Field Trip: Cahokia

  It has been years since we've visited the Cahokia mounds.  In fact, I think it was 2008 when Bubby was 5 and Mookie 4.  At that time we didn't take the time to go inside the Visitor's Center either, so really this trip was all new :)

  The Visitor Center has a suggested donation of $15 per family which was well worth the cost.  They had life size figures depicting every day life of the Mississippian culture.  Shorty loved walking through the village, which he and I did several times!

  They had some interactive displays like this one in which you could move some hands back and forth and mimic how to start fire.

  The museum was an excellent place to start but nothing quite beats walking amongst the earthworks on a beautiful day!  Shorty was sad he had to stick to the path, claiming he wanted to "climb the lumpy, bumpy hills".  Mookie managed to distract him from that goal by following the letter markers that guided our path.

Monk's Mound (background)

  Bubby was terribly sad that we weren't able to visit every. single. mound on the property.  We did get to as many as we could and find a good compromise for all of us.
  So you don't get to climb on all the rest of the lumpy bumpy hills, but you do get to climb the biggest one - Monk's Mound.

You can see forever at the top.  It was a little hazy because the rain and drizzle was moving out of the area, but in that last picture you can just make out the Gateway Arch!

As uninteresting as this view from the top may seem I have to include it.  You see Shorty?  He's asking, for about the umpteenth time, if he can go down that side of Monk's Mound.  If we had taken our eyes off of him he may have tried it too! And going down Monk's Mound looks like this...

so it's nothing to turn up your nose at.  Silly child ;)
  At the bottom we found a butterfly friend...

  Then we headed back to our hotel, but not before stopping at the Twistee Treat in Livingston - yum!

(photo taken by Bubby)

Field Trip: Springfield's Capitol

  What started out as a way to find something educational and cheap has evolved into a goal.  We've now gotten 3 state capitols under our belt.  Our latest being Springfield, IL.

   This capitol was the smallest so far, but Mookie said it was her favorite.  It is probably the oldest.  It was interesting though to see the contrast of the old and the new with the large digitized screens that were in the House and Senate chambers. 

  Of the three capitol buildings we've visited so far, it was the one that was the most sparsely decorated with statues, and displays.  We didn't feel like we were missing out though.  These buildings are so grand they just kind of blow you away ;)

they wanted a pic with each of them on a star

  Our trip wasn't merely for art, architecture and history mind you.  We found fossils in the floor, and Mookie proudly told me what each type of stone was in the base of these columns.  Do you know where she got that information.  No, not Mom the teacher - Mindcraft of all places!  Well, that will temper my threats to throw that out the window some days...

Bubby with his foot by the shell fossil & the different stone in the column

We had the awesome opportunity to take a buddy with us to lunch and needed to kill a little more time, so we headed to the State Museum. I'll tell you I am a little thankful for the having to kill time.  We had to park by the State Museum when we landed and Shorty about died when we passed it by to go to some dumb old capitol (which he usually enjoys, but not in comparison to something like that!).
  Shorty made some buddies and played with the animals while the big kids dug for dino fossils...

  Right before we left, we were in the area where you could put together pottery replicas. I was telling Bubby how I used to put together Native American pottery for real when I worked in an archaeology lab.  He laughed and said, "let me see what you got old lady!".  So the race was on...yeah, I beat the socks off of him ;)

pottery reconstruction

Field Trip: LOL

  No, I don't have a case of the giggles... the last time we made the trip to Illinois the kids dubbed it "L.O.L." for its nickname the Land of Lincoln.  Ha ha :)
  This trip to the Land of Lincoln included a visit to the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Museum.  We had some sweet friends act as our guides and introduce us to this cool site.  I had heard that they had pulled out all the stops for this particular museum and that can usually mean one of two things: excellent museum or just wildly overdone. 
  The first stop was where it all began, Abe Lincoln's boyhood cabin.  The big kids were drawn in to hear the stories and see the lifesize figures depicting Abe's early history.  I caught a quick glance, but mostly I stayed outside of the cabin with Shorty.  He had caught sight of two fake cardinals in the trees and with the bird sounds playing there HAD to be more birds out there! 

looking for the birds

  After the cabin you walked right into the middle of a slave auction (the red lit area in the photo).  This display smacked you right in the face with the evils of the practice.  A woman being torn one way by her new owner while her husband was being led another by his and the crying child being held  by the auctioneer to be sold off himself.  Mookie said it was one of those things that made you want to cry.  The scene was so powerful that Shorty kept migrating back to the scene.  While he couldn't grasp what was going on there, we talked about what feelings were being shown and who was making people sad. 

Shorty and the slave auction (right) and Lincoln-Douglass debate (left)

  Interspersed with the striking scenes with life-sized figures there were notable artifacts, some of which were from the Lincoln Home we'd visited a couple weeks before. There were also sound and temperature effects (heat radiating from a wood stove, etc...) like we'd found when we visited the Flint Hills Discovery Center.  It's one of those things that I don't necessarily need as a museum attendee, but is really quite fun :)
  The museum did a really good job of evoking the feelings of the viewer.  The hallway with the Lincoln newspaper political cartoons was garish in an Alice in Wonderland type of style - off set frames, elongated and crooked doorways, nearly made me sick walking through the thing.

Bubby in the political cartoon hallway

Pardon my funky photo, but they don't allow flash photography in the displays and it was reeking havoc on my photos!  The hallway leading into the Emancipation Proclamation was equally as suffocating, with holographs yelling at you from either side - what poor Mr. Lincoln must have felt like.  The dizzying effect was reminiscent of the riots hallway at Brown vs. Board of Education in Topeka. 
  Mookie's favorite part was the map that showed the Civil War in 4 minutes.  That's 1 week/second.  The battles would explode upon the big screen.  She was so enthralled that she went back twice!  That is the best part of the museum for me.  It didn't have tons of actual artifacts but it made history come alive!  It made you feel with your senses and your heart all aspects of what was going on!

Civil War in 4 minutes

  They had some really awesome shows too which took you on a short tour of Lincoln and then of the importance of historical documents and artifacts (my favorite one!).   Like main character stated in one of the shows "Our experience becomes your experience, our courage becomes your courage, and the best parts of our lives on in you".  This is why history is SO important!

Shorty and his buddy

 

Field Trip: Lincoln!

  Our next stop on our trip was Springfield, Illinois.  Our family loves the Junior Ranger program put on by the National Park Service so when Hubby had the day off we planned a trip so we could add the Abraham Lincoln home to our collection of badges without eating too much into daddy's free time too much. 
  The Lincoln home is not just the home itself.  The Park Service has bought up four blocks of period houses and restored them.  Some are used for offices, but three are open to the public with displays and there are interpretive spots all up and down the streets - including signage or call in stations.

in front of the Lincoln home

in the neighborhood

  When you go, you sign up for a specific tour time.  They said go early to make sure you are able to get a time - and they aren't kidding.  By the time we left, they were already issuing tickets (which are free) for tours two hours later.  We had an hour wait, which gave us plenty of time to complete the ranger challenges. 
  Our tour of the home came with strict instructions of not to touch the walls, door jams, stay on a certain carpet, etc... Definitely one of the more stringent tours we'd been on, although they won't harass you too much if you are caught leaning where you aren't supposed to.

one of the places you can lean...

  The thing that made the kids' eyes just light up the most was when our ranger guide told us that the place they could touch that was from Abe Lincoln's time was the stair rail.  They were utterly thrilled to do that (never you mind that the thing was urethaned to high heaven ;) ).

  After our tour we got the kiddos sworn in for their Junior Ranger badges.  I will tell you what, we have never met a park ranger we didn't like.  Most go out of their way for junior rangers.  I always ask permission if I snap their picture and this particular ranger made sure he put his hat on for our picture! 

  Our Lincoln trip wouldn't have been complete without a trip to the president's tomb which was not far away. 

  They were amazed by the sheer size of it.  The inside was quite grand and I was really glad someone in our group didn't attempt to use the circular nature of the layout for a racetrack...

Guess Who? #2

Some more of my unknowns...

Barrington, IL

Chicago, IL

Yates Center, KS

Pretty sure the woman on the right is my gg-grandma Emilie (Krien) Schaede.

This one is identified as Bill Martins, Mark & Floyd Runnar, and John Mullins.  I know how John fits into my family, and the others are supposed to be related, but I don't know how!

This woman is my gg-grandma' Susan (Camp) Murray's sister.  The age of the photo would make it either Tamson (Camp) Evans, or Caroline (Camp) Shriver.

This one was on the page with the Camp pictures.

This one was on the Camp picture page too.  Isn't she cute?

Tangled Tree Thoughts: The Important of Being Earnest

  It's been forever ago since I've read the Importance of Being Earnest, but from what I do remember it was about mistaken identities. I figured for those who are trying to research their family histories, I would walk you through some past and present struggles with names that have and are perplexing me.
Grandma Margaret Emma Talady is a problem for me.  For one thing, in the census records I have for her, she goes by either Margaret or Emma, or Emily.  So, the obituary I found the other day helped confirm that she was indeed the Emma Taladay that was married to Civil War soldier Frederick Kariger.  It also confirmed that she was born in Connecticut, Hartford to be exact.  Now, that has always been a question for me.  How she jumped from CT to Will County, IL (Chicago area) was a problem - not unheard of, but a stretch.  So after I found that I started searching anew on the internet for fresh ideas.  I found a site for Tolliday/Talady researchers that had census records for people by that surname (and all variations) for all time periods and states.  I found a Henry Toloday living in Licking County, Ohio with a daughter "M.E." right age for my Margaret Emma.  Hmmmm....  Ok, so I do some further searching.  There is a Hartford township in Licking County.  Now, I've run across this before.  According to family lore, ggg-grandpa Lafayette Mauzey was supposed to have been born in Richmond, Virginia.  Turns out, his family was FROM Virginia and he was born in Richmond, MO.  Pretty easy explanation - the town that is reported is assumed to be the state capital of the state the family was originally from.  Since then I've learned to broaden my searching.  After searching all evening I finally find that Henry Toloday ended up in Blackford County, Indiana where his known son Laban lived in the town of Hartford.  More interesting is that Laban's first son was named William Henry, which is what Grandma Margaret Emma's first son was named.  To add another level of intrigue, Henry's known daughter Nancy's first son was named William H.  Ok, that's just downright weird now.  Circumstantial.  Without a will in hand, I'm stuck.  It all fits - kind of.  Sometimes that's what we genealogists have to go on and sometimes be content with until we find that final nail in the coffin so to speak:)
  Another mystery that has re-emerged is also on Hubby's family.  His ggg-grandma Mary Ida Lopossa (pronounced Low-possee) Patrick.  Now she was born about 1865 in Indiana (census info).  The problem was and is that brothers Jacob and Joseph Lopossa both had daughters named Mary born about that time.  According to all info I've found Hubby's Mary was the daughter of Jacob.  I'd been tracking down a lead and contacted a gal whose George also was the son of Jacob.  She told me that our Mary was not the daughter of Jacob.   Ok... I go back to the drawing board.... It all brings me back to this picture...

Joseph Lopossa family, Mary is front row 2nd from the left

  Although this picture is not in my possession and I have not seen an exact date for it, I doubt that the Mary in it is ours.  Ours died pre-1901 in the flu epidemic along with her husband - this is according to family lore as well as some guardianship papers dated 1901.  The woman in this picture looks too old to be about 35 which either of the Marys would have been ca. 1900.  So,  I think I'm secure in believing that Jacob is our Mary's dad.  Do I know definitively?  No.  But, I'll be content for now anyway:)