Rounding out the obituaries I posted a week or so ago, I found my great-grandmother Sally B. Alexander's obituary in the Lexington Gazette.  It was in the 25 Feb 1920 issue.  Not very newsy. Her death certificate says she died of chronic interstitial nephritis, a.k.a., kidney disease.  So I guess she was not a victim of influenza or pneumonia as were the other deaths in the county.

Last weekend I visited my cousin Jim Alexander and found this picture of his barn. It is dated October 1942.  We noticed several things about the picture.  First, there is a pile of straw on the left hand side, which is typical of how straw was piled in that day.  Second, there is very little vegetation around the barn.  And, third, there is a tree in the field behind the barn that isn't there today.

Speaking of today, this is the barn as of last Saturday.  You can still see the same basic structure.  And the building in the foreground is still there.  But a milking parlor has been added, as well as several silos.  And there is a extension on the lower left of the barn.  Also, there are lots of weeds growing between the fence in the foreground and the barn. The creek that is more noticeable in the top picture is still there.  And, while the log fence posts have been replaced by metal stakes, the fencepost could be the remains of the one in the top picture.

By the way, for my friends who travel I-81, it is located to the right of this picture.  You can see this complex from I-81 north just before exit 300 at Fairfield.  It isn't as visible southbound, but is opposite the rest area that is just south of exit 300.

And now for the great-grandparents on my Dad's side of the family.  First, I have found three notices of my father's mother's father,Joseph Fultz.Two are from the Staunton Spectator and one is from the Lexington Gazette. Each one a little different from the other.  They are followed by my father's mother's mother's obituary, which I found in the Richmond-Times Dispatch.  I have found many obituaries from all over the state in the Richmond paper.

 

 

 I also have found my father's father's father's obituary in the Staunton Spectator.  I may have written about this earlier.  However, I haven't been able to locate his father's father's mother's obituary.  Still looking...

My great-granparents' obituaries

Two more obituaries from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  These are two of my great-grandparents.  They were my mother's mother's parents.  My grandmother is referenced in the bottom one as Mrs. J.Graham Barnett.  I have written about them before.  They are both buried in Oakwood Cemetery in Richmond.

These are two more of my grandparents.  This time my mother's father's parents. I don't know exactly which paper printed the first one.  I found it photocopied with some records that my aunt gave me.  It seems to come from a Danville paper but I haven't been able to find it on microfilm.  I also have not been able to locate a record of his grave in Oakhurst cemetery.  The second one was in the Richmond Times-Dispatch. It references my grandfather J. Graham Barnett.

To followup on yesterday's entry, these are the obituaries for my maternal grandparents. They are both from the Richmond Times-Dispatch.  As you can see, my Mom's family has used Joseph Bliley Funeral Home for years.

My grandfather died before I was born.  In fact, my sister is the only one of the four of us who is counted among the grandchildren in his obituary. I know about him, but I didn't know him.

However, I do remember my grandmother.  She was the only one of my grandparents that I knew. She used expressions like "two shakes of a lamb's tail" and "I'll ramsquizzle you through a buzzard's wing."  And she always brought life savers with her on her visits.  She also desperately wanted me to stop biting my fingernails.  She bought me a little kit containing a file and clippers.  She told me that biting my nails would make my knuckles knobby.  None of that worked.

I remember staying at her house when I was little.  She later lived with my Aunt Ruth and I would see her when I stayed with them, which was usually a week or so in the summer.  My first plane trip was with her from Winston-Salem to Richmond when I was about 12 years old.  I was in college when she died and I flew from Raleigh to Richmond for her funeral.  It was probably the second time I had flown.

 

Newspapers are a wonderful source of information about ancestors.  I spent a couple of hours this week looking for my grandparents' obituaries and found them!  I didn't even know whether they existed. The two above are for my father's parents.

John A Alexander's obituary lists his wife as Jeanette, but it was Janet.  It also lists one of his sisters as Mrs. George Lipscomb, when her husband actually went by Wiley (he was George Wiley Lipscomb).  And his sister Mary was always Midge to the family.  Also, I'm fairly certain that the minister was Rev. Borthwick.  So it is loaded with misinformation. Nonetheless, the date and cause of death match information on the death certificate, so they got that right. The obituary appeared in the 31 January 1923 issue of the Lexington Gazette.

On the other hand, Janet Alexander's obituary is factually correct all the way through. Her obituary appeared in the 14 April 1954 issue of the Richmond Times-Dispatch. The Lexington Gazette may also have run an obituary for her, but it was not as readily available in the Library of Virgina.  That will have to wait for another day.

I remember my Uncle Ike as an old man that was not very patient with young children (like me).  But I recently discovered he was a private during World War I.  He was my great-uncle, my grandmother's only brother, Isaac Fultz.

Here are three postcards that he wrote to his sister, Draper, who was at Stuart Circle Hospital in Richmond, VA, at the time. He was stationed at Lehigh University in PA initially. 

 

 

Later Ike was moved to Camp Zachary Taylor in Louisville, KY.  While there, he wrote this letter to Draper. I hope you can read it.  He talks about eating well and gaining weight. Note the stationary says "Army and Navy Young Men's Christian Association."  And at the bottom of the page, writers are asked to "SAVE BY USING BOTH SIDES OF THIS PAPER" and receivers are asked to "SAVE FOOD. BUY LIBERTY BONDS AND WAR SAVING STAMPS."

 

Among the many things at Jimmy's house are a collection of Christmas postcards from the early 1900s. Some of them are dated 1913, others have no date.  Some are published by Bergman in NY, some are by International Publishing Company in NY and Berlin, and nearly all of them are printed in Germany.  They speak for themselves, so here they are.