst into tears and cry for days. Perhaps chocolate will help. I already finished off the Samoas I bought from the little girl scouts. Well, the open box that is.

I am hoping tomorrow will be better. It won't be as wonderful as if we were both gainfully employed full time and not having to worry about the bills, but maybe I won't feel this overwhelming sadness that threatens to crush me.

Beagles in the Blood

I am kind of known as that crazy beagle woman. Whenever someone sees a story about a beagle, they send it to me. And that damn email about the fawn who came in through the doggie door? And the owner came home to find their beagle sitting next to the deer on the blue couch? I get that email once a month at least. Everyone says the same thing 'this made me think of you'. Ah well, at least people are thinking of me!

I am the proud momma to 2 beagles. Cobalt, the male, joined our house first. I was a retail manager, it was Christmas-time, and on my lunch break one day I did not resist the urge to go into a pet store. Now before you start lecturing me about buying at a pet store, we happened to get very lucky with both of our dogs. However, I know this is not the best way to get a dog, and the next time we have agreed that we will rescue a beagle. But I went into the store, and they had a Blue Beagle. I had never seen a blue beagle. He is kind of this taupe/gray. His ears were bigger than his head. They put us in a play area together, and this little puppy grabbed the hem of my skirt in his teeth and tugged on it. Apparently my heart was connected to that skirt! The puppy came home with us that night, and was named Cobalt.

We quickly learned Cobalt got lonely, and we both had to work. So we went back, hoping maybe to get a litter mate, but what we came home with was a small female, who was mostly black and brown. She looked like a rottweiler puppy. She certainly was a fierce dog. But she grew on us, this sweet little thing we could hold in one hand. So she became Onyx, although she prefers to answer to Princess.

There is a reason I like beagles. My aunt Arlene, my mother's sister, had a beagle when I was a child. Aunt Arlene's beagle was named Rusty. My mom bought Rusty for Aunt Arlene about a month before Mom & Dad's wedding. Dad's best friend raised beagles at the time. Rusty was the runt of the litter. Here is a picture of Aunt Arlene the night she got Rusty. Most people look at the picture and see me. I look at the picture of the dog and see Onyx.

Rusty was a very spoiled and very loved beagle. He did not remain small for long. There are many pictures of me as a toddler, with Rusty by my side. He was an odd beagle. He made friends with bunny rabbits. He would curl up under a tree in Grandma & Grandpa's yard in Florida, and the bunnies would curl up with him. He also liked McDonalds. If you left him at home, you had better come back with a McDonalds' hamburger, or he would not let you in the house. There were a few times we would forget the hamburger, and have to turn around and go back for it. Rusty shaped my lifelong love of beagles.

When my Grandma passed away in October, 2008; my aunt cleaned out the house. She sent all pictures, and some documents, to me. I had boxes to go through. I still haven't gotten through all of them. I have a general idea of what is in the rubbermaid tote, but I haven't gone over every piece thoroughly. As I was looking through an old album, full mostly of people I didn't know, a picture fell out of the album into my lap. It was an old picture, and was a woman, holding two beagles in her arms. Behind her on a wall are several rabbit skins, which I think explains why the beagles look so happy.

I called my mom to find out who had beagles. She didn't really know off hand, but when she came to visit a month later, as soon as she looked at the photo she said 'oh, that's Aunt Zoe'. My great-great aunt Zoe, or Izoa- which was her given name. She was Grandpa Wager's aunt; the sister of his father. As mom looked at the photo she remembered that Aunt Zoe had raised beagles at one point.

I recently put this photo as my profile picture on facebook. Several people have asked 'is that your Grandma?' and they get a kick out of the story. My hope is to recreate the picture (minus the dead rabbits) at some point for our annual Christmas card. Because it's obvious, being a Beagle Mommy is in my blood.

Signs of Spring

Slowly, signs of spring are emerging. I for one am not really eager to see Spring come; Spring is one of the worst times for me with my allergies. Lilacs are evil! I have always been allergic to them- although in NY they bloom right around Memorial Day. So when we had marching band for the Memorial Day parade- I walked the hilly and pothole filled streets while playing my flute and sneezing. I think I probably did more sneezing than playing.

Here in Ohio, the lilacs bloom in April. I can usually smell them a couple of weeks before you see the flowers- and once I can smell them, I become a bit of a prisoner in buildings- I don't go outside except to walk to or from my car. So spring is not my favorite time of year, even though I do find all the flowering trees in Ohio to be beautiful.

But I cannot stop spring's arrival. Some signs are quite pleasant. Last night we had a purple finch at the thistle feeder. I enjoy watching those birds in the spring and summer. Maybe the goldfinches will come back soon. It will be time to plant the garden before long, and it's neat to see the food grow in our backyard. The snow is melting, even the nasty dirty snowbanks. And I like opening the windows on late winter days, airing out the funk that seems to accumulate in the house during the winter.

Erich said I needed a touch of spring in the house, so he bought me a bouquet of pink roses and a bouquet of pink carnations at the store today. They are positively gorgeous! The roses are my favorite shade of pink, and they smell devine. Maybe being confined to the indoors won't be so bad!

Dancing

One of my favorite stories of my Grandma & Grandpa Wager is the story of how they met. My grandparents grew up in Rensselaer County, NY. They met in the early-mid 1930s. Rensselaer County is in Eastern NY, about an hour east of Albany. It borders Massachusetts and Vermont. It is a mountainous area, very rural. It is the same area in which I was raised. I remember it as always being a little more poor than other towns, other areas. I imagine it was the same in the 1930s, as the rest of the country struggled through the Great Depression.

Grandpa grew up in Berlin, in my hometown. Grandma grew up in Petersburgh, the town to the north of Berlin. Neither of their families were well off, but Grandpa's family might have had it a little better than Grandma's. Grandma's family moved a lot. She even told us that during the Depression at one point the five of them lived in a tent above the Mohawk River.

Grandma and Grandpa knew each other, and both told us that they liked the other one from first sight. But at the time, Grandma would only go out with boys who had a car. Cars were still a rarity in those days, especially in rural upstate NY. So Grandma would go out with the boys who had cars. They would pick her up at her house and take her to the dance; where she would dance with my Grandfather all night long. When it was time to go home, she left with a guy who had a car. When Grandma would tell us this story, my sister and I would laugh and giggle- we couldn't imagine trying to get away with something like that! A girl doing something like that would get a reputation, would be a flirt, or a tease. But it wasn't like that in Grandma's day, and I don't think she was the only girl to do this.

Grandpa and a friend were both saving for cars, but neither had enough. Together, however, they could purchase an old Tin Lizzy. And then they were able to take their girlfriends to the dances. Once Grandpa got the car, Grandma only had eyes for him. They were married May 15, 1938. Their wedding announcement was in the paper-a big deal in 1938. They were married for almost 62 years when Grandpa passed away.

The other day I realized I never saw my grandparents dance. Dancing was such a big part of their younger days. There was one house in Petersburgh, a large house with three floors. My grandmother told us that when she was a young girl, the third floor of the house was a huge open ballroom. Maybe they continued to dance, but I just never had the opportunity to see them. They weren't really big on parties. We didn't go to restaurants that had dancing. I hope they did keep dancing, I like the thought of them dancing.

My dads' side of the family has had a lot of parties over the years: birthdays, anniversaries, weddings, retirement parties. I have seen my Dad's parents dance more times than I can count. I even know their song, 'The Tennessee Waltz'. When Grandma & Grandpa Primeau would take to the dance floor, everyone would step back and watch. At least while they danced to 'The Tennessee Waltz'. I tried to square dance with my grandparents and their friends once, and got a lesson of a lifetime! Those older guys could 'swing your partner' like you wouldn't believe!

But I never saw Grandma & Grandpa Wager dance. I imagine they were beautiful together. Grandpa was tall, some have said he looked like Errol Flynn. Grandma was about 5'6" or 5'7", with dark hair and shapely legs. I saw a picture of her as a young woman, and noticed that we have the same legs. I imagine they moved gracefully, effortlessly. In my mind, I could watch them dance all night.