Never - no never to forget my ROOTS

Inspired and lovingly submitted on this last day of 2015-December 31st

Yes, I was (ALMOST) in the Cotton Fields of Oklahoma

A Bit of nostalgia.... many mixed emotions.   A smile of freedom....

Re-member, Re-juvenate, Re-live,

A Re-Visit to my childhood home of Frederick, OK (Tillman County, OK)

I Love a Good Research Adventure

This comes on the heels of a phone call 8-10 weeks ago from a Black Guy -- little younger than me.. and he said his DNA results matched him to my cousin in my Ancestry family tree.   Smith name.

Shall I believe .... I've been 'a-diggin!

In Frederick, OK: Why did they bully . . my brother?

It hurts... it saddens my heart... it turns over and over as a worry in my thoughts.

Bullying is the use of force, threat, or coercion to abuse, intimidate, or aggressively dominate another person.  Bullying is often repeated and habitual.

I sat at the dinner table with my oldest brother Howard Huggins.....Earlier this month I'd called him to ask where did he attend - 1st thru -12th  grades... So I could fill in my daddy's timeline of our family having lived in Frederick, OK, then Chickasha, OK and finally Oklahoma City, OK (he Pastored in these towns and in Geary, OK also.)  

He told me he spent one half/yr of his 7th grade in Frederick -- and the second half in Chickasha, OK.  I didn't think of the details of Why?

Howard Jr leaned back and talked in his usual slow-deliberate fashion.  He said that in the seventh grade.... the teacher showed great incompetence and was later removed from the school system in allowing student behavior to get out of control.... Another reason for the teacher's dismissal was that he used abusive/excessive force in discipline.  He used an airconditioner fan belt... I think Howard said.  He knew exactly what he was talking about.... and I still can't picture such a strap....???  

How are you? How am I?

I'm a little better than I was last year.

Yet doing my work from the chair.

Am I pleased?

Why I say I am.

The complaint keeps me in a jam.

Too, there's no need complaining,

keep saying with a grin.

I do my best, 

with the shape I'm in.

Telling Our Story

"You honor the life that has been given you by remembering and telling your stories."
from Robin Moore's "Awakening the Hidden Storyteller"

Mississipi Roots ~ Relative Discoveries!

Two of my brothers (James Travis and Wendell Ray) extended the June wedding of Valerie Huggins/Carter in St Louis MO..... over to Chicago IL in order to hook up with our first cousins!  We are Mama' Dooley's grandkids!


Ask.... and it shall be given..... oh me oh my!

Honorable in Life and Death

The newspaper obit and statement from Joe Biden on the passing of his 46 yr old son (today)....

"More than his professional accomplishments, Beau measured himself as a husband, father, son and brother. His absolute honor made him a role model for our family. Beau embodied my father's saying that a parent knows success when his child turns out better than he did.

Pretty Tremendous...

I was reading the Scripture of Luke 7:35 last evening which said. . . "BUt wisdom is proved right in all her children." NIV.

The New Living Bible Translation says   But wisdom is shown to be right by the lives of those who follow it."

Mistakes, my dear....

“Well, we all make mistakes, dear, so just put it behind you.

We should regret our mistakes and learn from them,

but never carry them forward into the future with us.” 

~ L.M. Montgomery, Anne of Avonlea

Cousinship

As we have aged.... we do indeed make a more deliberate choice (FAMILY LOVE) to be friends, to be kind and sharing.  This is Charlene and Bruce/wife

 in 2011 with my Brother Orville and his daughter!

Our mother's are sisters..... 

Helen Sipuel Huggins and Ada Lois Sipuel Fisher

 FIRST Cousins by blood, friends by choice!

 The Fisher Factory Family

A real cousin is someone who walks in when the rest of the world walk out.

Galvanized Tin as a Bathtub ~ Really?

Remembering 50 yrs ago

.... Come this June 25th - 2015..... twas the yr of 1965!  Gloriously.... I got a baby sister!

Sub-title.... ONCE UPON A TIME.... when we were girls!!!

People are indeed Dead..... but ALIVE!

Browsing the internet today..... It was said that "PEOPLE ARE DEAD MUCH LONGER THAN THEY ARE ALIVE !"    As I learn and seach for my ancesters.... it does indeed make sense!    

Hairdo's for Us Black Folk !

James Huggins ~ The Other Wes Moore

About The Book

Two kids with the same name, liv­ing in the same city. One grew up to be a Rhodes Scholar, dec­o­rated com­bat vet­eran, White House Fel­low, and busi­ness leader. The other is serv­ing a life sen­tence in prison for felony mur­der. Here is the story of two boys and the jour­ney of a generation.

In Decem­ber 2000, the Bal­ti­more Sun ran a small piece about Wes Moore, a local stu­dent who had just received a Rhodes Schol­ar­ship. The same paper also ran a series of arti­cles about four young men who had allegedly killed a police offi­cer in a spec­tac­u­larly botched armed rob­bery. The police were still hunt­ing for two of the sus­pects who had gone on the lam, a pair of broth­ers. One was named Wes Moore.

 

Wes just couldn’t shake off the unset­tling coin­ci­dence, or the inkling that the two shared much more than space in the same news­pa­per. After fol­low­ing the story of the rob­bery, the man­hunt, and the trial to its con­clu­sion, he wrote a let­ter to the other Wes, now a con­victed mur­derer serv­ing a life sen­tence with­out the pos­si­bil­ity of parole. His let­ter ten­ta­tively asked the ques­tions that had been haunt­ing him: Who are you? How did this happen?

That let­ter led to a cor­re­spon­dence and rela­tion­ship that has lasted for sev­eral years. Over dozens of let­ters and prison vis­its, Wes dis­cov­ered that the other Wes had a life not unlike his own: Both had grown up in sim­i­lar neigh­bor­hoods and had dif­fi­cult child­hoods, both were father­less; they’d hung out on sim­i­lar cor­ners with sim­i­lar crews, and both had run into trou­ble with the police. At each stage of their young lives they had come across sim­i­lar moments of deci­sion, yet their choices and the peo­ple in their lives would lead them to aston­ish­ingly dif­fer­ent destinies.

Told in alter­nat­ing dra­matic nar­ra­tives that take read­ers from heart-wrenching losses to moments of sur­pris­ing redemp­tion, The Other Wes Moore tells the story of a gen­er­a­tion of boys try­ing to find their way in a chal­leng­ing and at times, hos­tile world.

Who Are You.... to be anonymous?

You and I . . . .  

 our name should be spoken in reverent tones or in terrified whispers!  (Author Unknown)

TODAY,   I am paying tribute to ANN LOWE - who died at the age of 82 (1981).  She designed gowns for an exclusive group of clientele in America!

Ann Lowe was born in Grayton, Alabama...(Tim Phelps-published NY Times 3-1-1981)  the daughter and granddaughter of dressmakers.  She was educated in Montgomery Alabama at the S. T. Taylor Design School.  The married Lee Cohen... and two children named Authur Lee and Ruth Alexander were born.

In 1928, Ann was working in New York at various salons...as well as the Saks Fifth Ave department store.  She opened her own Madison Avenue shop... calling in rightly so ANN LOWE ORIGINALS in 1968 - here dresses were never mass-produced.  That's a span of 40 years....

Her partial obit reads "in addition to her daughter, Ruth Alexander, Mrs Lowe is survived by a granddaughter and two great grandchildren.  Her funeral will be Tuesday at St. Marks United Methodist Church, 138th Street and Edgecombe Ave.  Manhattan.

Wednesday's Word / Quote

Life is indeed funny!

Names, Names, Names ~ Three Scrabble Generations !

Hi There...  Fellow Bloggers....  This little idea appealed to me in one or two little junk-hunts I went on in 2014!

So I managed to buy TWO original boxed Scrabble games with plenty of letters to hurriedly.. last night... while watching TV... 

I jotted our family names -- From My Mom And Dad- six children.... and all of the grandchildren

SCRABBLE - in and of itself - is a word game in which two to four players score points by placing tiles -- each tile bears a single letter.   Place tiles onto a game-board which is divided into a 15 x 15 grid of squares.   Scrabble is a trademark of Hasbro, Inc (USA - 1999)  

I loved it.... I felt pretty competitive and smart.... (second to winning Monopoly) as a kid!

Prior to  1999- Scrabble was sold as a Milton Bradley Game... Click link for History of Scrabble..... I found out it became really popular in about abt 1986 --- along with Cabbage Patch Dolls

I think I mispelled Rahshaad.... and could not link my sister TANA.

A Family Jewel...

Hoping to be Recovered this year!

Lucinda Smith just may mover from Memphis Tennessee-- to OKC

 January 2015!