Gleaning Facebook: Clementine and John Discover Tallahassee

Exploring the hatchback of Sally’s 2019 Avalon...

The Matthews kids, Jimmy & Sheila Dona Ward Hey, Cuzins!

The Carlins

Renata Carlin
The "Other" Carlins!

Sally Maxwell Matthews -- our Sister-inLaw.

Sharon Maxwell-Ferguson

Very pretty!

Terrell

Sharon, Sally says "Thank you, Maggie."

Mary Ann Sketch Kelley

She hasn’t changed a bit!

We are in Tallahassee to visit family, but still we are reminded of Cave Spring and our talented friend Laurie Craw. We gave our sister-in-law this beautiful little ceramic basket many years ago.

• Laurie Craw

  So nice to see one of my "babies" and know someone is enjoying it.

  
  

  Nora Matthews

  mom uses this all the time

  
  

  

  C’n Sue and Clem! Susan Redmon is Sheila's first cousin and the baby of her generation of our Snell relatives. Every baby in the family -- shoot, every one in the family -- loves Suzie.
  

  

  The Matthews first cousins -- the complete set: Nora, Lillian, & Brannon

  Faye Layton

  Love the Shaw cousins'

  
  

  Nora Matthews

  Why do they look amazing & I on the other hand look like the odd cousin lol

  
  

  Terrell

  ALL three are ‘mazing!

  
  

  Nora 

  im such a goof ball

  
  

  Terrell

  But that's why you fit into our family so well! Your fellow goof balls love you.

  
  

  Nora

  lol I love you
  Dad in the background in the living room lol. i miss yall

  
  

  Dona Ward

  My cousins, too!
  

  
  

 

Gleaning Facebook: Second Cousins

 Second cousins Vada and Clemmie at Vada’s birthday party.

Gleaning Facebook: Clementine 's in Georgia, Moo Moo

Three pieces of my heart are airborne as I post this —- somewhere over Texas about now. We are on our way via GA 101 so Sheila and I and Lillian can meet them in just a few hours!

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I think she’s happy to be in Georgia.

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Clementine visits with her mirror twin...

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The trials of being born into a musical theater loving family...

Gleaning Facebook: A Light Curtain

 My (wonderful) crazy wife decided to hang a “light curtain” in the bay window behind the Christmas tree. I didn’t like the idea, but there it is and… I like it. No ornaments yet. We are gonna wait and decorate it with Brannon, Lillian, John, and Clementine.

Rita Lawler
The light curtain wonderful.

Deborah Lake Dawson

She is right on!

John Paul Schulz
when will you learn that she's the boss and you're not to question her?

Terrell Shaw
Oh, I learned that way back in the eighties when she asked my opinion of her new hairstyle and I, thinking our relationship was one of mutual trust and absolute honesty, told the truth. Uh-oh. 

Terrell Shaw
I also bought some different lights. After the holidays last year I found a bargain on LED icicle lights. We threw away most of the old incandescent mini-lights that we have used to decorate the porches and I was ready for the new energy efficient longer-lasting LEDs. Except now I see that their so-called "cool" white color is awful! I mean they'd be fine on a modern house, but the industrial blindingly white lights are just all wrong on our front porch. I have six 200 light long strands and several shorter 100 light strands. Going cheap. Make me an offer --- or tell me how to change the color to a "warmer" i.e. yellower white.

Tony Pope
Looks magical.

John Paul Schulz
they look good on a convenience store.

Nena Dake
Beautiful!

Jim Curry
It’s beautiful. Looks magical!

Anita Stewart
Sheila had a wonderful idea....bet it is just as beautiful from the street as indoors.

Debbie Carter Reed
Its beautiful!

Brenda Ron Carroll
It looks absolutely wonderful Terrell!!

Ralph Davis
That looks magical!

Michael Hendrix
Love it

Raymond Atkins
You should always listen to Sheila...

Ann Gore
Yes you should! It looks great!

Nancy Johal Singh
It looks great!!! I need to get a bright star for our tree.

Kathy Vogler Steinbruegge
Looks lovely!

Nelda Myers Hartline
REALLY PRETTY!

Gary Sarah Pace
Christmas card perfect.

Howard Smith
beautiful

Martha Jane Montgomery
Beautiful

George Barton
how about strobe lights?

Mark Eades
I think it's very attractive like it is!!!!

Lillian Shaw
Mom! GREAT idea - it looks awesome!

Juanita Mull
Great idea!

Susan Barnes Babb
Very pretty!

Lizabeth Jolly
That looks gorgeous!!!

Renata Carlin
I think it is beautiful.

Suzanne Wilson Gregory
I think it’s beautiful

Leatrice Michelle Carter
I love it!

Gleaning Facebook: Juglans Nigra

I was amazed when I found this black walnut in this condition in our back yard. I Took some pictures and decided to make a Facebook quiz out of it. I got lots of responses. There was a winner but she has yet to collect her generous prize.

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Facebook, November 26, 2018

Here’s a brain teaser: ponder what in the world happened to this black walnut from my back yard. There’s a prize if you figure it out before the deadline. I will treat the person who first correctly answers this to a cuppa joe on my back porch at no charge. The deadline is when I tire of waiting for answers.

GO!

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And here are the replies from contestants...

Ruth Demeter: Lawn mower? Grew into a branch? Very small storm trooper tried to turn it into a helmet? I think those guesses are worth at least a tea.

Ronald Niklasson: Chainsaw

Barron Brown: Saw mark

Frank Norris: Chisel

Jane Cox Slickman: Very determined woodpecker

Diane Warner: Grew on a small sharp object

Joyce Mink: Dressed up as spiderman for Halloween and lost his cape...

George Barton: squirrel

Brenda Norton Carroll: See drawing and the carving is to well defined to be an animal. Someone in past did this?

Quinn Scott Smith: Looks like it grew around/into a piece of chain link fence.

ML McCorkle: Hot sword?

Larry Bostick: It grew around a pop top

Carla Byram: Weed-eater... Remodeling neighbor

Sunny Shropshire Knauss: Stray Chainsaw swipe

Darlene Gray Buffington: Fell and hit something, hopefully not your head..haha

Bill Cox: I think it grew around another branch or wire running through the tree or close to it. Who knows if it was on the ground when you found it. Please do tell at some point the suspense will drive me nuts, and if you do not really know just make something up I would never tell.

Diane Warner: Bill Cox and Terrell That’s what I said....

Fred Gould: Appears slit may have been punched into walnut. Still pondering the what. 

Patricia Ford: Looks like someone put a band around it before it was through growing.

Daniel Eason: Lawnmower blade.

Sandra Pride: That was my guess,too.

Daniel Eason: Or an edger blade.

Fred Gould: Blue Donkey?... Lapel pin?...Campaign button/Pin?... Coffee?

Annie Shields: You hit it with a 5 iron. I like mine with Half & Half

Terrell Shaw: No one has gotten real close yet... here’s a hint: I have strong political opinions and am not shy about sharing them. Also I tend toward the sentimental and enjoy keepsakes of past endeavors.

Daniel Eason: Yard sign spike went through it.

Denise Desoye: What happened to the black walnut? It grew into a story!

Darlene Gray Buffington: It fell and hit your political sign..haha Go blue!

SCROLL DOWN FOR SOLUTION

Keep SCROLLING....

Keep SCROLLING....

Keep SCROLLING....

AND THE WINNER IS....

ding-ding-ding! (I’m glad it hit the “Save Rome’s Central Park” sign rather than my noggin!)

Delene Gray Buffington!!!   

Delene Gray Buffington: I will let you know when I can have a cuppa joe, looking forward to it...lol.. That has to be some kind of sign..hahaha
Terrell Shaw: The coffee pot is ready anytime we're in town, Delene!  Of course you'll have to sign a legal release in case you get assaulted by the walnut tree! 
Darlene: No problem, I have a hickory tree, I understand..haha
Terrell: Still, a bike helmet is recommended

Gleaning Facebook: Sam Craw Visits the Carlins

Sam Craw is visiting in California and stopped by to see Brannon and John and Clementine. I remember when Sam Craw was a baby, now he’s holding my grand baby.

 

Gleaning Facebook: Grice's Family

I found these Baird family pictures on Ancestry. I had never seen this picture of a young Uncle Grice. He reminds me a lot of his son, my cousin Wayne Baird. Wilson Grice Baird was the eldest child of Benjamin Wilson Baird and Ieula Ann Dick. My mother is the eleventh and youngest of their children. Who has the original? Who else is in this picture?

Bobby Baird’s wife Margaret as a youngster

R-L: ?, Billie Baird Boyd, Julia Combs Baird, Bobby Baird

I found these Baird family pictures on Ancestry. L-R - Bobby Baird, Grice Baird, ?, and Julia Combs Baird.

Wilson Grice Baird (detail of last picture)

I found these Baird family pictures on Ancestry.
L-R men: Bobby Baird, ?, Wayne Baird, Benny Baird, ?, ?,
L-R boys: Tim-Wanda Baird, James Baird

 

Gleaning Facebook: Mother's Advent Calendar

Four of Mother's children (plus two more by phone and #7 David got a report later) present her with her Advent calendar. Each day beginning today and going through Christmas Eve she will open a little compartment with a couplet written to indicate which “gift” to open from a descendant.

L-R: Deborah Ruth Shaw Lewis, Charles Terrell Shaw, Mary Carol Shaw Johnston,
Sarah Ruth Baird Shaw, Lillian Matthews Shaw, Lynda Joan Shaw Turrentine

 

Gleaning Facebook: Rich's Tree

 My grandmother (Lillian Ophelia Wilkerson Shaw but "Mama Shaw" to us) loved Christmas. She was an ornery sort-of-stoic woman who lost her mother to, was it tuberculosis? when she was only nine and her pretty mama was not yet thirty. Lillian (usually pronounced with only two syllables "Lil'yun") raised five sons and one grandson, ruled with an iron hand the house on Main Street in the little milltown of Milstead, Geoirgia, and likely the houses on Hill Street and Broad Street before that.

But come Christmas out came the ornamentation of the season, the gaudier the better. A three-foot tall plastic Holy Family lit internally by 15 watt bulbs sat on the porch with a similar plastic pair of carolers (which Sheila and I still put out each year) and some gigantic similarly lit plastic "candles." Garland and lights decorated the porch, windows, and the passageway between the dining room and living room. For at least one Christmas the tree was an aluminum one.

That little mill house was a child's wonderland for a few weeks.

From Senior Life In Georgia

The Annual Lighting of Rich's Great Tree used to be the official beginning of the Christmas Season in Atlanta and what an event it was! Back then, most stores waited until Thanksgiving was over to start advertising for Christmas. Over 100,000 people often gathered in the street below the 4 story glass bridge that separated Rich's Department Store's Store for Homes and Store for Fashion. The streets were closed off, the buses and trolley's rerouted, the lights were all turned out in and around the area (including street lights), and one level of the bridge would come to life at a time with wonderful choirs singing Christmas Carols. After all levels were lit, a powerful soloist would sing O Holy Night! and at the climax of the song the Great Tree on top of the building would spring to life in all of it's glory as huge Bells began to ring in the Christmas Season in Atlanta! Then, all those of us who watched this beautiful event, joined hands and sang Silent Night together! There was no time in Atlanta, before or since those years, when Christmas was more glorious for adults and children. I sure do miss that! What memories do you have of Rich's Great Tree and Thanksgiving night?

Late in her life I was there once or twice to help Uncle James get the boxes of paraphrenalia down from the rafters of the garage, and following meticulous instructions fro Mama Shaw, get it all up.

But her own bling was only part of it. Christmastime also meant a tour of the lights in Atlanta -- Grant Park, the homes of Druid Hills and surrounding areas, and always, always, the awe-inspiring Rich's Tree.

These carolers used to stand on the porch of Mama & Daddy Shaw's house on Main Street in the Callaway mill town, Milstead Georgia. Lillian Shaw LOVED Christmas and her house was, for her grandchildren, a wonderland of dime store Christmas decor. Yes, she did own an aluminum Christmas tree at one point.

You can see their faces a little better in this shot.

A wider shot of the carolers on my front porch

Gleaning Facebook: Family Joy and Pain Found Online

James Leon Baird’s death certificate. May 1, 1923. He had been born Oct 4, 1919. He died of measles and bronchial? pneumonia.

Little James Leon Baird is right there on the 1920 Census. In 1923 he and his newborn baby sister (my mother Ruth Baird Shaw) would both be struck with the measles. His would turn to pneumonia and take his young life but she would recover; five years short of a century later I am privileged to get to talk with that baby sister almost every day.

My grandmother in her kitchen at 45 Hazel street, Porterdale, GA.

My grandmother Ieula Ann Dick (Baird) with several of her grandchildren. Ruth Baird Shawdo we have this picture? I found it online today.
Ruth Baird Shaw
David Baird Shaw if the little boy and at the end of the sofa...with his arms folded and looking angry with someone. It may his little cousin sitting up under his Grandmama Baird's arm?

Diane Loyd Gage

I am the little girl in the red socks and my brother, Danny, is the little boy in blue, sitting on top of the sofa.

Terrell

Who is the luttle guy under Mama Baird’s arm? Could it be Andy McCullough?