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Sunday, November 21, 2010

Mysterious Monday (In a MAJOR way!)

Okay, genea-peeps, I really need your help!

Earlier today, I got a voicemail from a cousin of mine in Louisburg.  Actually, she is not a blood relative, but one of those cousin-cousins that we all have.  She was the "adopted" daughter of my real cousin, Geral Yarboro Sargeant, who passed away in 2006. 
Anyway, this cousin, whom I'll call "M", called to let me know that her son (who I didn't even know existed) would be contacting me soon because he'd come to town and gone through some of the pictures that belonged to my cousin Geral, and he'd scanned some of them.  M told me that her son is developing an interest in family history, and that she'd shared with him that this was my thing :), so she'd given him my number so that he could contact me and share the pictures he scanned.
Now, mind you, it had crossed my mind some time ago that my cousin Geral's home, which has been left untouched, probably holds some family history treasures for me.  After all, she was born in 1916.  Her mother was my grandfather's sister, and Geral also would have known my great-grandfather, Calvin (her grandfather) when she was a child.  I have made a yet-unanswered request to visit the property myself, but I'm still awaiting permission to do so.  But, none of that is neither here, nor there... tonight, I was given a gift, and I'm doing the almost happy dance!
Why the dance, and why the almost, you might be asking?  Well, just as M said he would, her son did call me tonight.  We had a good chat, during which he shared with me that he had, indeed, scanned the pages of my cousin Geral's photo albums, and that he would be sharing the photos with me!  I was (and am) so excited, I could hardly contain myself as I began question him about the pictures.  He told me that he didn't think any of the pictures were from slavery times, but he guessed that that oldest of them might've been from the early 1900's.  Immediately, I began to wonder there could be pictures of my great-grandparents, Calvin, Sr. and Pricilla, or of my grandparents, Calvin and Anna?  Pictures of any of my ancestral family members would be great, but if there were any of my direct grands - well I'd just be beside myself!
Before we hung up, I told my new-found cousin (who I'll call, "Cousin F") about my blog and my online trees.  He has already joined ancestry.com, so I gave him the usual warnings about not going too fast, and being careful to verify that he has the right folks before just adding them to his tree, etc., etc.  We also discussed the various spellings that he will run across for family names.  Before hanging up, I begged him to just send me at least one picture tonight, as I knew that I wouldn't get any sleep thinking about this.  And he did!
Cousin F sent me a scanned copy of a photo album page that had four (seemingly) unrelated photos on it.  (Cousin F had mentioned that he was told that these pictures were randomly placed into an album during the time that my Cousin Geral was ill.)  The top photo is the one that I'm most excited about, and which I am reaching out to the genea-community for help with. Here it is!


As I said, I can barely contain myself!  Sadly, none of the pictures that Cousin F found were labeled, and his mother was not able to identify the people in most of them.  But THIS fabulous photo, which I'm guessing is of four gentlemen who worked for the railroad, is one in with I think I might possibly be looking at my grandfather, and possibly some of his brothers!  The three tallest gentlemen all look like my father and brother in different ways, but the second one (without the band on his arm) looks almost exactly like both of them!  Even though I don't have any history of my grandfather working for the railroad, I'm not ruling it out.  Also, I guess I could be wrong about them being railroad men, but the "Southern" on their lapels seems a dead give-away.

There were three other pictures on the album page.  One was of a man standing alone, another was a large picture of a school of children, and the other was of a kitten.  I will feature these pictures at another time.  (Well, probably not the one of the kitten!)

Okay, genea-folks.  This is a Mysterious Monday that I'm sure some of you can help with.  I'm all ears (well, eyes)...lol.  What say you?

Renate

The photo in this post is the property of the owner.  Please obtain permission before copying or using for any purpose by contacting yarsan@aol.com.

Monday, November 8, 2010

Memory Monday

Today we said good-bye to my sister-in-law, Lizzie Ardena (Poole) Yarborough.  May she rest in peace.


Renate

Monday, November 1, 2010

Mysterious Monday

A while back, I started using this Monday theme on my blog, but I didn't keep up with it.  Anyway, I'm going to give it another try!  Mysterious Monday (for me) will involve posting pictures that I have questions about and/or writing posts about my "mystery" ancestors, whom I can't seem to find any (or enough) information about!

Today, I'm sharing two pictures.  The first is of my dad, Arthur P. Yarborough, Sr., with an athletic team at Nash County Training School, where he attended high school.  My dad had left Louisburg and moved to Nash county to live with his uncle, Dr. William Lawrence Green.  From what I can gather, young Arthur may have been starting to get a little too rambunctious for his widowed mother to handle alone, so she sent him off to live with her brother and his family, where he would be under the hand (probably literally) of a man. :)


I've grown up seeing this picture all my life, but never asked about it.  I've always assumed it to be a basketball team, but recently, upon inspecting the photo more carefully, I took note of the fact that all of the guys, except for my dad (#10), were wearing knee pads.  Also, there are only four on the team (if this is a complete picture),and the guys' shorts have belt-loops on them.  All of this has led me to wonder if perhaps this might've been another type of team, and not basketball, as I'd been thinking.  My guess is that it could have been a wrestling team.  I don't recall ever hearing my dad talk of wrestling, but then again, he never really talked about his high school years at all.  I do know that my second-oldest brother, Henry, wrestled in high school, and my dad was really "into" it, so....


The second picture is of my mom Maryanne, and two other women, apparently about to enjoy a holiday meal together. (My mom is on the right.) I don't know where this was taken, nor who the other women are, and when I asked my mother about it, she couldn't remember.  (This is the first time she has not been able to tell me about  a picture.)  My guess is that the picture was probably taken in either Germany (most likely) or Ohio, while my mom was a young Army wife.  I'm thinking that maybe these three women had prepared the meal together, since they were away from their families.  If the picture was taken in Germany, it would have been Bremerhaven, between 1957-1961.  If it's Ohio, it would have been Cleveland, between 1961-1963.  I do know that this is not our dining room furniture, so it is definitely at the home of one of the other women. Also, even though I'm calling it a "meal", I really only see finger-type foods that I can identify, so perhaps this could have even been for some kind of club meeting or something.  I just don't know...

If anyone has ideas about either of these pictures, feel free to comment.  I imagine the first one will be easier for me to find out about than the second, if I can ever get hold of a yearbook from my dad's alma mater.  Thanks for reading!

Renate