Power outages stink but the things you find are great

Friday night we were hit by the same really strong thunderstorms that hit the Midwest Friday afternoon.  Personally my family was out of power for four days, there are still many without power.  So… how would you spend the weekend without electricity? (Luckily we had water, even if it meant cold showers) 

Optimistic that it would be a short outage we took the boys to see Brave with some friends on Saturday during the heat of the day and then headed back to their house.  They have a generator!  When we woke up on Sunday morning still without power my hubby and I took it as a sign to work.  Yes, in that heat we threw open all the windows and doors and began to clean out drawers, cabinets, and desks.  Then my hubby found a gem I didn’t know I had.

When my grandmother Combs died I got odds and ends from her.  She started passing items out months before she died from cancer.  I have a small box of papers and pictures, and occasionally I will find things of hers that I didn’t know I had in the weirdest places.  Sometimes it is almost like she is reaching out to me and guides me to something I need.  My husband was cleaning out a basket that had become a catchall for stuff.  It has been sitting on a stool in our kitchen nearing on six months.  It started out as a temporary storage for a few items that had to come out of our truck.  Then more and more things got piled into it.  At some point in time a small three inch spiral bound notebook was placed in there.

My hubby asks me what I want to do with these notes I have made on the family.  I looked at him perplexed and asked for the book.  It was not my handwriting, and it only took me a few seconds to realize that it was my grandmother’s.  Even better, they were notes from her genealogy research.  Maybe the only pages I will ever have after the landfill incident. 

The pages state:

John, son of John S.

b. 2-7-1761

in Warren Co. Va.

Rev Veteran-

                Pension papers

                #S35,85 / Virginia

Not in Archives

Enlisted Jan 1, 1777

                Frederick, Shenandoah Co. Va.

Served 2 yrs 4months

                12^th Va. Regiment

under Capt Jonathan Longdon and Benjamin Casey

Pension $96 per annum

John’s 2 wifes

1^st name unknown

m. Surry Co. N.C.

2^nd late 1790’s

Names Margaret

1^st W’s children

Jeremiah b 1782

Shadrack 1784

Born in Va.

Mason 1795

Kingsport Tenn.

Millie

2^nd Wife

Margaret

Sallie

Samuel

Harvey

Thomas

Both Margaret and Sallie m Combses

Now to figure out whom these people are….

photo credit: VinothChandar via photo pin cc