Treasure Chest Thursday--Hughes Durgin Park Bean Pot

The Durgin Park Bean Pot was a prized possession of my mother, Martha Jean Stark Hughes. I think it was purchased when my husband and I lived in the Boston, Massachusetts area during the early 1970's.

She spied it while we were having the traditional slab of roast beef lunch at Durgin Park and it became her souvenir of that particular trip from Pittsburgh to Boston. The story goes that she carried it in her lap on a plane from Logan to Pittsburgh International Airport and it was displayed with great pride in our family home on Bramble Lane. She did use it to bake beans in and I borrowed it once for a special picnic outing.

Following my parents divorce, it was moved, by car, to Lakewood, Ohio where it resided until my mother's death in 1999.

Today is has a place of honor in my home. I will admit that I did drop the lid and broke it. Fortunately it super glued together beautifully and no lightning blots from above struck me ;-)

Give Life

This week my oldest son received the call that there was a liver for him. He was moved up to the top of the national transplant list this summer and this was the first time for him to actually have a chance to receive a working liver. We were so thrilled with the prospect that he had been granted this opportunity.

I don't know if there are any folks out there that follow Flipside that have family or friends who are on an organ donation list. We were aware that it often takes several trips to the hospital before the actual transplant takes place. Sometimes the organ is defective or the patient is not in the best of health to receive a transplant.

For my son, the organ was defective and our disappointment was great. However, this was only the first time....I know that there will be other opportunities....and someday he will have a "new" functioning liver.

THANK YOU to all followers of my facebook, who sent such heartfelt wishes of support and love both during the hours when our hopes were high and afterwards when we were in despair. Hope springs eternal and we are looking forward to the next call and opportunity.

From a mother who prays daily for a healthy organ for her son, please consider organ donation....it does save lives.

Wordless Wednesday--BIG Kitty!

Tombstone Tuesday--Headings Family of Bellevue, Ohio

The Headings Family cemetery plot is located in the Bellevue Cemetery, Huron County, Bellevue, Ohio. Family members missing from the plot, or buried in another section of the cemetery are: William W. Headings, Ellen Bernice Headings Clements, Florence E. Headings and Martha M. Headings.

I am not related to this family, but would like to network with anyone who is.

Carnival of Genealogy, 79th Edition--"Family Reunions"

The topic for the next edition of the Carnival of Genealogy is: Family Reunions! Have you been to a family reunion recently? What do you know about past family reunions? If your family doesn't have reunions, why do you think that is - family skeletons or feuds, perhaps, or just geography? Or, has there been an important or intriguing family or other reunion in your community that you can tell us about? This edition will be hosted by M. Diane Rogers at CanadaGenealogy, or, 'Jane's Your Aunt'.

     Over the years my own family has taken advantage of many events….weddings, holidays, graduations, funerals….to have a reunion. We try to get together annually with a gazillion photos snapped. The reunion I am featuring in this blog is the annual Pool or Poole Reunion that was held in Morgantown, West Virginia.

     The Pool’s are on my father’s side of the family tree. My paternal Great Grandmother VanGilder was a Pool….Jessie Pool….someone who I have spent countless hours researching, tracing and writing about. She is my entry going backwards into this rather sizeable family.

     A fellow Pool/Poole researcher, Robert Poole Wilkins, sent me the Pool Family Reunion photo displayed on the blog. The original photograph is somewhat long, so I decided to divide it into three sections. I am ballparking it to be about 1923 using the size and age of the children I know who are pictured.

     Both spellings of the surname are used. It was Pool until about 1900 and even after that date, the “old timers” continued to write their name as Pool. The “younger” generation decided to add the final “e”.
     I was able to locate two newspaper articles, in the Charleroi Mail, mentioning Jessie’s sister, Sarah Pool Pinyard as having been to Morgantown, West Virginia for the Pool Reunion.

My Direct Pool Line:

William Pool—my paternal GGGGG Grandfather
Rev. Asby Pool—my paternal GGGG Grandfather
Rev. William Lanham Pool—my paternal GGG Grandfather
Sampson Frum Pool—my paternal Great Great Grandfather
Jessica Pool VanGilder—my paternal Great Grandmother
Sarah VanGilder Hughes—my paternal Grandmother
George VanGilder Hughes—my Father

     I do have a partial listing of some of the folks in the photos. Surnames listed are: Bashaw, Dutton, Reeves, Totten, Pool and Poole, Price, Robison, McClure, DeLancey, Conley, Grubb and Kern. If you think you relate to this family, I'd love to hear from you.

     I just remembered this reunion story which was told to me by my Dad's Cousin Kae. There was family tale that at one of the Pool Reunions, my paternal great grand uncle, Philip Albert Poole, spiked the lemonade. I guess there is always someone that gives that trick a go. For the Poole's, it was Bert Poole.

Notes:

Pool Family Reunion photograph, courtesy of Dr. Robert Poole Wilkins

“The Charleroi Mail,” Charleroi” Pennsylvania, August 9, 1926, page 3.

“The Charleroi Mail,” Charleroi” Pennsylvania, August 27, 1928, page 4.

I WOULD LOVE TO HEAR FROM YOU. All comments are welcome; however, if they are inappropriate, they will not be published.    PLEASE post your e-mail in the comment section if you would like to network about a particular surname or topic. I will capture it for my use only and not include it when I publish your comment.

© 2009, copyright Linda Hughes Hiser

Treasure Chest Thursday--Rhine Cake Plate

In the early 1960's, when my paternal grandparents, George and Sarah VanGilder Hughes (aka Pop Pop and Grams), were retiring to St. Petersburg, Florida, trash barrels loaded with family memorabilia were lined up on the tree lawn outside 71 North Bryant Street in Bellevue, Pennsylvania.

My mother tells of various family members driving to Bellevue and digging through the trash, saving, what have now become, valuable pieces of the Hughes Family history. Grams wanted to make a fresh start in Florida and as the English say, she was going through the apartment with "a dose of salts" :-)

My Mom grabbed various old plates and brass candlesticks, which were proudly displayed in our new home on Bramble Lane. Those family treasures are now in my possession and have been slowly dispersed among my cousins as wedding gifts, keeping them in the Hughes Family.

The cake plate shown above is from the 1780-1800 period. I have no idea if it came from West Hartlepool, England with my great grandparents, John George and Elizabeth Olesen Hughes or if it was carried from Morgantown, West Virginia to the Pittsburgh area by my great grandmother, Jessie Pool VanGilder, and given to her daughter, my Grandmother Hughes. My educated guess is that it was in a trunk that crossed the "pond" from England.

Documentation on the plate has been taken from the Coysh and Henrywood book, The Dictionary of Blue and White Printed Pottery 1780-1800, Volume I. Rhine, a name given to romantic patterns used in Victorian times. They were usually printed in grey, but blue examples have been recorded by Thomas Fells & Company, J.T. Hudden, David Lockhard & Company and the Middlesbrough Pottery Company. The title is usually printed in a c-scroll cartouche. Middlesbrough designs are marked with a bridge.

Notes:

W. W. Coysh and R.K. Henrywood, The Dictionary of Blue and White Printed Pottery: 1780-1880, Volume I, Antique Collector's Club, 1982.

Wordless Wednesday--Lunar Eclipse

Umbra

February 20, 2008

10:47 p.m.

North Olmsted, Ohio