Oh, What A Week I've Had - and AotH Update!

Snoses

First it was the OcSNOWber storm.  Our power was cut off for four days.  I've decided that while I CAN survive, I am not a pioneer woman.  I like my electronics way too much.  I LOVE my power company for getting us back up and running ahead of schedule!  In these pictures you can see my Windy Ridge walnut tree in the snow and the following day you can see how the snow was hanging onto the ridges and fall was back.

That got us to Tuesday.  Fast forward to Thursday, my son had an accident with probably the best made mailbox this side of the moon and sheared off the passenger mirror and both door handles on my mini van.  You cannot open the doors (from the outside) on that side of the car.  In orbit around the moon was about where I was five seconds after seeing my car.  Nuf said.

Then there was Friday morning - about 7 AM when my husband called.  You know it's going to be bad when the first words out of their mouth are "I'm O.K."  But, the car was totaled.  His car this time, not mine.  But, he's O.K.  and I really am very grateful for that.  His chest is still really sore from where the airbag deployed into it, apparently trying to make it out the other side, but he'll be fine.  The car, not-so-much.  Fortunately, we've got good insurance and I'll pick up the rental car tomorrow. We will have to get him a new-to-him car and we were already talking about getting a new car for me.  We'll have to spend quite a bit of time sorting it all out.

But, this morning I put the tahdah on the November piece of Anniversaries of the Heart.; so not everything is coming up crappy.

This month's featured female ancestor is Barbara Grove.  She is one of my oldest American born female ancestors, being one of my 4th great grandmothers.  She was born November 1, 1743 in Montgomery County, Pennsylvania.  That's the Norristown/King of Prussia area.  Barbie's parents were Jacob Graf (alternatively spelled Groff) and Maria Ledrach Graf.  They were presumably from Germany, but I haven't worked those lines back far enough to know.  Barbara married Joseph Warner in the Old Goshenhoppen Church located in Upper Salford Township (Montgomery County) in 1774. I just love that name Goshenhoppen.  Joseph owned and operated a fulling mill in Cumru Township, Berks County, PA.  You can read about fulling mills and how they finished cloth here.  

If you read about the fulling process you'll read about TENTERING  and tenterhooks.  I think it's funny, being on tenterhooks was a phrase my mom used often.  I wonder if that phrase worked down through her family to her from Barbara's family.  I mean we use funny words that our parents used, right?  Joseph was from Chelsea which is a suburb of London, England.  Chelsea is on the shores of the Thames and if you look at old maps, you can see symbols that look like the Tentering Racks mentioned in the write up.  Joseph came to America in 1767/68 and learned the fulling process from his Graf/Grove in-laws.  Family tradition holds that Joseph produced linen cloth in his mill that was used to make uniforms for the Continental troops of George Washington.  One thing is for sure, if her husband operated a fulling mill, Barbara had access to cloth and was probably a heck of a seamstress and needleworker.  They had five children.  Barbara died in Adams County, Pennsylvania in 1831, probably living with one of her adult children.  But, she was buried with her husband in the Sinking Spring Cemetery near Mohnsville, PA

You'll also notice another line below Barbara's name - CPC 116th ILL. Vol. - represents Cornelius Piet Cothren, one of my great grandfather's.  "Corny" fought in the Civil War serving at Vicksburg, Chickamauga, Missionary Ridge, and Stone Mountain (among others) and finally Sherman's March to the Sea.  Only one third of his regiment survived to muster out in Washington on June 7, 1865 - 23 days after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.  As a man from Illinois I'm sure that was a very sad time for Corny.  His wounds and diseases (he was stricken with typhoid, chronic diarrhea, and piles; he lost the use of his left thumb due to an improperly tended fracture and had an unhealing wound on his foot that was two toes wide.  Poor Corny died on November 20, 1925 at Fort Leavenworth.  No, he wasn't there for punishment - he was at the VA Hospital.

With regard to the November block, I decided to omit the trees that went up the side of the house.  It started off that I didn't like the color and then I decided I wanted more "white space".  I substituted for all the Crescent Colors flosses.  On the house I used all the called for flosses and ended up not being able to see the window surrounds.  I was disappointed by that.  I ran a backstitch in the door color all around the window surrounds to make them stand out a bit more.  Doing it all over again, I would do the window surrounds in the door color.  However, I am very happy with the final results of my block.

Here you can see that November completes the first Anniversaries of the Heart panel.  December and the final Bonus Chart will complete panel two next month.  Then I'll have to work out the border in 2012. 

Now I'm moving on to Opus Magnusson, but I have been working on the Christmas Stocking for my daughter in law and hope to show you all the progress soon.  Hope you enjoyed!