Winter

Winter

Monday, June 20, 2022

Good Ole Summertime

I thought it was time to sit down and blog. I wish that I had something earth shattering to tell you about. Life has been pretty normal. I have been reading and visiting the library. Do you know it still makes me feel as happy going to the library as it did the first time my Mom ever took me to check out books? 

We are going to Tucson to visit our daughter and her family soon. I am so excited to get to see them. It feels like forever. One of my grand daughters loves the books about Ramona and Beezus by Beverly Cleary.  This last week at the library, I checked out Ramona books. I wanted to be able to tell my grand daughter and ask her questions about Ramona. I have always loved children's fiction. In fact, I would say some of the best books I have ever read are children's fiction. Elisabeth Enright, Ralph Moody, L.M. Montgomery. I just look at my book shelves, and I see Laura Ingalls Wilder and Meindert DeJong. I could go on and on, but reading children's fiction is like climbing up on my favorite tree, and sitting high up in its branches and looking down from my perch while deeply living in another world, with the sound of the wind in the leaves and having that vacation to another place, with friends who shaped my life.


 

 I have been making my way though Rosamund Pilcher books this summer. I am reading some of her short stories that originally were published in Good Housekeeping. Very nice, simple stories about nice people. 

The other night I decided to do a google search on my grandparents. Its amazing the things that are on the web now. I found this picture last night.


 

This is my grandparents. I never in my whole life have seen this picture. It was uploaded by someone who I did not know, nor have I ever heard of. That is my grandfather, he is holding my uncle and my grandmother is holding my Mom. That house I believe is my great, great grandparents. I still think my grand father is one of the nicest looking man I ever saw. 

I think this is the house in that picture. My grandmother wouldn't have been born yet and my great, great grandpa is still alive in the picture. On July 14, 1919 he was trying to get the hay in before a thunderstorm hit. As he was going through a fence, lighting struck and traveled down the fence and hit him as he touched the wire. He was killed and when I would visit my great grandmother as a kid, on her dressing table was the change that had been in his pocket with his glasses all welded together. I would pick them up and look at them every time I visited. She lived next door to my grandmother who lived next to us, so I was always in and out of their houses. Which now with my grand children living in different states, I really see how wonderful it was to have my grandparents and great grandparents in my life. 

Lighting like that. Here in California, we never experience weather like they do in the rest of the country. So hopefully when I get to Tucson, it will be monsoon time and I might get to see a little weather. 

I hope as I look around google I will be able to find some more pictures, I have found the graves so now if I went on a search I would know where people are buried. I would like to go visit some of the graves of my greats. 

I hope that this is a great week for you. I hope to get some hooking done this week. I wish you all the best. 

~Kim~


 “The crickets felt it was their duty to warn everybody that summertime cannot last for ever. Even on the most beautiful days in the whole year - the days when summer is changing into autumn - the crickets spread the rumor of sadness and change.” "Charlotte's Web, E.B. White"

(Every night now, we sit outside to hear the crickets song, before we go to bed, to be reminded of the beauty of a summer night in June.) K.


10 comments:

Saundra said...

Be careful what you wish for with rain, wind and lightening. Wow, the welding together of the coins would have put the fear in me. Matter of fact I remember as a kid my father would have us sit in the middle of the living room on pillows with the windows closed ~ remember no A/C back then. That is because he recalled lightening striking a barn and burning it down.

Oh yes, the sounds of crickets is soothing to the ear UH, as long as they ar outside and not a sneaky illusive interloper inside.

Hmmm, maybe I'll google some family names and see what I come up with.

Julia said...

How cool to have found pictures of your grandparents online. It reminds me of photos from my childhood, the old cars, men wearing hats, and families posing in front of their prized possessions. How time has changed.

So sad when you think about it, your grandfather being killed by lightning and the melted metal left in his pockets. It must have been so hard for your grandmother.

I remember reading Lucy Montgomery to my daughter who was stubborn and did not want to read those books until I read a passage about Anne putting horse liniment in a cake recipe by accident. Well, that got her interested and she got interested real fast.

It's raining here again since Saturday and could do with a bit of sunshine so I can continue weeding. At this pace, I'll never get ahead.

Hugs, Julia

Rugs and Pugs said...

That is just so cool you were able to find that picture! I would never even think to look.
So bizarre about your GG grandpa. How cool would that be to still have those glasses and coins welded together? Sadly I am sure they were just tossed away at some point.
Safe travels and enjoy your family.
xoxo

TheCrankyCrow said...

Your posts are always so packed full of things that spark my memory or something I realize we share in common, or other things that I want to respond to that I feel like I could post a comment longer than your original post...and then I usually forget half by the time I hit "publish" LOL. So I will just go with the things on the top of my head.... First, your grandparents' photo. That is just serendipitous to have found that. I had someone here helping me one day and she was in the basement and suddenly came flying up the stairs and could hardly talk. She said she saw a woman down there and she just "disappeared." She described the woman in amazing detail and to me she was describing my great paternal grandmother (who was the only grandparent on my father's side of the family I ever had). I have searched and searched since that day for a photo of her and can find nothing. Not even an obituary. I suppose since that family was so small there is probably no one out there to post photos. 😢 I am so glad you found it....and yes, your grandfather was very handsome! I think it was so cool when families lived close to each other. We lived on my mom's family farm and so had no "neighbors" close by but the closest were one of my mother's brothers and one of my mother's sisters....oh, and her mother lived with us. Sadly, those days are disappearing. And I, too, LOVE children's literature. I took several courses as an undergrad and, for a while, toyed with the idea of that as one of my majors. I also collected children's books for a long while....I had a trunk full of them, but they "disappeared" when my brother moved his family back in to my mom's. Anyways....I've prattled on long enough...glad you're having wonderful weather. Mother Nature is in the height of one of her upswings here....we are already at 95º...and that's the real temp. With the humidity, it's 101. 😳 ~Robin~

Debbie said...

hi kim, i always enjoy reading your posts! they do not have to be "earth shattering" mine never are. you have a fun and beautiful life, your stories are enchanting!!

it's good you read, my memory does not allow me to remember what i have read!!

we have lightning like that here in new jersey, but i have never gotten a good picture!!

kcmrugs@gmail.com said...

My husband and I read aloud to each other. He read a couple of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s short stories. Then it was my turn, my pick: it was Wind in the Willows by Kenneth Graham. We are half way through and look forward to the evenings to read! Neither of us had read it as children though we were avid readers .

Kessie said...

That is so weird that you found that picture! It's also so weird that my kids look like those kids, and we're ... what, four or five generations down the line, now? Gosh.

acorn hollow said...

This is such a lovely post. I love that you are quoting and reading children's literature. Anne of Green Gables is mine and my daughter's all-time favorite.
How wonderful you will be talking books with your grand. I agree a library is a magical place and when I go with my grand it is so special.
I am now going to google my family what a wonderful surprise that must of been. How sad she kept the change in his pocket that melted together. I guess as a reminder of how powerful mother earth can be.
have a wonderful time with your family
cathy

Pom Pom said...

I do love the cricket quote from Charlotte's Web. I love that book so much and YES I love children's lit as well. I read so much of it when our kids were babies because it felt like such a treat (I read them to myself!) Wow! I'm so glad you found those photos! xo

Alica said...

I haven't been in blog land for so long, and I feel like I've been missing old friends!
What a treasure to find that picture online!
That's a really interesting story, about the lightning, and the melted together things that were in his pocket! It reminds me of when my parents were visiting family in Kansas, and lightning struck a tree by my aunt and uncles house. My mom found her toothbrush melted in her suitcase!
I hope you guys are doing well!!