Riverbend Journal

See my previous post for the backstory but while cleaning up a profile, I came across a death certificate issued for Charles Webster Baker, son of my 3rd great grandparents. I was expecting the normal heart disease or other similar disease but was taken about when the cause of death was listed as "Fractured skull" in big bold text. I knew there was a story there and down below, it indeed said he was killed when "hit by car". He had been 61 years old at his death and thus old enough that I never really went looking for his death but upon seeing the above, I changed my tune. Fifteen minutes later, I found the full newspaper writeup posted below. Pretty much it sounds like something I have done many times except this time Charles wasn't looking the right direction to see if traffic was coming and paid the ultimate price.  

   In support of International Women's Day earlier this month, I had posted my tribute of my 3rd great grandmother Frances. She was born in Wisconsin to English immigrant parents, her father died in the 1849 California Gold Rush and her mom took her and her two siblings back to England. Frances however, sailed back to the U.S. five years later at age 17 to marry my 3rd great grandfather, someone who she was most likely familiar with since he lived in the same town she was born in Wisconsin. The story of Frances celebrates independence and the American dream all in one microcosm of a family. The post drew a comment from someone interested to learn more and when I went to provide the link of her biography information on WikiTree, I realized I hadn't updated it. This led me to updating not only her profile but those of her kids which brings me a long way around to the gist of this post, her son Robert James Chicken. Robert James Chicken was actually born Robert James Baker due ...

After the success of obtaining the probate record of my 3rd great grandfather and the court case that decided his estate, I thought while I had a contact at the courthouse there, I would just go ahead and search for other probate files of ancestors who lived and died in that county. Of all of them, only one would have a file and as it turned out, it was even larger than my 3rd great grandfather's file, clocking in at a whopping 130 pages! Stephen Cogswell, above, is also a 3rd great grandfather whose family were long time citizens of the state of New York after immigrating here in the early 1600's. In fact, they actually were ship wrecked on the shores of Maine and only after walking days/weeks to the south were they able to find transportation to take back up to Maine, salvage what they could of their personal belongings, pick up the remainder of the family and make their way to New York. That is another story in itself.  I don't know the reasons Stephen' father Si...

One of the things I plan to do more of when visiting the Philippines this Christmas is to buy more. During my last visit, before my wife had ever been to the United States, she would often veto my desires to purchase a particular object saying that it was too expensive. By her standards, she was right but by my standards, it was dirt cheap. Now that she has seen what the price of some of her native things go for at Pier 1 Imports or like places, I think she will be siding with me more often on this trip. In America, most prices are non-negotiable. You either pay it or you walk away. There are a few exceptions to this rule but not many in low volume purchases. In the Philippines, everything is negotiable. When shopping outside of the regular tourist haunts, very few objects have prices and for a very good reason. This allows the seller to adjust prices according to their perceived notion of the wealth of the buyer. If my native Filipina mother-in-law were to walk into a store, she would...

Going grocery shopping in the Philippines is about as unique of an experience as you can get. Being a westerner, I am used to going into large box like grocery stores full of foods of all kinds stacked neatly on shelves and categorized into aisles. It is the definition of order, which starkly contrasts to the controlled chaos of the Filipino markets. The Filipino market in Baguio is more of a district or several block area in town. Sidewalks crammed filled with smiling natives standing among a sea of baskets and containers holding a wide array of fruits and vegetables. Some look vaguely familiar to ones that I buy in the United States but most look like they were grown out back behind the Chernobyl nuclear reactor. My wife, mother-in-law and her sister, would walk through the sea of produce with nostrils flaring smelling various fruits for ripeness and pinching various things for firmness. I for the most part tried to hang back and act like I was not with them because the venders alway...