Sunday, December 19, 2010

December 19, 2010

As I reflect on my life now I wonder how life was for Pamelia when she was just starting her married life with Thomas.  I have all the wonderful electronics available to me today so I can just type away on my computer.  She was lucky to have light to write a letter to her family.  How strange it would be not to speak to my family daily or see them as often as I want.  She traveled across the United States ending up in NY and then NJ.  Her first child was born when she was 20 and her last when she was 40.  I can't imagine having children for a 20 year period.  No wonder she looked so tired in her pictures.

Sunday, December 5, 2010

Pamelia's story starts now

Pamelia is my great grand mother on my mother's side of the family.  Pamelia was born June 17, 1829 in Johnstown Ohio. Her father was John and her mother was Clarinda.  Pam had 2 brothers -Harry and Lloyd.  Clarinda died when Pam was about 16 years of age-1845.  We believe that Pam didn't like her step mother-Hannah Clayton-so she moved out of her father's home and went to live with one of the brothers. The next information we have is that she was in Janesville Wisconsin.
My mother was born in 1908 way before modern medicine was discovered.  I say this because she had a bone disease called Osteomyelitis.   This is an acute/chronic infection that could have used that wonder drug penicillin.  Instead she had to have surgery on her leg-on the kitchen table. They had to scrape the bad bone out and hope the new bone would grow-it took 5 years.  The reason I put this in is that Pamelia would sit with my mother and gently rub her leg, telling her everything was going to be alright.  My mother said she was the sweetest person she ever knew, soft spoken and so mild in temperment.  I can tell you that my mother didn't inherit that from her. The interesting thing is that my mother's mother died in 1918 when my mother was about 10 and she too hated her step mother.  Funny how life repeats itself.