Old Photographs

Yesterday was a stay-inside kind of day. My back was out worse than it has been in a long time, which had my stomach doing flips, and it was cold, icy, wet, and just plain ol' nasty outside. To top it off, my little heater in the bathroom wasn't keeping up with the cold weather--it couldn't seem to get the thermostat out of the 50's. I tried to light the pilot on the bigger heater and it just wouldn't budge.

I resolved to make the best of my Saturday regardless, so I made up some veggie three-bean chili in the crock pot, put on one of my Will & Grace DVD's, got out all of my genealogy materials, wrapped myself up in a blanket and started plugging away.

What really turned my day around is that I was able to find some pictures online of ancestors that I only had one picture of, or I perhaps only had a poor photocopy rendition. I also think that I extended my Leck roots to Germany (we know they were German, just didn't know when). I thought today, before I got busy doing anything else, I'd share a few of those pictures. I find them fascinating....

This is a new picture I found of my 3rd great-grandfather, George H McCandless (1830-1886):

This was his wife, my 3rd great-grandmother, Eliza Ruth Calvert McCandless:

I think these pictures must be from a painting of them together. I would love to know where that painting is now and get a reproduction of it. It could be anywhere--they had a lot of kids, all but one lived to adulthood and had families of their own. One of their decendents is retired Rep. Al McCandless in California.

This is a picture that I didn't have of my 3rd great-grandparents (on my paternal grandmother's side) George Elbert Allender (1843-1928) and his wife Egentine Sharp Allender (1846-1917):

They had three boys (left to right): Arvel (my 2nd great-grandfather), Nolen, and Otis.

I have a newspaper article about how these three boys married three sisters--the Gosney girls. It's really a cute story I'll have to share one day.

I was probably most excited about the following photograph, though. This woman is Mary Ann Sheridan Neel, George H McCandless's (from above) maternal grandmother, making her my 5th great-grandmother.

I had a very poor photocopy of this picture, so to be able to find the real one really made my day. I admire her a great deal for everything she did in her very long life.

Thinking about these ancestors made me realize that I actually have it pretty cozy after all. Soon I stopped forgetting about how cold and achy I was, and started being thankful for what I have.