Putting it in perspective...

2011-08-08T16:10:30Z

My sister and I were talking last weekend about when we wanted to get together.

We each had a few chores to get done before we could kick back, and one we had in common was the laundry. She mentioned she liked to get hers done early in the summer, so the clothes dryer didn't heat up the house.

I mused about that as I started my own laundry.

About a time when doing the laundry was truly a chore.

All photos below from the Library of Congress.

Happy Laundry Girls, 1891

1900, location unknown

1918-1920

New Orleans courtyard, 1920-26

61st Street, NYC, summer of 1938

laundry room of a model home in Greendale, WI, March 1937

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Random musings...

2011-07-10T16:13:16Z

I got a contact about my post on the very old Freeman place from a descendant of William Aflred Freeman.

She was excited to see the photos, which I invited her to copy for her own use. And she also gave me some more information about Freeman descendants.

Which I have dutifully researched and added to my GEDCOM.

We aren't cousins, but I keep up with the ones who married into my family anyway.

Because you just never can tell when someone might need some information.

I've spent some time this morning working on another family tree I manage for a dear friend.

Right now, I'm messing with Joseph Wesley Roach, born 16 Dec 1884 in Missouri and died 4 Jan 1978 in Randolph Co., AR.

My friend's mother is a Randolph County Roach. I know Joseph Wesley figures into her line of Roaches somehow - there were quite a few who stopped off in Missouri on their way south from Illinois to Randolph County. He named his sons some of the favored male Roach names - Jesse, James, Arthur.

I just can't find his parents.

Yet.

I'd love to be graving.

But it is just too fricking hot.

Every day, I get my Weather Channel text advising of dangerous heat indices. Not that I need the official notice.

We have reached that time in Arkansas summer where you can step outside your front door and feel that the air has mass from the combination of temperature and humidity. The cottage has not received any measurable rainfall since June 28.

I've been looking back at the family photos I have of ancestral homeplaces. Thinking about how it was that they tried to beat the heat of Arkansas summers before the days of air conditioning.

Like the Williams' home in Russellville.

Or the Herrington homeplace in Clark County.

In the two photos above, you can see 1) the shed behind the house, and 2) part of the covered front porch of the house.

The Williams home also had covered porches.

Did they sleep on them in the summertime?

More things that make me say, hmmmm...

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Shakin' the Family Tree

Putting it in perspective...

Random musings...