And it is nice again today. I am typing this outside at the picnic table, listening to birds, the breeze, and Misha giving me a lengthy oratory about how the tadpoles in the bowl next to me are fairing. We actually rescued the little guys without even trying, as the little pool of water we got them from was filled in with soil several weeks ago. So out of the thousands of tadpoles that were in there, only ten of them are alive today. I think they are happy; they look happy to me, anyway.
Last week, my Papa T asked me if I would type up a history about our family that he has written. I was like "sure sure" only because I knew I'd be getting paid. But as I've typed it out, I've become very interested in the whole thing. Mostly because, if you think about it, if it weren't for my ancestors making those decisions I wouldn't be here today.
One story that he told in it really had me enthralled, and laughing too. The star of the story is my great-great-grandma, Amanda who was about 11 years old during the civil war. (What's really creepy is that her actual homestead was only 3/4 of a mile up the road from my house, and my Mom and Dad just happened to build their house here). So anyway, the rebel soldiers had just invaded York, PA and were ransacking the villages around there. They were only several days travel from this part of PA, so the word got out about it, and everyone around here was excited and obviously nervous about a possible invasion. When Amanda's two older brothers heard about it, they secretly made plans to leave the next morning before dawn and enlist in the Union army. Well, they thought it was secret. Amanda hear their plans and it made her very worried. She didn't tell anyone though, she just made plans of her own. When everyone was asleep, she slipped into her brothers' room, took all of their clothing from them, and then hid it in the spring house.
She didn't sleep a wink that night, so early in the morning she heard her brothers' muffled cries of puzzlement at having no clothes, and then their resignation to the fact that they simply wouldn't be able to leave without their parents knowing it. So they waited until their Dad awoke to get everyone up for chores so they could get some clothes from him. Their Dad gave them some, and it wasn't until they took milk down to the spring house that they found their clothes.
Although Amanda never confessed to having done it, and her brothers never openly confronted her about it, she said that occasionally they would give her looks that would bore holes right through her.
And that is the story of how my great-great-grandma stopped two men from enlisting in the Union army.
3 comments:
Hannah:
I got your email, and yes, I received the pics. Thanks so much! Everyone loved looking at them!!
Our email has been down for about a week, as to the reason I am typing this here on blogger. We can receive emails, but we can't send them. Its driving us pretty much nuts....:p But Dad is trying to get it figured out.....
that stinks. I hope it gets fixed soon.
That's a really neat story! I wish we had some like that. I hope my grandma is putting something interesting into her journals, but I rather doubt it. She's more the write-down-what-my-agenda-was-today type...I went outside, dug in the garden, decided the begonia should move. I'd really like to read something along the lines of my dad getting in trouble or something. : )
have fun in the hammock!
~Han
Well, who knows; maybe she does have some sort of interesting story like that. I would never have known about it unless I read the paper he wrote about it. Guess he never thought to just come out and tell us :).
Post a Comment