Gene Notes

Some random and some not-so-random thoughts on family history.

Monday, October 4, 2010

Fall Finally Hit Tennessee

I love autumn. I love the cooler days, and for a while it seemed those days would never get here. Those 90+ degree days we had through the spring and summer seem determined to linger into fall. At long last, however, we've had a bit of a cool-down and it is much appreciated. There is a ton of stuff to do around here, cut back the dead stuff, mulch the flower beds and figure out how many more bags of mulch we need out front. Nothing compared to the harvesting our farmer ancestors had to do.

Did you ever think what it was like for the women left behind during the Civil War, to have to continue to run the farms? They had to continue to try to grow crops just to be able to eat. My own great-great grandmother, Susan (Davidson) Percival ended up leaving Missouri and living in Kentucky after 1862. She had one small child at the beginning of the war and another one by the end of February 1862. I'm thinking she and husband John Stearns Percival had one heck of a farewell! Out of curiosity, I had my RootsMagic genealogy program show me all the people born in 1862. I quit looking in the "Bs" because there were way too many. I see a future project down the line to see if I can find civil war records for them.

While I contemplate my fall "projects" inside and out, I can't help feel grateful for the abundance I have been granted. While I am not harvesting crops, I certainly can appreciate what my ancestors worked and fought so hard for.

Copyright 2010, ACK for Gene Notes

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