Beginning March 2nd, 2020 the Mailing Lists functionality on RootsWeb will be discontinued. Users will no longer be able to send outgoing emails or accept incoming emails. Additionally, administration tools will no longer be available to list administrators and mailing lists will be put into an archival state.
Administrators may save the emails in their list prior to March 2nd. After that, mailing list archives will remain available and searchable on RootsWeb
Page 1
[Cleaver] "Sunday Afternoon Rocking"
by List user
From: Jan, unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
Telling the Tales (from the "Sunday Afternoon Rocking" series)
Once upon a time when I was a very young woman, I worked in a public
library. A large part of my duties consisted of entertaining and telling
tales to the youngsters who visited that entity that was so much a part of
a small town with little else for folks to do beyond the work that was
their subsistence. So it was to me that the elderly lady came. Her eyes
bright and eager in a lined leathery face, she told me she had "tales to
tell", stories her father and her grandfather and before them had told, and
there was none left to hear them. She asked if she might "borrow" the
children who visited our story hours for a bit in order that she might "get
them all told" again.
The day she sat to tell the tales to a group of equally eager children, I
did not recognize the tales. Later, and too late to preserve the woman's
stories, I learned something about those stories, and hearkened back in
memory to the elderly lady who once gave me and a group of children a gift
none of us may ever run across again. Many there are who know "Jack and
the Beanstalk", but few there are who know that Jack is actually the "hero"
of a series of ancient stories featuring villainous kings and worse
giants. Those stories, commonly known as the "Jack Tales" were brought to
this country by the early English, and generally nurtured and passed on
only in Appalachia. Some of the stories were gathered into a book early in
the 1900's and preserved by one Richard Chase. I realized much later this
woman had not mouthed the words of Richard Chase, nor shared only the
stories he preserved. She was telling the stories as she had heard them at
the knees of her ancestors, and as they had heard them before.
When I was a girl I knew all of the Mother Goose rhymes by heart, and had
heard those old childhood "standards" (at least in my world) of "The Three
Bears", "The Three Little Pigs", "Hansel and Gretel", "Cinderella", and
more. What I did not realize at the time was that all of the stories I
was told, beyond the regional folklore of the America of my pioneer
ancestors, were of British, French or German origin. It was much later
that I would receive the knowledge that would allow me to peg giants as
British, fairy godmothers as French, elves as German…and realize my
ancestry could be pegged as well through the knowledge of the stories
passed on through my family.
For over thirty years now I have worked closely with children and
literature. A sad thing I see happening. For all too many, there are no
stories to remember at all. Their experience with traditional literature
is limited to what they have seen in Disney remakes of the same, and they
have no concept what has been "added" by a movie maker and what is the
story as it was told by those who peopled their own past. They are hard
put, many of them, to tell you "who pulled a plum from a pie" or who it is
that "stole a pig". Having evening entertainment at the touch of a button,
families tend to no longer gather in front of a fireplace of an evening
with sewing or whittling in hand, entertaining little ones with the tales
that were always told in a family. And while it is of little importance in
the scheme of things whether Cinderella actually had mice to help her
prepare for a ball, and whether her name was Cinderella, Ashpet or
Ashenputtel, it seems to me we have forgotten a literary heritage that
points us to our past.
A good thing it is, for those families so inclined, that the children's
book market is now so large and varied. For children of those families who
value books, they can know now the folklore of any place on earth,
classics, and wonderous imaginative tales with equally imaginative
illustrations. But without the stories that were told in a family,
something still is missing. The "old timey" stories, told only by word of
mouth and unique to a family are those that can place a family in history,
in a part of the world. The "old timey" stories, told by grandparents and
grandparents before them, are those that can open the doors to history and
give clues to what happened to a family.
Had I not begged my grandmother for a story, and the ensuing one been a
ghost story, I might never have realized an ancestor worked an iron
furnace. Had I not begged a grandfather for a story, I might never have
realized that the farm we called "down home" was once a hunting ground for
Native Americans. Had I not begged an aunt for a story, I might never have
realized where it was in this country a family migrated. And had I not
thought back to the fairy tales I was also told, I might never have
realized that I could match the origins of those very stories to the lines
I have become acquainted with through genealogy.
Time it is, I think, to turn off the box that robs our children of a
literary heritage and tell the tales. Time it is, I think, to make a
pilgrimage to see what elders still live and put the children up to asking
"for a story". Before it is "too late" and "past time", perhaps it is time
to remember we have a literary heritage, as vital a part of our family
history as names, dates and facts.
Just a thought,
jan
Copyright ©2000JanPhilpot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
19 years
[Cleaver] Sunday Afternoon Rocking
by List user
From: Jan, unicorn(a)sun-spot.com
And To This Land They Came (from the Sunday Afternoon Rocking series)
For all of us whose lineage traces back long in this country, there are not
one, but many stories of the reasons for the coming of our ancestors.
Behind those stories are more than a few times pain, for pain it was that
drove our ancestors more often than not from the places that were all they
had known and all those who came before them had known. The stories are not
the same. For some it was religion, for others escape from a debtor's
prison, or a chance to have what a younger son could not have…for some it
was as simple as an empty stomach. But almost all the stories have two
common denominators: Pain brought them, and hope beckoned them. If there is
a synonym for America…let it be "hope". Here is the story I think might
have been told by one of those ancestors, if she could but speak…
******************************************************************************
***********************************
Yes, a stor, I will tell you the story of how it is your gram came to be in
this country, and why it is you call yourself an American…
Da swore it came from the very pits of hell, and perhaps he was right. In
wafts of sickening hellish odor it came, creeping its way in stealthy
strides from one field to the next, the black evil splotches claiming the
potatoes and turning them to a sickening gooey mush that turned our hearts
to stones in the pits of our stomach. The potatoes that were all that stood
between ourselves and the gnawing hunger. And without the potatoes, without
a livelihood, how then were we to pay the English lord for rent on the land
that ought by rights to have been our own? The hovels we called homes
turned to piles of straw and wood and stone before our eyes and naught for
it but the open road and no destination. The open road it was, or debtor's
prison, as we were driven away from all we had and cast upon a world that
opened not its arms, for none there were to open. Not in the world that was
ours.
Around us, the hunger made desperate people of our neighbors, until it made
them kinder or it made them strangers turning their backs upon those they
called neighbors and family and friends. For how can one offer what one
does not have to put in one's own belly? And to survive a heart must turn
to a stone, and a back must turn. Times it was I thought the blight had
claimed more than potatoes, and touched our hearts with its evil black
splotches as will. And in all cases it made us leaner…or left us in
unmarked graves beneath the sod., unmourned and no time for the things we
had always done to tell our own goodbye. For myself, the day I saw Gram
die, twas relief I felt, yes and when Da was gone as well. They had gone
where hunger was not.
And what was there to eat? The animals we had called pets? The seaweed? The
grass? When hunger gnawed bitter, times there were we boiled water to
pretend that it was soup. And the wind whistled a devilish tune promising
the leaness of these times nothing compared to the winter that would come.
And the times made gaunt skeletons of living people, and carved lines in
young men's faces. Dancing Irish eyes dulled and glazed some more until
they were little more than vacant windows in a condemned house. For there
was naught to see but worse to come wherever one looked. When there is
naught to find but a dark tunnel, no hope, no way around or out, a heart
turns to a cold stone that lies in the pit of an empty belly, a head goes
numb, there is not energy to summon a tear, nor to scream the cry that lies
hovering on a lip. So it was when one tiny glimmer of light flickered we
dared, in a secret place inside, to dream a tiny dream…
America…the dream on many a lip, but where the coins to pay the passage?
And yet if one could find a way…food there was, a way of growing one's own,
freedom from the lord that waited on blights and troubles to take what
little livelihood we had. America…. a light when the fire of the hearth had
been smothered. It was a hope…the only hope…and when we found a way, it
mattered not how long one must work on the other side to repay…
America…where hunger did not live.
And so it was I came. For for all the pain that still was before me on a
ship no better than the land I came from…for all the pain that awaited on
another side where my people numbered so thick I wondered were there any
left in Ireland, I am glad. Still twas a place to be carved in a city
filled with too many and all too often they not wanted, still were not
streets paved with gold. Still there was the wondering over those left
behind, and the pain of knowing one could only hope to bring loved ones
too, in time…and perhaps that would never be. We dare not let our hearts
thaw from stone to human ones just yet. Still there were battles to fight
and naught but those left with a spirit to do so would find the hope they
came sailing for. But hope there was, and I see my grandchildren not
knowing what it is to be hungry and more than a few with a spot to call
their own.
Yes, twas hope brought me here, and I am yet left with it. Who knows, in
this land that stretches so wide and so far, what may yet be?
There it is, a stor, do what you will with this story. But be glad it is I
came.
Just a thought,
jan
Copyright ©2000JanPhilpot
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
19 years, 1 month
[Cleaver] LOOK-UPS
by Gayle Campbell
From: "Gayle Campbell" <gaylelaree(a)iolaks.com>
To: <AGEE-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <ALDRICH-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <BACON-L(a)rootsweb.com>;
<BAGGETT-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <BALL-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <BLACK-L(a)rootsweb.com>;
<BOON-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <BOONE-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <BRADSHAW-L(a)rootsweb.com>;
<BRIGHT-L(a)rootsweb.com>; <BROOKS-L(a)rootseb.com>; "BEESON"
<BEESON-L(a)rootsweb.com>
Subject: LOOK-UPS
Date: Monday, January 15, 2001 11:46 PM
I have access to a couple of books for the next 4 days and will be happy to
do look-ups for anyone interested. The books are
Anderson County, Kansas Marriage Records
1856-1995 (indexed by groom's name only)
Bronson, Kansas Cemetery
Gayle
gaylelaree(a)iolaks.com
19 years, 1 month
[Cleaver] Descendants of Marian Cleaver
by List user
I am looking for additions and corrections....--Tim
Descendants of Marian Cleaver
Generation No. 1
1. MARIAN1 CLEAVER He married ALMA MITCHELL.
Child of MARIAN CLEAVER and ALMA MITCHELL is:
2. i. LILLIE ELLA2 CLEAVER, b. July 04, 1895; d. March 25, 1984,
Waynesville, Pulaski County, Missouri.
Generation No. 2
2. LILLIE ELLA2 CLEAVER (MARIAN1) was born July 04, 1895, and died March 25,
1984 in Waynesville, Pulaski County, Missouri. She married SAMUEL SMITH
STORIE May 14, 1911. He died in Waynesville, Pulaski County, Missouri.
Children of LILLIE CLEAVER and SAMUEL STORIE are:
i. ELLA MAE3 STORIE, b. October 06, 1912; m. EMMER DALE YORK, June 30,
1938; b. July 18, 1916, Pulaski County, Missouri; d. October 12, 1974,
Pulaski County, Missouri.
ii. MILFORD STORIE.
iii. MARSHALL THOMAS STORIE, b. December 28, 1916; d. October 03, 1986.
iv. JAMES E. STORIE, b. December 13, 1924; d. April 30, 1993.
v. LUCY STORIE.
vi. JUNE STORIE.
vii. JOANN STORIE.
19 years, 1 month
Page 1
Next Page