Parish Deaths

These are the kinds of things I find while ghost hunting....
In 1705 Sarah Wallis - of Taunton slain by her horse. What? !! Did her horse draw down on her with a musket? Strangle her with a lead rope? Brandish a sword and run her through? Was she trampled to death while in the stall? Did she fall from the horse? Is the horse guilty of some malicious intent? Manslughter? Did they put the animal down?



All of these I found in a parish register in some forlorn hamlet in a country far far away....

Again in 1705 I find... children Balch - three children of George Balch. Did these children not have names? Was there an outbreak of something that swept through the village? Influenza, typhoyd, plague or did something more sinister happen here?

In 1701 I found this...stranger - out of Samuel Perry's home. Did Samuel not know the name of the stranger in his home? Did he walk over three villages away, pick up a prostitute drag her home and kill her when he was done? Claiming it was a stranger? Did some vagabond burgal him and he killed the villain? But then, as I was looking further into the past I found this in 1700...

Child P..... - child of Samuel of .... Now as we have seen with the Balch incident earlier, children whose names were not given were listed by their father's surname. So, child P could be child Perry. There are .... after the name indicating that there are letters in the book but they are not legible. The man with the stranger was named Samuel Perry so this Samuel P.... could be the same man. Which could mean this Samuel is having a bad year or two.

Young man - of Mr Moores House ..... Mr Moore??? what have you been up too that there is a dead young man in your home that you apparently do not know the name of? Are you and Mr. Morses competing for young men?? Because just days later this shows up ... young man - out of Mr Morses? - the presbyterian preacher. You had to specify that this was the Presbyterian preacher not to be confused with Mr. Morse the Baptist preacher, Father Morse and Rabbi Morse??

Oh and don't forget George Fowler - a Quaker. There was also one man notated as Welsh and a Scottish woman along with the several who were listed as Quaker or as having been buried in the Quaker cemetary.

John Ash - held by the stroake of ..... 1698. What?? Finish the sentence, stroake of what? This one had me on pins and needles.

Also in 1698 we find Child Witch - Witches of Worsneale is this a movie? a novel? This one is fascinating. Who are these withces of Worsneale?

This one was bit sad to me. Child Brice - Child of Robert Brice 1696

Child Brice - Another child of Robert Brice 1696. Not only are they dead but they are nameless.

Then in 1695 I have this....Joseph Verrier - buried out of the Noahs Ark Uh.... I was wondering where that pesky Ark had gotten to. I do not recall though a Joseph Verrier being listed on the manifest. Did one of Noah's kids sneak him on board?

In 1689 an entire Hip Hop Band perishes or maybe just one Rapper. Sopho... Holla... alias Peller.

In 1683 this incident happens and apparently there was was not much mourning over her. Mary Gough - a prating impertinant presbyterian - drowned. Was this an accidental drowing? Unlikely!! Was she murdered by some overbearing, obnoxious Lutheran? Did the Witches of Worseneal tire of her accusations of withcraft and dump her down a well?

Also in 1683 we find Margaret Herne alias Booby. Did the disgruntled Presbyterian and her Lutheran attacker kill Booby for being the object of their husbands desire and then those two turn on each other with the Lutheran Dame coming out the clear winner?

George Jenkins - Who was drowned by misfortune 1673. Stunned silence! Did they mean Miss Fortune killed him? Drowning is unfortunate. Would he do it on purpose? Did he jump into the lake to see how deep it was and forget to breathe. I suppose this was clearly NOT a suicide.

Guilielmus Roberson - Torn apart by a water wheel? 1668 This just begs for answers. Where is Horatio when you need him?

Elizabeth Hazzell - w John died falling from horse 1670. Well at least this was an accident and not murder by horse like with poor Sarah Wallis. Or did her husand push her off?

Epaminondas Roberts - Buried without honour/ceremony 1667. I have no idea. One of the Witches? There were two listed like this. Different last names.

Here is another one for Horatio and his team. George Baker - Torn to pieces? 1665 Torn to peices? By what? An animal? Barbarian from Mongolia? Viking invasion? Werewolf? That psycho water wheel?

Has the whole county been enchanted by an evil spell? Now we have fires that are starving for human flesh. Anna Long - Consumed by a devouring fire 1664 Are there other types of fires? Devouring fire, sculpting fire, painting fire, singing fire.

This one is perfect. Nicholas Hooper - Sailor who sank in sea 1664

Somone needs to check in on the widow here. parish child - out of the Widow Thomas's house 1697. My guess this is an orphan she agreed to take in but it had a name, didn't it? This is so disturbing. This child had a mom, maybe a dad but it definately had a name. We shall call this child Robin.

Phillip Gennard - An old soldier of Ireland died at Black Boy 1673 I am hoping that Black Boy was a tavern and he died with a pint of ale and a whiskey.

Last is this one that had me giggling....Thomas Cartwright - Quack doctor 1661. I assume they meant he was a Quaker and a Dr. or was he really a quack doctor. Maybe he was a duck doctor. Maybe he is the fore-father of the Duck Dynasty people.



I hope you enjoyed these as much as I did.

Breakfast Letters: The ID

Breakfast Letters: The ID: Young people driving around fast and sporadic as though you believe you are more entitled and have special rights, you are terrifying the o...

The ID

Young people driving around fast and sporadic as though you believe you are more entitled and have special rights, you are terrifying the older drivers who are now slower and more cautious.

 Not because of their age but because of you. Back in the day people could afford turn signals and they used them because they knew that mind reading was not offered in high school or college. 

They did not choose the GPS or DVD theatre package option. They used a clever device known as a map and children were entertained with road games such car bingo or I spy.

 Yes, I know those were not around back then and if that was your first thought you are exactly who I am talking to.

I know I have said this before but it happened again yesterday and those of you who cannot understand the problem stay in line. The clerk at the postal store asked to see my ID as I paid. Not a problem. What she actually wanted was a photo ID to verify it was me using my own credit card. Not a problem I get that. What blew me away, again, was that she would not accept the ID I gave her because it had expired. It was me in the photo, my ID number was the same, address the same, better photo but she could not accept it as proof of me. Uhhh this is where she lost me. It is still me! I do not cease to exist when my government issued ID expires. (Didn’t I see a movie about this a few years ago?) I pointed out to her that she could verify it was me still. She refused and then she said something stupid. They would not accept this in a court of law. WHAT!!?? Lady sheep, we are not in court! My mouth fell open; I stood up straighter and turned my full focus and attention on her. She froze, looked up at me and then wisely took a step backward. I restated that I was NOT dead, that the photo ID was verification I was me, expiration date or no expiration date and handed her a current one. 

What if my ID was not me? What if it had a fake name and address and matched the fake name on the fake credit card? If this happens one more time I will lose my mind and be the lead story on the evening news. Blooding freaking Hell!!!

There are some very funny moments during The Hobbit part 2 so go ahead folks laugh!! Not that very many of you laugh at movies which puzzles me greatly and kicks in my sympathy mind set but not in a good way. Some of that stuff was supposed to be humorous. No one will come and arrest you for laughing. Wait!! Is this what has happened to people with expired IDs? The joy police came and as punishment took their joy away?

I am still out of cream and this fake Vanilla non-dairy chemical creation tastes just like what it is, fake vanilla cream. It leaves a horrid after taste in the mouth. How can people use this stuff? Imagine how very terrible the fat free version must be.

I am going to make another run at the postal place. I will try to behave. 

The Attack

Last night heralded in a demon., let me explain….

I went to my room after checking on my granddaughter E to snuggle down into my bed to sleep a bit before my daughter and her entourage arrived home from the club loaded with burgers, fries and hilarious tales.  I had just started to drift off to sleep when Gucci started a clamor of barking and growling.  He only does that when someone is on the porch or at the door.

  I heard the door open slowly and silently or, so I thought.  I waited a few moments for the sound of the crew to arrive through the door but they did not. I lay silent and as I puzzled what had just happened the room grew colder and colder. I listened and heard nothing unusual and then a voice softly said “the door is open”. I turned over and no one was there. Maybe I had dozed off and dream it because of the incident but, in the middle of this thought I again heard “the door is open”.  My mind replayed my checking the door before going to my room and it had been firmly closed but not locked. (I did not want a troupe of tipsy youths beating on the door to get in and wake E.)  Again I snuggle into the bed, which is now ice cold and try to relax when I hear the words “The door!”

I sit up. The entry way is lit up where it should be dark. I get up and peek around the corner. The front door is standing wide open.  I look back into my room, no one there. I close the door and dash through the living room to check on E. There is no one in there or the closet or the bath or anywhere.  I turn on the heat and lay back down.  A short while later I hear a scratching at my front door. But Gucci does not bark.  I peek through the window and my porch lies empty. I hear another scratch.  Upon opening the door my cat Goblin saunters in.  I make another attempt to grab a nap.

As I am drifting off to sleep there is a knock on the door and a voice saying it is Daniel.  I let him in, close the door and watch as he turns off lights, music, grabs a blanket and barely settles the sofa sleeper to the floor before he crawls on to the mattress and is asleep.  By now I am exhausted so I too soon find sleep and am haunted by a deeply strange dream which is interrupted by a little E climbing into my bed telling me she threw up while she was asleep. 

I wake up to a brilliant sunlit day and the reek of E’s wet clothes and hair.  I get her bathed, shampooed, dry and clothed before tackling her bed linens.  Them, I drag to the washer and stuff in, along with a bear a pillow and a killer whale.  Just as I am cleaning the bathroom up the washer starts banging and is unbalanced. 

After several tries to right it the rhythm goes back to normal and I put on the kettle for coffee.  Upon turning around I discover that E has again thrown up on the sofa sleeper while lying by Daniel. He rolls over to the far side of the bed, she snuggles onto his abandoned pillow and I grab towels to clean up.

I leash up Gucci and .take him for a walk. As soon as I return he jumps on the sofa and in his excitement dribbles pee over it.  I clean that and as I am walking back to the kitchen to press the coffee I see that one of the cats has thrown up on the carpet.  I am almost out of cream so I cannot make my coffee to my color specification and I have no cheese for breakfast tacos.

It is barely 10 in the morning and I am looking forward through my day with a demon called Dread and his minions Stress, Apprehension, Anxiety, Trouble, Tuscone, King of the Imp devils and 26 Angels with grins on their faces all surrounding me.

And, in the words of the band 7eventh Time Down….When you don't know what to say, Just say Jesus.

 I whisper, Jesus.

The rest of my day has been uneventful.  Thank you Jesus.

Finding Hope

This morning feels like December or maybe it feels like Christmas. It is cold and still and everything sparkles. The stars are brighter, the night sky seems blacker. Some sounds are muffled while others have a sharp clarity. Magic seems possible. Every car we passed in the parking lot was touched by the icy wand of Jack Frost. They glittered in the street lights as though they had been covered in the dust of a trillion diamonds. Jack had taken every piece of metal and chose it only to adorn. The grass, the shrubs, the pavement were untouched.

I am aware of hope this morning as if the possibility of it did not exist before I fell asleep last night. It is foreign to me and although that thought is sad I going to cling to that little spark and refuse to let go. I will eat fluffy strands of it for it reminds me of the strands of freshly spun cotton candy and it will become part of me again.

The Gala was Saturday night and it was better than we had imagined. The room actually looked like it could have been anywhere including a casino in Monte Carlo. We kept hearing the same comments about that throughout the evening. The illusion of three separate rooms worked out beautifully. “Last year was wonderful, but this year you all have outdone yourselves.” This is a good thing but each year we create a bigger and bigger challenge for ourselves and my team of the past two years all wanting to bail on me. Maybe I will postpone the wrap-up meeting until after the Holidays and they have rested.

This cold air has inspired me to eat breakfast. Even now I have potatoes and sausage frying in some bacon grease. Biscuits are warming in the oven and coffee is steaming in the press.

 Time to add the eggs. Enjoy your day my beautiful friends. 

Peppermint Pigs

Thanksgiving Day rolls around and on Thursday morning I go out to my storage room and start bringing in boxes when after about box 8 I realize the box with the Christmas tree in it is not in there. My tradition of decorating the tree on Thanksgiving evening will not be happening. I am perplexed as to where the tree has apparently moved itself to. I have no recollection of hauling it to Goodwill or any other donation location. Strange! I do have the option of going out and getting a deeply discounted tree at one the many black Friday sales. After a wonderful afternoon and dinner with Mother I choose to go home and sleep. Saturday morning I am up and headed for Home Depot where I find a lovely tree and only 3 other customers. There is only one other person over in Garden Ridge Pottery so I am shopping in Rock Star status. I have discovered the perfect time to shop over Thanksgiving weekend! No traffic, no crowds I was back home by 10:30 and decorating my tree.

For years I have seen pink peppermint candy pigs for sale at Christmas. I have no idea what it is about as it was not a tradition at our, or either of my grandparents homes. Yet it is a tradition that has been around since the 1880s. 

 In Victorian culture fat round pigs represented good health, prosperity and happiness. A Candy store in Saratoga New York created a peppermint candy pig for the Holidays as an after dinner treat to be shared around the table. The tradition is to put the pig in a small bag and whack it with a tiny hammer until it breaks into many pieces. The tidbits of peppermint are then passed around the table with everybody eating a piece for good fortune in the New Year.

These pigs were an accident that succeeded. They were designed to be pigs but they were supposed to be marzipan. Lacking marzipan the creator went to his uncle’s apothecary shop and picked up a bottle of peppermint extract and used that to make the candy. He was a success.

 Today the candy is made the same way in small batches with only five pigs per kettle batch. They are poured into molds that are copies of the one surviving original mold. There is even a very real pig that lives at the factory and greets guests at the front door.

This leads to what is marzipan exactly? It is a confection or candy that is made from sugar or honey, almond meal and a bit of almond extract. They are molded into shapes of fruit, vegetables or tiny pigs and given as candy treats.

 It can also be rolled, glazed and used as icing on cakes and cookies. In England it is used to ice Christmas Cakes or Fruit cakes.

 In the Netherlands and Belgium the tradition of marzipan as treats originated as a pig instead of fruit shapes that is eaten at New Years to bring good luck. It is called Glücksschwein meaning Lucky pig.

Go back to Saratoga, New York which was a resort town back in its heyday with a world famous racetrack, Saratoga Downs, casinos and 2 of the world’s most opulent European Hotels staffed by chefs from … Europe where marzipan pigs were a Holiday tradition. The reason the marzipan pig could not be made was the lack of almonds.

Marzipan, according to some legends, comes from Persia and was written about in the tales The Book of One Thousand and One Nights. It was brought to the Mediterranean area of Europe by the Turks,  reaching Germany via the Baltic Sea.

The origination of the word Marzipan is a mystery, shrouded in folklore and involving similar words from many geographical locations. I believe I prefer it that way.

Sending all of you piggy wishes this Holiday season.