The World of Grandpa Don  

Last Saturday I was totally immersed in ancestors. That of course meant I was tied to my computer. (I did force myself to get outside for a while in the morning and afternoon.) Marilyn Copeland had sent a flash drive full of files. She had begun her research in the days before computers and had information written on pieces of paper then transcribed them later to a word document for each family line. Marilyn said:

"The information I sent you was all obtained from people who wrote books, joining genealogical associations in different areas where are relatives came from and from letters and inquiries I made to different government agencies, and a few trips to cemeteries, etc. Later I did start to try to prove some of the information.

Because most of my research was done by books and mail before I had a computer, I have a whole folder of papers to go thru to see where I left off. I was always working on about 12 things at once, because it took so long to get replies to my letters. Sometimes, I would get a reply that there was nothing in the court records. I would wait for 4 to 6 months and try again and get the information I was looking for. Some of the employees did not want to be bothered searching for records. Sometimes it was frustrating, but I did feel like a detective."

 Now I have a copy of many of those files. I had asked about the Thayer family but when I got the files, for some reason I opened the Bingham file first. Alice Harriet Bingham was my great grandmother, married to James Harvey Copeland, the photographer. Click on the thumbnail at the right.  I had no information on her parents or other ancestors. Marilyn had it all, and then some and I got involved in adding every bit of information to my family tree file.  She went all the way back to:

THOMAS BINGHAM                                         m.             

b.                                                                                             b.   

m.                                                                                            d.   

d.    (estate probated) February 23, 1597 

Thomas lived in East Retford, Notts, England, north of Nottingham.  He later lived in Sheffield, England.  He is listed as Thomas Gingham “alias” Cooper or Cowper.  (“Alias” is used in Sheffield records to identify an apprentice.) 

After the first Binghams arrived in America in about 1640 they settled in Connecticut. Down the line we have this story:

GEDEON BINGHAM                    m.              MARY CAREY

b.    July 3, 1714                                       b.   

m.   June 13, 1734                                   d.    December 22, 1758

d.    1796

Gideon was born at Windham Connecticut; Mary was born in Plainfield, Connecticut.  They both died in Canterbury, Connecticut.

Gideon was known as a schemer and unfortunate speculator.  In 1754 he purchased 4,500,000 acres of land in Potter & McKean Counties of Pennsylvania from 16 Iroquois Chiefs and others. The following remarks are by his grandson, Joseph:

“My grandfather, Gideon Bingham, who patiently lived a life of poverty, deprived as he was by the British & Indians (& worse than that, the Tories) of his lawfully purchased land in Pennsylvania. Tradition says he carried his bed on horseback from Connecticut to Wyoming Valley.  He cleared his land & raised his corn.  The speckled trout & deer furnished him with meat & he contemplated moving his family into that vast wilderness. But Heaven designed it otherwise. On a morning in October, 178?, his cow came from the woods with her tongue cut out & bleeding – his horse was shot full of arrows & he knew there were troublous times at hand.

It was a long way to the fort & like a man of good sense, he slung a knapsack of hoecake & dried meat & his rifle on his shoulders & with a last lingering look upon his cribbed up corn & his poor beasts, laid his course for Manhattan, now New York.  He reached his family alive in Canterbury, Connecticut, who received him as one from the dead; as the account of the horrid massacre of Wyoming had already reached that place. He renounced all thought of taking his wife & family to Wyoming (PA). 

You can see why I can get so engrossed in this genealogy thing. My imagination, sparked by these stories, runs wild. If that acreage figure is anywhere near right I think there may have been a little skullduggery on both sides in that deal. The land must have gone very cheap. I am willing to bet that the Indians knew full well that Gideon could never really hold any of the land. (They were selling the proverbial "swamp land in Florida" before anyone was doing that.). At the time, in the 1780's, the Revolutionary war was being fought and the British government was paying the Indians to harass the colonists to keep them from settling west of the mountains. The Tories, colonists loyal to the crown, were also harassing the American rebels. Could there have been a little Mafioso blood in those Indians. They could have just killed Gideon but they mutilated his cow and wounded his horse, then sent them to him as a message, a message they wanted him to relay to other would be settlers in their territory. And, that he did. Mary Cary had died in 1758 after having 10 children with Gideon. In 1761 he married Abigail Baker who had 7 more children among whom was Joseph, our ancestor. Gideon was obviously more a lover than a fighter. I will definitely be adding more pages to my "Family" section of the web site. For a snapshot of the Bingham ancestry see the Ancestors of Harriet Bingham.  If you have trouble keeping all these family names straight the following may help:  Don Plefka "pedigree" chart.

 

Happiness is a by-product of helping others. ~ Denny Miller .

Karen sent some of Ana's Homecoming photos. I share a couple with you here. Oh, to be young again! But on second thought, ... no thanks ... been there, ... done that. But I have nice memories and Ana will also. Click on the thumbnails for a better view. Karen also corrected me. Kelsey is missing out on Cross Country this fall, not Track. Track is in the spring and she hopes to be in running shape by then. I am so fortunate to have people to correct me. I need all the help I can get. Kelsey's sports have nothing to do with bats or balls and so I get confused.

I have updated the Family Page of each of my children. I have added a "pedigree" chart for each of my children and also the ancestor charts for their spouses. I have been gathering the information from their families and now have that information 98% complete. I also sent a copy of the charts to each of them along with an Ancestry "book" which gives much more detail. Now they can review what I have and make additions and corrections if they have them. See Family and go to each of the kid's page for their charts. Mikey has a pedigree (someplace) but it is not on my web site. (Neither he nor his friends do internet.)

Sunday Anne Marie treated me to my traditional roast pork, bread dumplings and gravy with sauerkraut and of course, applesauce. Her men generally reject the sauerkraut but her son Dominick now likes it and Joe tried it an likes it. She had made an abundance of food contemplating the presence of Dominic and Sarah but they have had a very busy time of things and enjoyed a day by themselves. You need to do that occasionally. The bonus is that I brought home lots of leftovers. It is reported that Bella can definitely walk. She has taken as many as 8 steps but prefers to crawl as she travels faster that way and when she decides to move it is speed she craves. If you hold her hand, she will run.  (Watch her when she gets the car keys.) 

A help for those of us who wish to be participants in the Use the Internet Responsibly crusade is found in this taken from the "3 Minute Retreat" for last Sunday:

"In the same way the tongue is a small member and yet it has great pretensions. Consider how a small fire can set a huge forest ablaze."      ~ James 3:5

The phrase "harmless gossip" is an oxymoron. Words have power. I this passage from the Epistle of James, he warns of the destructive power of words. One title of Jesus is the Word of God. Our commitment to Christ commits us to truth in word and action. In order to live a moral life we are to refrain from gossip, slander, and detraction. Our tongues are committed to the truth, justice, and mercy of God, who gave them to us.

Of course in the days of St James the spoken word dominated communication but he certainly would, in modern times, include the written word as found in the internet and email or even texting on our cell phones. This applies to the originator as well as we who pass it on. Our keyboards "are committed to the truth, justice, and mercy of God, who gave them to us."  'Nuf said.

 

God dwells where we let Him in. ~ Menachem Men .

HAPPY ANNIVERSARY

Wishes for a happy anniversary and many more to come go to my brother-in-law and his wife, Harry & Carol Lawler. May they continue to thrive in Florida and may the sunshine flood their lives with goodness and joy.

Monday was the occasion of my regular appointment to the foot doctor to get my feet checked and pampered. He is always on time or better and it is a short visit ... the way all visits to the doctor should be ... in a perfect world. I have a problem with my sox, or some of them. I have found them to be all stretched out and they won't stay up. The problem really is that I was looking at it as a problem and didn't realize it was a good thing. My lower legs were retaining water, have been for years. All of a sudden, the water is gone. Must be either the meds are working, my diet has changed, or a combination of the two. I am loosing weight also. I guess I'll buy new sox.

I tried an experiment on Tuesday. I have been eating low carb serials for breakfast and still my after breakfast glucose readings have typically been the highest, often reaching 200 or more. I saw a news report that pointed out that breakfast cereals contain the worse kind of carbohydrates. We were warned that it is not just the amount, but the type of carbs that is to be considered. So, I popped a couple eggbeaters in a small dish into the microwave for two minutes along with three pre-cooked frozen sausage links. I spiced up the eggs with a bit of catsup and had a tasty breakfast. My pre-breakfast glucose was 134 and two hours after it was 130. Fantastic! Quick, easy, delicious and good for me. If you try the egg beaters in the microwave, be sure to spray the dish with Pam. I use the kind with olive oil in it.  (Grandpa Don giving cooking hints ? ... Amazing!)

The days are cooler and we have had a bit of rain, not like the torrents of water that our friends in the south have been experiencing. Last year they were in draught conditions and now it is floods. The weather, like life, seems to run in extremes with not a lot of it like the perfection we had here in the past weeks. As I was thinking the other day, when things are bad, we tend to either blame God, or ask why He didn't prevent it. (Somebody has to be blamed) We hear people say, Why go to church? What has God done for me? Or, Where was God when I needed Him? Well, I like to think that the first thing He did for me was give me life. I consider that a real big thing. The second thing is that with that life He gave me free will to live it. He also sent His own Son to establish a church to help us to know how to use that free will. God didn't create puppets which He would control. What merit would be in that for us? We are expected to do our part. Going to church is not an obligation to God, it is an obligation to ourselves so we can acknowledge His gifts to us and to learn how He recommends that we use those gifts. It is a place where we gain mutual support in our lives. The "mutual" part of that support is a very important aspect of the process. People say they "get" nothing from church. Of course not. One gets nothing unless they are willing to give something. and the giving comes first. I am not talking about money but of self. To sit there like a lump on a log expecting to be "moved" or somehow infused with God's grace seldom works. We need to pay attention to what is said and done. We need to participate, the more, the better. I know from experience since I was once one of those lumps ... for many years ... bored and distracted with the never ending formalities of liturgy. Since I discovered the meaning, decided to actually listen to the words being spoken, in both prayer and song, yes, there is meaning and message in the hymns, not just a device to fill time or entertain us, I have found the boredom gone and the meaning rich. This former lump now sings, not well, but loud. This lump now gives his "Amen" to the prayer of the presider, acknowledging it as mine as well as his. Now I get something from church, or maybe it draws it out of me   Oh sure, I still get distracted at times. I am, after all, still human. I don't always come away with some profound message from the homily but once in a while it hits my like a sledge hammer. And in retrospect, all those years as a "lump" were not wasted. I am sure that I absorbed something beneficial just being there. I like to think the God did give me some credit for trying and I know he was helping me even when I didn't know it. Oh yes, about that "obligation" to go to church ... the church made it an "obligation" because it knew it was good for us whether we knew it or not and it was easier to make it a "law" than to convince us to do it of our own free will, which, of course is the better reason to go. For those who would say the church has made mistakes and has problems I offer "How Could I Go Back".

 

When you say a situation or a person is hopeless, you are slamming the door in the face of God. ~ Charles L. Allen .

On Wednesday I completed the task of transferring my sister Marilyn's notes on the Thayer family line to my Family Tree database, adding the information to what I had found myself. Much of what I had was about the family as related to the Alden Family and recorded in the book I have on Mayflower families. However, there is no ancestral connections from our branch of the Thayer family line to the Mayflower. Marilyn's notes started at John Thayer who lived in Thornbury, England in the early 1500's. There were several generations before Thomas (1596-1665) who married .Margery Wheeler (1600-1672). Thomas and Margery lived first in Thornbury, England.  Their first 9 children were born there.  They came to America before February 24, 1639/40 and settled first in Braintree, Massachusetts. They later settled in Mount Wollaston, Massachusetts.  One of their sons was Fernando who was born in Thornbury, England.  He resided with his parents in Braintree, Massachusetts until the death of his father.  He then moved to Mendon (Nipmug), Massachusetts.  "He was a man of wealth and held many offices of honor". Many generations of Thayer children lived as farmers in various parts of New England until Lorenzo married  Marcia Baker in October of 1831 and settled in Somerset, New York where he farmed and served as Justice of the Peace. Their son, Oskar James (1840-1879) was a carpenter and joiner (Cabinet maker) in Somerset. He and his first wife Abigail Amelia Doolittle were the parents of  Jennie Marcia Thayer (1878-1900), who married  Harvey Louis Copeland. These were my grandparents. In merging my files with these new additions I have established the relationship of our Thayer line to Mary Copeland (1692-1773) and James Packard (1724-1824) They were both married to descendants of  Shadrach Thayer,  brother of  our Fernando and a son of Thomas & Margery. Now the trick will be to find how these are connected to our Copeland line and even more challenging to the Packard line on my mother's side. To get a simple outline of our Thayer ancestry you can view "Thayer Ancestors".

And speaking of baseball, ... don't we always ... how about the Thayer connection!  See "Casey at the Bat". written by our cousin Ernest Lawrence Thayer

Wednesday afternoon my house served as the "utility" house for the Albano family. Anthony and Joe were at a baseball practice on the north side. They had one car and it was parked at the RMU campus in Orland Park. Dom had a doctor's appointment in my area. They all met here. Joe showered and went to work at his job in OP. Anthony and his dad went home with a stop at Menards for some lumber needed for one of their projects. While they were here I put Anthony to work. Cold nights are predicted and so Biscus (say Hi Biscus) needed to move to the living room for the winter. While waiting for the boys, Dom and I had a chance to talk about health, windows, and sundry other things. It was a nice diversion for me.

  

A person without a sense of humor is like a wagon without springs, jolted by every pebble in the road. ~ Henry Ward Beecher .

HAPPY BIRTHDAY

Birthday wishes go to my sister-in-law, Peggy Cecora. My big brother's sister deserves the best of everything and may she have many more birthdays and a life full of happiness. She took a well deserved day off from work, ran a couple errands and enjoyed a sunny day in Cleveland.

I started the day, after my usual morning routine, at Bible Study. Sr Gael was absent due to the death of her father. She is from a farm community in western Illinois. Our prayers go to him and his family. Paul led the gathering at St Julie and the discussion was, as usual, deep and spirited. In discussing the readings for the coming weekend we get a jump on Sunday's service. At mass on Sunday we just listen to the readings but here we offer incites and opinions which can be varied and enlightening. This kind of thing is an opportunity to go beyond the Sunday "obligation" and delve deeper into our faith. Priceless!

When I came home I checked the files from Marilyn to see which branch of the family to consider next. I have all the lines which start from my parents, grandparents and great grandparents and now look to the wives of my 2nd great grandparents. The first on my list was the ancestors of Rachel Flemming, wife of Alden Parcus Copeland. But there was no such file. I know that there is an active web site for Flemming Ancestors on the internet and that some of our Copeland information came from there so I will skip it for now and continue with the files I do have from Marilyn. I was then attracted to the name Delight A Dean. What a delightful name! She was the wife of Chauncey Butler Doolittle, there's a movie plot name for you,  and they were my 2nd great grandparents. But there were 2 "Dean" files and I expected, as in the two Thayer files that one was an incomplete version of the other. Not so. They were completely different people. One started with the wife of Samuel Clapp, born in 1682 and went back from there so I'll leave that for later. The other starts with our delightful Delight Dean and only goes two back one generation to her parents with a notation that her paternal grandfather was from Scotland. But there was something strange in the name of one of her siblings, ... the name MUNSON DOOLITTLE! Delight married a Doolittle but had a brother with Doolittle as a second name. That peaked my curiosity and I went to the internet and found her maternal grandparents, Joseph Morgan and Eunice Doolittle! It seems these Doolittle's did a lot. This information came from One World Tree and though data from there is always suspect this particular seemed to be well organized and with few obvious errors. I continued my search from there. Going back up the line I discovered a common ancestor for both branches of Doolittle's. It was Abraham (1650-1732) and Nancy Holt (1640-1688) Their son John (16871-1746) had descendants which included Chauncey Butler Doolittle. Their son Abraham (1684-1770) gave rise to the branch with our Delight Dean, whose Grandmother was Eunice Doolittle. I have prepared an Ancestor Chart for my great grandmother Abigail Amelia Doolittle. It shows the parallel lines of Doolittle families with them begining in Abraham and Mercy (Holt) Doolittle.  Oh yes, the Jimmy Doolittle connection that I reported last week is made to our line yet another generation back at Abraham (1620-1690). After all this, I decided to look at Marilyn's files. She had two Doolittle files and a quick review showed they included all the information (and more) that I have just related. So, all this is no surprise to her. I had done my first research and then the Jimmy Doolittle research before getting her files so I had just skipped them without realizing she already had the Delight Dean connection recorded. Oh well, now the task is to compare her files with mine and get them to match. She has some interesting notes that I need to pick up such as the one about Doolittle twins, Samuel & Silas, born March 28, 1763. They both got married and both had mental problems. But more amazing, they are reported to have died at the same moment on Feb 5, 1805, one in Connecticut and one in Vermont. Now that is a story I would like to delve into.

 

Courage is a quietness, not martial music made.  Born of facing up to life, even when afraid. ~ Emily Sargent Councilman .

I woke up afraid Thursday night shortly after going to sleep. I was weak and sweating as well as somewhat confused. My first thought was to call 911 but how would the paramedics get in the locked house. I didn't feel as if I could get down the stairs. It was only 10:30. Should I call one of my kids? I wasn't in any pain. Nothing hurt. Then I realized that I was having a low sugar reaction. My insulin injection was taken as usual at 9:30 but I have never had this happen before. I did manage to go down stairs and checked my glucose. It was 50. Yes indeed ...hypoglycemia ... a new experience for me. There was some hard candy in the cabinet and I quickly consumed a couple of pieces, then waited a few minutes. The sweating had stopped and I tested again. It was now 70 and I was out of trouble. Anne had always had a glass of milk and a couple cookies before bed to avoid this problem. Cookies will be reinstated to my shopping list. Relieved in body and spirit, I was soon fast asleep for the rest of the night.

My morning glucose was at 171. I probably overdid the candy last light but ... I am learning. As I ate my breakfast there was a flurry of birds in the yard, garden and trees. There were doves. robins, ... and then I saw the cause of it all, at least three blue jays. All the birds were moving around so fast that it was impossible to count them. Soon, all but the jays were gone and having rid themselves of their competitors, they pecked around in the garden and even looked for food in the potted plants. They are beautiful, big, and very aggressive. They don't like to share. I was surprised to have three of them around at the same time but they must have been family. Kind of like the Doolittles, liking to stay close.

It has been a cooler, cloudy and damp week, one perfect for all the genealogical computer work (or play) that involved me a good part of the time. It has been a week of progress in those pursuits as well as in my health situation. It has been a good week ... but then I can't remember a bad one. It is a good thing that we only use 10% of our brains because there needs to be room for everything that is out there to be learned. I may be up to 11%.  But I have the feeling, based on the rate of increase in human knowledge in the past two or three generations, and the fact that human knowledge is accelerating at an enormous rate, that all that extra brain capacity will be needed by our descendants. I am probably influenced somewhat by my affinity to science fiction in my suspicion that the brain may be capable of more than just storing and processing information and control of our actions. I believe that we can learn to control our basic body functions including to some extent, our health, and certainly our mental health. Beyond that I suspect that our minds can communicate with others and this can be developed even more. And then ... there is mind over matter, long the purview of so called magicians but , well, who knows ... the mind is an awesome thing. 

Life amazes me in all its aspects. It is a gift to be cherished on the highest level. It is also to be enjoyed to its fullest and not just in frivolous pleasures but in love and the satisfaction of life well lived. That, I believe, gives the greatest satisfaction and in satisfaction there is joy and contentment. Nothing lifts the soul more that knowing one is right with God and his fellow man. And I know that ....

I Am blest I Am  anointed I Am overjoyed .