Greater Identification

One of the reasons I enjoy genealogy so much is because of the joys shared with family in the process, and it's almost always an adventure! Even though the internet and resources like Ancestry.com can make research a little easier, they're no substitute for visiting places and people.

While spending time with Varnell and his wife Eileen, I not only had a meaningful visit but learned a lot as well. He, too, has been compiling family information, and there among his photos was one similar to another one of folks I've been trying to identify!

Although my version has more individuals in it, all of the ones in Varnell's have names. The two photos were obviously made on the same day in the same location, and they all evidently have connections to the Rucker family. Here is what I learned: (standing, left to right) young boy, Vada, man, Rosa, Landon, woman, man, Mossie, Barton, woman, Leonard, and Simeon; (seated, left to right) woman, little girl, older gentleman, little girl, Ada, Emeline Nicely, Aaron DeWitt Rucker, and Mary Jane Acuff Rucker. DeWitt and Mary are the parents of all the individuals with names listed here, except for Emeline Nicely, who is Mary's mother. Aaron DeWitt Rucker, was my great granmother Mary Isabell Rucker Hopson's brother.

As I've mentioned before, I enjoy the details of such photos. Click on the picture, zoom in, and see all the things hanging on the porch wall!

Windows on the Past

Unbelievable!

As a result of recently reconnecting with my mother's first cousin Varnell, we traveled back into the country today. Way back. In fact, before lunch, we'd stepped back a couple hundred years into a house built in 1812.

Just driving toward Luttrell made me cry, because I was flooded with the emotion of missing my mother and grandmother. Stopping at the cemetery where I'd taken my grandmother many years before to visit the unmarked graves of her little baby boys made me sob. However, seeing Varnell and Eileen's old log cabin retreat brought smiles, and exchanging photos and family history information was a joy.

The greatest treat, though, began with showing them the photo (circa 1917) of my grandparents (George and Margaret Hopson Kitts), his mother (Eliza Hopson Wolfenbarger), and the sisters' parents (William and Mary Rucker Hopson) at Charlie Fraley's home where they once lived and ran a dairy farm (See "A Place to Live") and telling him that my grandmother had pointed the house out to me just down the road decades ago. Varnell then told me it was still standing, and before the morning was over, I knocked on a stranger's door and we were getting zenia seeds from the present resident! The homeowner was as thrilled to get the old photo of her house (I had an extra copy) as we were to tour her home! Oh, to put my hand on the same stair railing where my grandparents and great grandparents had touched it on a daily basis!! What a blessing!!