Wisteria

An old Christmas card found tucked in the photograph album of Ivy Watts Diuguid I write this in that in-between time, after Christmas and before New Years. If there are any ghosts of Christmas past, they will come to me, having been a family historian for thirty years. And they do seem to come, as I sit here in the gloom of winter, eating bean and ham soup. The meal in and of itself brings to mind a memory: I am all of 9 or 10, maybe. We had recently moved from Key West where my father was stationed while still in the Navy, up to where my maternal grandparents had chosen to retire in a small community called Talisman Estates outside of Dade City just north of Lacoochee. (Our mailing address was Dade City though it was some distance away; I settled in the third grade at Lacoochee Elementary.) For reasons unknown to me then or now, my older half-brother on my father's side came to live with us just after my parents had purchased a lot near my grandfather's and bought a lar

Ruby and Amy Hardy daughters of William L. and Alice S. (Lovelace) Hardy Elsewhere I have chronicled the story of how I started my lifelong journey into researching family history after the death of my grandmother Amy in 1989. At the funeral, I watched my great-aunt Ruby weep for her sister and realized that she and my grandmother were both once little girls. Ruby (born in 1898) and Amy (born in 1902) were daughters of William Lewis Hardy and his wife Alice Samantha Lovelace. Alice died in 1903 just before Amy's first birthday. I have written a little about this branch of the family (see this post here for further information about Amy) but realize I do not have much documented here on this blog. With some time on my hands during this holiday season, I write this post as an attempt to remedy that and help ensure that some of the visual memories I have of these ancestors are not lost. I love that this medium is a great vehicle for doing so. The above photograph of Ruby and Amy