My Civil War Story & Paper Dolls Too

 

Union Woman

 

Good Morning Friends...Happy Thursday!

There's nothing really special about a Thursday, but it's as good as

any other day when it comes to finding your JOY...right! ;)

 

 

I have always been a HUGE history buff...I truly LOVE history, with

American history being top on my list. I also love genealogy, peering

through 100 year old records in search of a clue that will help you

connect the dots to your own family history.

 

 

For me the two go hand in hand...so as I dived into the Ancestry.com

pool, I was amazed to find the military records for my many times

great~grandfathers. My immediate family came from Illinois by way

of Virginia & we have been in this country since 1617. One of my

grandfathers fought in the 1st Colonial uprising, Bacon's Rebellion.

 

Confederate Woman

 

We fought in the American Revolution, the War of 1812, the Indian

Wars & of course with all that family history, we also fought in the

Civil War. In fact my family fought in the Civil War on both sides.

The idea that they all lived through these wars is a miracle to me &

had anything played out differently, I would probably

not be here...so crazy to think of!

 

 

As one might think, my Virginia 3x Great Grandfather fought for the

Confederacy, while my Illinois 3x Great grandfather fought for the Union

Army. Two men who had never met, who's lives were so completely

different, who would normally have absolutely nothing in common,

found common ground through the love of their children.

 

 

After the war, Virginia was a battlefield...it was in complete ruin. In the 1st

Census after the war which was in 1870, my Grandfather still lived in Virginia

with his wife & 5 children, one of them being my 2x Great~Grandfather who

was 8 years old. His household also included his mother~in~law & 2 young

women, 1 with a small son. {I love that census, it's my favorite! Can you

believe I actually have a favorite census? lol} I'm sure those women were

family or wives of close friends, who's husbands died in the war. It was

some time after this that he gathered up his family & took them west

to a place where he could start over, a place where he could buy

a few acres of land & begin again.

 

Abraham Lincoln

 

It was here in Illinois, the state of Abraham Lincoln's birth, my Brewer

clan would settle. Grandpa & Grandma would have 5 more children &

they would raise all 10 of them working the land as their father's,

father's had. And here, their 2nd son would fall in love with the

beautiful daughter of a Union soldier, they would marry

& our story would finally come full circle.

 

This is why I Love history so much.

 

For me, it's important to remember our collective past...

it's what creates the cloth from which we are all
woven from.

 

xoxo

vintagesusie



proud to be an American

Sweet Friends, With Memorial Day having just past & the 4th of July right around the corner, I wanted to start getting into the spirit of things here at home, on my blog & at my shop. I am one of those patriotic Americans that gets teary eyed sitting at a baseball field, looking & smelling the beyond green grass, on a lovely summer evening, singing the National Anthem. I mean...it's 'Field of Dreams', who doesn't right?

I get goosebumps walking through Washington DC, standing amid the history that this Nation was founded on. Staring up at the Lincoln & Jefferson Memorials, feeling so small among giants. Thinking back to the bravery of our colonial Father's, imagining that our new, little Nation could ever defeat a world dominating force like England...& yet we did.

A nation that was willing to war brother against brother to right the wrongs that had long gone unacknowledged about what the true meaning of "all men are created equal" infers. Having been fortunate enough to have stood in the battlefields of Gettysburg & in the exact place where Abraham Lincoln gave his amazing Gettysburg Address, I am in awe of this place I call home.

Being an American, I have the luxury to call home my California coastline to my Brother's Baltimore, MD harbor & all destinations in between. My home is big & beautiful & diverse. It has oceans & deserts, islands & redwoods, prairies & majestic mountains. It's so big it has places I've seen, places I wish to see & places I will sadly never get a chance to see.

So, here's some fun vintage images for you to create with and let's get out our red, white & blue & celebrate a nation that's not perfect, but is always trying to remedy that flaw & I will remind myself again of the wonderful words spoken in a Pennsylvania field in 1863. I think I'm going to town & buy a fresh new flag to fly today! Hugs Friends...

"Four score and seven years ago our fathers brought forth on this continent, a new nation, conceived in Liberty, and dedicated to the proposition that all men are created equal.

Now we are engaged in a great civil war, testing whether that nation, or any nation so conceived and so dedicated, can long endure. We are met on a great battle-field of that war. We have come to dedicate a portion of that field, as a final resting place for those who here gave their lives that that nation might live. It is altogether fitting and proper that we should do this.

But, in a larger sense, we can not dedicate -- we can not consecrate -- we can not hallow -- this ground. The brave men, living and dead, who struggled here, have consecrated it, far above our poor power to add or detract. The world will little note, nor long remember what we say here, but it can never forget what they did here. It is for us the living, rather, to be dedicated here to the unfinished work which they who fought here have thus far so nobly advanced. It is rather for us to be here dedicated to the great task remaining before us -- that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion -- that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain -- that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom -- and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth."
Abraham Lincoln