Sunday, January 16, 2011

Time Away for Flipside


Oh where, oh where, has my Flipside gone....
Oh where, o where can it be.....

My son's illness has taken me away from blogging again. This time, yours truly, has been traveling to and from Chicago...now going on 5 weeks. The first two were by car, week three was by plane and last week on the Capital Limited.

This week I'm back on the train. And this week, I'm giving the lower coach seats a try. Dragging my stuff up the VERY tight set of steps to the second floor of the coach was a bit of a stretch....lol

The down side of all this is that the train leaves Cleveland at an Un-Godly hour....3:00 a.m. and frankly, arrives at almost equally an Un-Godly hour....2:00 a.m., if it is on time.

The genealogy aspect of all this is that Flipside back on the rails

My maternal great grandfather, Alfred Frederick, with whom I also share a birthday....May 1....was a railroad man. In fact, he and his sons all were railroad men. Recently I found out that he died in a town north of Chicago, in Highland Park, at The Railroad Men's Home. My great grandfather probably road these same rails back in the mid to late 1800's and into the early 1900's. He was based out of Columbiana County, Ohio until 1898 and then Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania until he went into the Railroad Men's Home about 1920.


I had been looking for his place of death for over a decade and one evening, not too long ago, found it listed out on Family Search. Now, just so you think I am not doing anything genealogy during this hiatus....I am indexing for Family Search....something I can do while sitting in a hospital room at Loyola Medical Hospital or in the train.

Lemons to lemonade

© 2011, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

8 comments:

  1. Thinking of you at this difficult time!

    ReplyDelete
  2. Sometimes a switch in the genie chores is a good thing, but still productive. Been there, done that.

    Prayers, fairy dust and good wishes coming your way.

    ReplyDelete
  3. My thoughts and prayers are with you and your family. (My family and I took one "overnight" trip to Chicago a couple of years ago - we really enjoyed it.)

    ReplyDelete
  4. Wishing you happy rails and your son better health. God bless you both.

    ReplyDelete
  5. I tried to leave a note yesterday, guess it is floating around in the cloud. I have done what you are doing, working on something like indexing when I could just not wrap my brain around research or my data base. I think it is a great way to continue feeling like you are still dabling in our beloved sport! LOL

    Still praying and sending forth truck loads of fairy dust.

    ReplyDelete
  6. A perfect way to pass time that needs to pass. Safe travels - skirting the Great Lakes in winter is not ideal, but needs must. You're both in my prayers.

    ReplyDelete
  7. Of course, I'm worried about your son's health, but I'm also hoping you are safe on the train in the middle of the night. I hope everything turns out well for everybody. My best to you and your son.

    ReplyDelete