She’s a very lovable and interesting woman, very full of life and in great health at just shy of 94. I wish we had more time to spend with her before she had to jet back across the country. But unfortunately for me, I have to share her and she has more family to meet. Grandpa is keeping her pretty busy. My mom keeps saying that he is going to wear her out, that she’s 93, but I dare say he’ll be the one worn out first!

So, great-great aunt means she is my great-grandfather’s sister. In case you didn’t know that!

The only other photos I have of her, until now, are ones a distant cousin sent. She’s the lady in the polka dot dress and my grandpa is the kid in front!

It’s too bad we won’t be able to get a photo like this while she’s here. This photo has, of course, my grandpa, his parents, his dad’s parents, his dad’s dad’s mom and his dad’s mom’s mom! So we have in this photo my grandpa, great-grandparents, great-great-grandparents, and two great-great-great-grandmothers. How awesome is that?

I just realized I’ve talked about this house before so rather than re-post all of the images, just check out the first I took of it and the most recent, 2005 and 2009.

These old houses take a lot of work to restore, if, for nothing else, because you can’t just do what you want, you have to make it what it would have been like when it was built. Hence: restore.

We have another house in town that I love to see that’s been rather recently restored. This one isn’t quite as old, built somewhere between 1820 and 1850 but it has a unique history: it was used as a medical dispensary for the Union army during the Civil War. I was lucky enough to be able to get a close look (though we didn’t get to go inside) and take photos there of the girls a few years ago, but it is now owned by someone else who has turned this little un-insulated cabin into something livable.

Here it was in 2007 while it was for sale:

And after it sold and was restored, inside and out, and being lived in, 2008:

However, imagine it without the bay windows. At the time I took the photo, the windows had just been put in but since then they’ve been removed. The historical society, or whoever it is in charge of these things, got after the guy and he had to get rid of it because it was out of period, or style, or something. Steve and I disagree, a bit, on this issue. We both feel like if it’s your property you can do what you want with it, but I think that with these historical homes, care should be taken and they should be restored as much as they can be, so I was pretty happy when the window was removed. I think that people know this before they buy these homes so if they don’t like the idea, they shouldn’t buy the house! I digress…

Pretty neat though.

The only other thing that I have to say is that in two days my great-great-aunt is coming in town! I’ve never met her before, she lives in California, so I’m really looking forward to this. She’s 93 and apparently still runs around like she were 45. :) Grandpa describes her as a pistol! He went out to visit her in July and arranged for her to come in and visit with all of us. I have lots of questions to ask her – she was about 10 years old when my great-great-great-grandfather died! I hope she’ll tell us lots of stories! I need to order a video camera, actually…

It doesn’t look like much has been done lately, but they made the most progress over the past summer, so hopefully that will happen again when it gets warm. You can’t do much in the ice! And speaking of, those last two photos were from just this evening.

Along these same lines, I am saddened about another building in our town. This one, serving as a Bed & Breakfast was built in the 1860′s and early Thursday morning, it caught on fire. The damage isn’t as bad as I feared when I first heard about it, but it is bad! But the outter brickwork is still standing and the owners hope to rebuild so I hope they do! It’s so sad when this happens.

If you get a chance, click through to that photo that’s closer on the window and check out the icicles hanging from that fire escape. From what I understand, it was harder to get the fire put out due to the ice and such. They said the fireman’s ladders were freezing and getting slippery and such. The fire, though, they believe was electrical and started in the sub-ceiling above the kitchen (though last I heard they were unsure if it started at the first or second floor of the three story building). They said there’d been issues in the last month and there had been checkups due to the “smell of electricity” and a few other things. I’m left wondering if a certain rat electrician here that my husband used to hate working for is going to get sued or what. But besides the historical significance of the place, I hope it can get running again for the owners’ sake. The man who owns it with his wife, I met him once, nice people and I hope they can quickly get this part of their livelihood (and our tourism) back!

So there’s Val’s history news for the week. Enjoy. :P

So that’s just an interesting tidbit for today, muahahaha.  Somewhat funny considering I spent most of the day with my mom working on a Christmas present for my grandpa. I’ve mentioned this before (because I’ve posted a clip) but years ago when my mom was really little, and my grandma was alive, they had a 8mm camera.  Many moons later, my uncle and aunt would have those old reels put to VHS tape.  And many moons after that, I would have the capabilities to digitally edit those VHS tapes.  Of course, they’re not the best quality, but what you going to do?  They’re not bad all things considering.

So my mom’s idea – that she just bounced of me this morning (we work fast) – is to take that video and consolidate it into the best clips that actually concern my grandpa and his kids and other close family.  It turned out that some of the video wasn’t of our family at all, but relatives of an in-law.  So we’re cutting that, anything that’s really bad quality, lengthy black spots or landscape or cars, and anything with my grandpa’s second wife in it (they’re divorced) or her son that my grandpa can’t stand.  We’re also not keeping the collection of still photographs from the original, so we’re down to about 53 minutes in length as opposed to two hours.  It’s been fun, though, except for the numerous times where I have to tell my mom that I do know what I’m doing and just tell me what she wants and I’ll do it.  ;-)  (Avid rules!)

But we’re changing the music, too, to stuff my grandpa likes and it’s really funny how some of it is falling together.  For instance, a line, “I’m gonna jump in the river,” plays right as you see my mom (or aunt) jumping in a lake to my great-aunt.  When Johnny Cash sings, “On a Tuesday, they locked me in jail,” my grandma and aunt are behind bars at some attraction in Branson.  And when Hank Williams Sr., says, “Heyyyyy, Good Lookin’” there’s a priceless shot of my mom at about age 5.  We were laughing so hard.

It will turn out great, I know Grandpa will love it.

Funny, though, the original VHS that these 8mm tapes were put to has a copyright notice on it and says that it cannot be copied without express permission of the company who copied the 8mm to VHS.  Sounds like hooey to me.  Mom laughed pretty hard anyway, “he can’t copyright my dad’s old 8mm films!”  I’ll bet the dude didn’t even have permission for the music he used… not that we do either, lol.

Look at those dates, they’re all within days of each other. January 10… 11… 13… 14… Look at the certificate numbers, they were four consecutive people to die in the county. And look at the names, all people by the last name of LaSater. Of course, that got my curiosity flowing and so I took a look at each of their causes of death, though I knew I already knew the answer. Every one of them said the same thing:

Yes, everyone of them died of influenza with pneumonia contributing. It took me all of five seconds to notice, too, that Grace, Lilian, and Violet were all daughters of John Mark. Grace was 12 years old, Violet 2 years, and Lilian 1 year old. John was 33 years old and married to a woman named Sylvia (Miller).

The person I’m looking for died that January 23rd, she would be my great-grandmother’s sister, and she also died from the flu. As of yet, though, I have not found her death certificate.

So, Sylvia, I took a look in the 1920 census for LaSater and found her remarried to a man named William Knight. I only found her because she still had children living with her with the last name of LaSater, four to be exact: three sons and a daughter, ages 15, 11, 10, and 7.

But wow – put yourself in her shoes. In less than a weeks’ time, you lose your three daughters and your husband to the flu. Sure, you’ve got four other kids, but you’ve lost four precious people in just that short of a time. I wonder if any of the others “just barely” made it or if they even got sick.

Now… Your day doesn’t look so bad anymore, does it?

Anyway, I was catching up on some email last weekend when I discovered something. He had mentioned a family name in an email and I asked him if a certain person with that last name sounded familiar. Yes, he says, she is the sister of his great-great-great-great grandfather. I have to laugh, because that sister is my great-great-great-great-great grandmother.

There you have it, folks, I now have a cousin (5th, twice removed) who is also related to my husband. Heh.

But don’t misunderstand, I’m not related to my husband! We just have ancestors who knew each other, probably very well. Everyone in this town and county knew and most still know each other very well. It’s funny, because when you look at some of the old records and see who was where, you know they had to know each other. Steve’s great-great grandfather (the same one that he shares with the cousin I was talking about) was in the MO 21st Inf, Co K in the Civil War. They were Union draftees. Also in that regiment is a third husband to one of Steve’s great-great-great grandmothers (now she’s a story all in herself), the husband she married after his ggg-grandfather died. These two men had to know each other, but I’ll bet they never dreamed they’d both be connected to the same person (people) down the line like that.

My mom keeps telling me I should write some historical fiction about all these people…