Once a week Annie would go to Lancaster.  Sometimes Howard would pick up Annie (or Nancy, if you prefer) and take her to Lancaster.  He’d drop her off and then go pick her up and take her home.  Sometimes she would ride the bus, catching it at Lemon place.  On occasion, she would take her grandson, Martin, with her.  Martin says they would go shopping and get a soda fountain drink.  One time, she took Martin to his first movie–Gone With the Wind.  They walked out of the movie when people in the movie started getting their legs cut off!

Martin, Annie’s grandson, and I in July 2015

That’s a good question!  Do you like your name?  Janet told us that Annie liked to be called Nancy.  Not sure why.  So I recently looked up information on nicknames, and I discovered that Nancy is a nickname for Ann.  But in the census records, she is always listed as Annie.  Seems a bit strange today for someone named Annie to be called Nancy, but it wasn’t so strange for Annie.

She had some very large old photos in frames.  One day she took the photos with her when she left the house, and, when she came home, she didn’t have the photos anymore. No one knows what happened to them, whether she gave them to someone or sold them at the antique shop.

I was really hoping to find a photo of Annie, but she didn’t like pictures.  She was very private.  If you asked her a question about her family or her life, she would wheel around and walk away.  Nevertheless, her family was important to her.  Her kids would come once a year for a little reunion.  And she and Mabel were close, visiting often with each other during the day.

Annie was about 95 years old when she died on May 1, 1972.  She was undoubtedly loved, appreciated, and missed.

Annie lived with her daughter, Mabel, in a little apartment at the back of Mabel’s house. So Annie’s grandson, Martin, got to know her very well.

She would tell Martin stories, like the story of the City Mouse and the Country Mouse.  Several versions of the story are online, one of which can be found at this link to the Library of Congress.

The house is still there!  Here’s a few picture, compliments of Ronald P. Scott.

This is a side view of the house, where you can see the back apartment.

Behind the house in the last picture is some of the farm land that Mabel’s husband, Martin, farmed.  When I was there, the field was all aglow.  It was on fire with fireflies!  I had never seen fireflies before, and they were truly magical. Ronald was amazed that I had never seen fireflies.  I tried to take a photo of them, but it didn’t turn out too well.  I could have watched them all night!

One of the greatest joys of family history is meeting and talking with newly found relatives.  When you’ve seen a name for years, and then you meet someone who knew that person, feelings and emotions previously unknown flood your entire being.  It’s hard to describe really.  Then you talk, and out comes the photo books, and it’s like you’ve know the family for years even though you are meeting them for the first time.  You might almost feel like you are sitting where they sat……

I was able to meet several of Annie’s descendants.  And it all started by looking in the phone book.  On my first adventure in July 2015, my newfound cousin, Ronald, called a number in the phone book, and we reached a cousin, James!  He was just a short distance away, so we went to visit him.  Then he sent us to another cousin, Janet, a short distance away.  Then she sent us to another cousin, Martin, a short distance away.  And by the end of the day, we had learned quite a bit about Annie.  What a joy it was to visit so many newfound cousins in one day!

As we sat and talked with Martin about Annie, he said, “Well, you are sitting in her chair.”  What?!  I was sitting where she sat!  That was euphoric.

Annie’s Chair

So what did we learn about Annie?  More to come this week….