A day that will live in infamy--

A memory that is deeply etched in my mind is 7 December 1941.  It was a Sunday afternoon in Washington,D.C.  My brother and I had been at the next-door neighbor's 6th birthday party.  We came home about 4-5pm.  Our grandparents from Baltimore and their 18 year old son, Ashton, were visiting the family.  There was a lot of anxiety in their voices.  They were talking about the attack on Pearl Harbor by Japanese planes.  Having just turned 8 years old most of it went over my head and understanding.  I do remember the feeling in the room... and it frightened me.

The days and years that followed changed our lives, as well as every other family I knew.  We had just moved into the new house that my dad had built.  Not long after war was declared by Pres. Roosevelt there were many day-to-day routines that were changed for us.  During the war years (1941-1945) meat, sugar, gasoline,and  leather shoes were rationed.  We were issued coupon books to use when purchasing these items.  Another food item that changed for us was the use of margarine instead of butter.  My parents had been raised on farms in Virginia and always had access to fresh milk products.  Margarine was hard to swallow.

My dad was not drafted to the army because he had lost the sight of his left eye years before when it was struck by a piece of tile on a construction site.  My parents became air-raid wardens and Mom took a first aid course to help with any war injuries.  There were blackouts during air raid drills.  We had black-out shades on all the windows to be used during a night time drill.  Probably there may have been more emphasis on these potential bomb raids in Washington than in other places.  We listened to the news each evening on our radio, and they read The Evening Star daily to keep up on the progress of the war in Europe and in the Pacific areas.  I remember seeing many uniformed men in Washington during that time--Army, Navy and Marines.  There was plenty of work for my dad, a carpenter.

Fortunately, children are more occupied with childish things.  School and play were the most important things in our lives.  I do remember vividly the bombing of Hiroshima with the atom bomb.  By then I was 11 years old.  There was a lot of fear and talk about whether our world would be ended in an atomic blast.  Those were big issues for an eleven year old....

From Whence I Came

From Whence I Came--

I've been interested in my family history since I was a late teenager, when I asked my parents about their forbears.  My dad rattled off 4 and 5 generations back; my mom didn't have as many in her memory bank.  Dad's maternal great grandmother was named Mary Frances Ramey.  He didn't know any more than that.  I wrote down all that they gave me, and since I worked at the Justice Department (just a stone's throwfrom the National Archives)  I verified his information through the Census books that were available to the public.  My first teacher of genealogy was a professional genealogist there in Washington, D.C.  She taught that "documentation" was the only sure way to prove ancestry.  I believed her.

Years ago research consisted in writing letters to Divisions of Vital Statistics to ask for death certificates or copies of wills.  That's how parents and children were proven.  As years went by I visited several libraries in California where we were living and found that in some cases there were published books that abstracted wills and other legal documents.  But I never found any more on Mary Frances Ramey, except for her marriage to A.B. Corder.

We made a trip to Richmond Virginia State Library and Archives in 1988.  We both had a list of surnames and information that I needed.  We worked there several days and he had no luck with his Ramey search.  On the last day we had a few hours only before flying home to Los Angeles.  One more stop at the Library…maybe we would find something.  Surprisingly, while driving there from the hotel I spied a huge billboard along the highway--advertising French "Remi Cognac".  In smaller letters under  the larger ones, "pronounced Ray-Me".   Could it be that Mary Frances was from French ancestry??

When we got into the library, he looked up in the card file "Huguenots to Virginia". Right there, with only a matter of minutes to complete our study, a book was listed on the Remy family with its various spelling.  The book could be found in the Pasadena Public Library in California.  I did find it and photocopied many pages.

Happy ending:  Mary Frances was a descendant of Jacques Remi,  He was a French Huguenot from France who had fled to Germany.  He then went to England where he sought passage to America in 1654 as an indentured servant  to Nicholas Spencer, Esq. for a 7-year period.  There was a copy of his naturalization record dated 1680 in Jamestown, Virginia.  He is listed in "Original Lists of Emigrants, Vol 1 (1600-1637), Vol 2 (1662-1700, by John C. Hotten.  In "First Families of America", p 683, is found: Jacob (Ramy) Ramey ca 1635-1721, from Ivoy, France, 1660 settled in Westmoreland Co., VA; married Mary Spencer in 1671.

I have known these facts for several years, but I made application on-line to the National Huguenot Society just last week.  That's how family history research has evolved through the internet.

Me? A blogger?

RecentlyI wrote an e-mail to Pastor Jeffress who had made such an outlandish statement about Mormons being a cult!! I was incensed, just as I had been when I was a new convert to the Church--I actually thought that people were more enlightened these days. How naiive of me! But doing that e-mail made me realize that I might have something to say that would be of interest to a few people.

Here goes! When I was growing up, my mom quoted scripture to us--relating how we should live a "good life". The Golden Rule and the Ten Commandments were most often quoted and the basis of most of her teachings. The Beatitudes from Jesus' teachings in the New Testament found their way in, too.

How would you feel if you were that person? Don't say or do anything that you wouldn't want to hear. Being "considerate" of others was right up there with the Ten Commandments--what it really meant was that a good person was compassionate and thoughtful. Therefore, people who were pushy or inconsiderate were supposedly bad people.

My dad's favorite teaching was, "what would the world be like if everyone did what you're doing?" That started me thinking early in life. I think that I heard that one the first time I threw down a gum wrapper (instead of putting it in a trash can). I have thought about that principle so many times. Pop would be shocked these days to see everyone doing whatever....throwing trash down, cutting off other drivers, and many other morally reprehensible acts.

"Be the change you want to see", one of Ghandi's famous teachings, might be the remedy, especially with driving. I have decided to "be the change" by letting drivers merge into lanes, allowing them to pass, and other random acts of courteous driving. What would the world be like if everyone did that???