by Sharon Hall | Mar 14, 2015 | Surname Saturday
The Whale surname was derived from a nickname for (no surprise) a person of large girth who “rolled” as they walked, according to the Internet Surname Database. Charles Bardsley, author of A Dictionary of English and Welsh Surnames, wrote a bit more poetically: ...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 13, 2015 | Far-Out Friday
Do you suffer from friggatriskaidekaphobia (and you say, I don’t even know how to pronounce it, so how could I be afflicted with it!?!). Maybe not, but it may affect between seventeen and twenty million Americans. According to the Mayo Clinic, in clinical terms a...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 11, 2015 | Ghost Town Wednesday
Lewis Hawkins Davis left Indiana in 1851 and joined a wagon train in Independence, Missouri, heading west to Oregon Territory’s Willamette Valley. Two years after arriving he headed north to Saunders Bottom in Lewis County, Washington where he built a double log...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 10, 2015 | Tombstone Tuesday
Ambrose Hill and Callie Donia Fickling Bradshaw were married on March 6, 1918. For both it was a second marriage – Ambrose was a widower and Callie Donia divorced with five children. A few things intrigued me about this couple: their names, their large blended...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 7, 2015 | Surname Saturday
This unusual name is among the oldest known surnames, possibly of Norse-Viking and Olde English pre-ninth century origins, according to The Internet Surname Database. The name may have been derived from a combination of a Norse word, “kaka” (meaning cake) and the...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 4, 2015 | Ghost Town Wednesday
This “ghost town” in East Texas is known as the Burning Bush Colony. It was an “intentional community” founded as an offshoot of the Methodist Church. Headquartered in Waukesha, Wisconsin, this splinter group of “Free Methodists” called themselves the “Society of...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 3, 2015 | Tombstone Tuesday
Euphronius Daniel “Frone” George was born in April of 1840 in Lunenburg County, Virginia to parents James and Ermine (or Armine) George. Frone was their second son and the 1850 census enumerated six children for James and Ermine, ranging in age from ten to one. In...
by Sharon Hall | Mar 2, 2015 | Mothers of Invention
Melitta Bentz Melitta – does that name sound familiar? Today its namesake’s invention is a coffee machine necessity. If you enjoyed a steaming cup of home-brewed coffee this morning, sans coffee grounds, you have a woman to thank for that. Amalie Auguste...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 27, 2015 | Feisty Females
Today’s article closes out the month of February, also known as Black History Month, with a story about an anti-lynching activist Southern white woman, Jessie Daniel Ames. She was also the founder of the Texas League of Women Voters in 1919 and served as its first...
by Sharon Hall | Feb 25, 2015 | Ghost Town Wednesday
In 1879 silver was discovered in the eastern Empire Mountains of Arizona and the claims were held by John T. Dillon. According to Ed Vail, author of The Story of a Mine, one of the mines and the little town that sprung up nearby got their name from remarks made by...
