The Dearest People in the World

 

Today is October 15, 2025, a Wednesday.

A while ago, I was standing at the kitchen sink washing dishes.  I have the window open because the temperature outside is about 80 degrees.  Out the window, halfway down the yard, is a well pulley on one of those yard hooks for plants or birdhouses, or whatever needs to be outdoors.  I chose to hang the pulley.  

It is an Oklahoma pulley, I am sure.  It came to my husband and I from Chickasha, where his aunt and uncle lived.  They were country people - farmers both on a large scale and then on a smaller scale but growing, then putting up, their own food for as long as they were able.  

Uncle Lafe died in 1975.  That was a long time ago but I still miss him.  Auntie lived quite a bit longer in their home, but eventually had a stroke and had to come to the city.  Her household belongings - most of them, that is - were moved up here, too.  But there were things that were left behind.  Some of those are what were most valuable - think memories - to Steve and I.  

Auntie and Uncle Lafe had a plot in Chickasha, very near the College.  Lafe built their house with a livable basement and single story but with full attic, on the east lot.  Here he planted pecan trees; lots of them.  Across the road (which was a city street, not a country road) he had an acre or two for: raising rabbits for his family-famous rabbit sausage; a fish tank on the lot; and the rest of the ground, as far as I know, was for just food of all kinds - and plenty of it.

We brought home an old cast iron stove - the parlor kind, but not at all fancy, just wonderfully strong.  It was under the house and we crawled under there to get to it.  We brought plenty of other things, too.  Things that we had no practical use for, but just because they belonged to Auntie and Uncle Lafe.  

I have several of Auntie's notebooks and here are some of her notations:  

Record of Odds and Ends as thot of From Time to Time.  VE

1940: canned 18 qts beef . . . 9 qts green beans . . . 5 qts beets . . . 8 qs corn . . . 4 qts cow peas. . . bought 2 bushels peaches . . . bought bushel grapes, put 7 1/2 qts marmalade, 9 qts grape juice & 5 qts just grapes . . . 

From those pecan trees Uncle Lafe planted, we had a tree ourselves, planted in the city when Steve was a kid, at the house where he grew up.  We ended up living in that same house for 25 years and our pecan tree was a wonderful treat.  One year I had a full bushel basket and another 3/4 bushel to crack.  And crack them I did, savoring the pecans, the work, and the joy of the memories.

There are more mentions of Lafe Eggleston and Veda Berry Eggleston in these dated articles:   2018:  April 25 and 26    2019:  September 14 and 15  

After Auntie had a stroke and moved to the city, she stayed with her sister (my mother-in-law) for quite a while.  But she worsened and was moved to a nursing home.  I put together a photo album for her.  This is what it looked like.

And this is the inside front cover.

Each of us who were her family had a page to add a photograph of themselves and a note to Auntie.  It worked out wonderfully well.  She kept it with her in the nursing home and after her death my mother-in-law - her sister - asked if she could keep it for a while.  That was fine with me.  We had all put our hearts into the album.

In 2019 I added the photos in the front and made a pocket in the back cover and added several more photos.  It was finished.  It is one of the treasures in my Treasure Chest.

A New Plan

I have been thinking a lot about my family history collection - photos, documents, on-line postings.  

My computer crashed weeks ago and after my Tech Wizard (Grandson) replaced the hard drive he was able to return almost everything to its original order.  I lost some important things and some that were kept just because there was a place to dump them.  

What I don't have back is my Legacy genealogy software.  It has been a wonderful software to use, but the company was sold in recent years and the website has changed a lot.  My wizard is coming this week to put that back together.  In the meantime, my thinking is about using alternative ways to make useful these collected records. 

Computer crashes:  I have been queried about why I don't store everything in the Clowd.  Do you know what a cloud is?  It is an unsubstantial collection of molecules that eventually change and disappear.  I don't trust the Clowd any further than I can throw it.  

My new plan is this:

Backup Number One:  not-digital resources

 

    I have two thick binders of printed, individual, direct-ancestor records.  Long - long - ago, that was one of the things I did to make sure that if the digital failed, I wouldn't have lost everything.  Besides, I like to sit and turn the pages and read about each person.  

        

    After the initial printing, I updated the books as I accumulated more information.  The last complete printing was 2016 and, while looking through the books recently, I find that there has been very little to add to the texts that would change the overall thoroughness of my research.  I am letting those stand as they now are.  

    I also have the show-files I have created for my families, as a group.  (Also photos are elsewhere in the blog.)  I started out with binders and plastic sleeves.  But I wasn't happy with them.  At an office supply I found what I call show-files, which have fixed pages.  These contain all the photos I have of each family and any records of great importance.  As you can see, plastic is not an ideal substance.

    So, I have three-dimensional resources for my family history.  I have been able, through correspondence - the written-on-paper kind - to share information with anyone who is interested in my records.  It is still my favorite way to disperse information that is of interest to both of us.

In the meantime, people who are interested, but not active historians, don't care to have a bunch of papers to shuffle through.  That's where the digital version of everything comes in.  

                                     Backup Number Two:   digital resources

Ancestry.com

My niece asked for everything to be on Ancestry, has loaned me her account, and "everything I know" will be hers one of these days.  That also provides access to anyone else who might be interested in a particular family line.  

Ancestry charges for access to that information unless your are able to use their library edition at a local library.  I never have figured out if the library edition offers a more limited range of records, or if not, why the labeling.  Many years ago, I subscribed to Ancestry, but never put my family online - just used the resources.  It was a matter of being able to work at home rather than in a library or research center.

I did put my whole family tree on-line elsewhere though.  RootsWeb was a wonderful FREE exchange of information, forums, postings, groups of information that were of special interest, and the best of all - WorldConnect.  I mention it often in my earlier postings.  Unfortunately, it did not survive a takeover by Ancestry.  

Find a Grave

When I began working with FindaGrave, it was not owned by Ancestry (!).  The information they preferred was just about death and burial and photos of person and grave.  That was fine.  I added many family members who were not already listed.  

As the years passed and it was taken over by you-know-who, the ability to add more, in photos and in records, changed.  That was fine with me.  I like the database very much, especially that it so visually links families on a single page (provided that the poster of a memorial has linked them).  Often, I am able to "submit edits" to link family members that are posted alone and add or correct information.  I like that contributions are wanted and appreciated.  I think it's a better source for putting families together.  

BetweenTheWindows.blogspot.com

I began this blog in 2010.  I needed to write and this was a good place to post what I wanted to say.  Sometimes I wanted to tell about my travels - almost always to look for ancestors - but, too, just holidays.  Sometimes it's about everyday life - reminders to me, now, of what joys I found.  I also wanted a place to post photographs and records and personal comments about them.  

(That's another thing about FaG that I like; I can post personal notes and comments that apply to a record or person and have that available for any researcher.)  

This blog is my favorite place to post and I have had some exceedingly interesting correspondence with others who have read something here.  It's a source of personal contact that makes this digital-age more acceptable.  

Now, I am working on synchronizing all three on-line resources.  Hopefully I will be adding much to this blog as I work on making all three sources filled with information.  

I am finding already, though, that I can put more here, visibly, than on either Ancestry or FindaGrave.  Still, they are where researchers will look first.  

I am adding a notation to my typed text of records, on either of those two, that says, according to whichever place I am posting, a note like this:

OTHER:

---see Ancestry family tree "Innumerable Caravan"

[or]

---see Find a Grave memorial _____________

[or] 

---see BetweenTheWindows.blogspot.com  Article dated _________

That's all for now.