52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks

            For those of you who know me, you know how much I love visiting cemeteries. This feeling has grown over the years as I delve deeper and deeper into family history. Cemeteries   certainly evoke powerful emotions when you visit the places where your loved ones are interred. However, to us family history historians they also can provide valuable information about your loved ones that you might not have had before, and even answer some unresolved questions. But what happens if you can’t find where one of your ancestors is buried in a cemetery. Or what if you know where they were buried, but the cemetery has been declared defunct and your ancestor’s remains have been moved to a new cemetery? It is like they have disappeared. These circumstances occur more than you might think and both situations have happened to my loved ones. On my dad’s side of the family , my second great-grandparents are buried in the Hinch Cemetery in Cumberland Co...

         I remember so fondly the pets we had in our home when we were growing up. Pets provide such comfort, entertainment and love to families. Here are three of the ones from my childhood whose memories I particularly cherish. Freckles, our beagle. We named him Freckles because he had freckles on his tummy. What a great dog he was so, friendly to everyone. I don’t know exactly when we got him, but from this photo below, it must have been before 1960. I remember he was kind of a fussy eater. We would try all sorts of different dog foods, and even if he liked it, he wouldn’t like it for long. I know our dad really loved that dog.   Freckles and Bob in our yard in Brookside around 1960 Freckles loved kids, and he loved to play outside with us. Even though he was a beagle,   which are famous for howling and   baying, I don’t remember him ever doing that. I don’t know if we got him as a puppy or not, although I suspect not. Seems like all ...

          I am not writing about my dad’s oldest sibling Roy because he did something particularly newsworthy, but because I learned so much about his impressive life as a teacher through newspaper articles I have found. Every article adds up to a life well-lived, impacting so many young people and friends alike. It stuns and saddens me that I only knew and appreciated a very small part of his talents and accomplishments before he passed away in 1993 at age 88. Roy Hinch in 1927 at Maryville College in TN While in school in Tennessee he made many friends who were Spanish, and even brought a spanish friend home over the holidays in 1922. Roy would have been 18 at the time. The local newspaper said “Roy Hinch is coming home for the holidays. He will be accompanied by his Cuban friend Iswaldo Devalle.”I just love this. Roy was such a sociable and friendly person!   Crossville TN paper Dec. 13, 1922      Let me tell you, he was one smart...

         Our mom worked as a school secretary in Mendham Twp Elementary school (K-8th),   where we kids went to school too. It was a great job for her. She really enjoyed it and it allowed her to get to know lots of children and their families in the community of Brookside.   Then, in the Fall of 1972   the community opened a Middle School (6 - 8th grades) and she started working there, and left what then became the elementary school   (K - 5th).   A photo of our mom (Mrs. Hinch) when she worked at the schools My parents, Dot and Roscoe, moved to Mendham Township with my brothers Jim and Bob (Roger came along a little later) on July 3, 1957, per my brother Jim. I would have been 11 at the time. So all the years we were in school there, she was there too. That definitely had its good and bad points. You sure didn’t want to get into trouble and have to go to the principal’s office, that’s for sure.   Our mom had a career as a...