A collection of photography and exploration focusing on Upstate South Carolina and beyond.
Due to a weird quirk of my family I have a somewhat skewed sense of history. I am one of the younger siblings of seven. My mother was the youngest of nine and my father was the second youngest of seven. We come from big families. My Grandfather Taylor was born in 1880, and for … Read More “Ancestral Ages” »
This past week my brother-in-law, Jennings Putnam, passed away from complications of COVID-19. His passing on August 31 was sudden, and left our family with a profound sense of loss. Jennings was a native of the Warrior Creek area near Gray Court and attended high school at Gray Court-Owings while my father was principal. There … Read More “Goodbye, Jennings” »
Several weeks ago Laura and her sister Amy drove across country to the house they inherited on Samish Island, Washington. They spent some sister time together and were able to do some final steps to close out their parents’ estate. Earlier this week Amy and I traded places. I flew out on Monday and will drive back across with Laura in a couple of weeks. In the meantime we’ll be getting back together with friends and visiting places we came to love during our year out here.
Both my late father and Laura’s father served in the US Navy in WWII. Dad talked a little about doing MP patrols in Paris and being stationed in Guam, but really didn’t talk about the war. Mr. Wright was also reticent to talk about the way. I guess some experiences are just too hard to discuss. Now they are both gone, and those stories with them. However, there is one story from Mr. Wright that was told to Laura, not about WWII, but his later service in the Korean War. It was the story about how his ship, the USS Walke, was torpedoed in the Sea of Japan.
I’m still trying to catch up after a whirlwind holiday travel season. Given our upcoming activities, I’ll probably be trying to catch up for the next month or so. Regardless, while we are in Florida we like to get out into nature as much as we can. This holiday season we were able to visit Kissimmee Prairie, the Stick Marsh at the Sebastian River Preserve, and several beaches.
The Christmas Dinosaurs have been put away and the trees taken down. We’ve been catching our breath before ramping up for the next round of madness. The past couple of weeks have been a whirlwind. There were paddle trips, swamp outings, drum circles, and we even celebrate a major milestone. All of this, while wrapping up 2018 and seeing in 2019 in grand fashion. Over the next several posts I’m going to try to summarize the Winter Holiday happenings.
This past weekend we learned of the death of my aunt, Nina Ruth Snellgrove. She passed away at the age of 92 and was the last of her family. On Tuesday of this week we said goodbye to Aunt Tootsie at a graveside service in Laurens. Aunt Tootsie was my father’s younger sister, and the … Read More “Remembering Aunt Tootsie” »
Last weekend my nephew, Mason Taylor, married his sweetheart, Ashley Nell Buettner. Laura and I made the trek to Chicago for the weekend. It was the first time I’d spent any significant time in the city, apart from passing through airports. Even though it was in the midst of the turmoil of packing and getting ready to move back to South Carolina, we had a great time with family and friends.
When you start digging into family history you’re bound to uncover some scoundrels. In my own family I’ve got Samuel Campbell Clegg, who was hanged as a British spy at Star Fort during the Revolutionary War. Then there are the two uncles that spent time in prison, one of whom I visited when he was incarcerated. Of one branch of our family a fellow genealogy researcher said, “They weren’t nuthin’ but horse thieves and ne’er-do-wells.”
Here in Washington we’ve uncovered at least one potential scoundrel in Laura’s family. While his story is interesting, I think the real story is that of his daughter, Vinnie Alethia Reed Burdick, Laura’s great-grandmother, and her ability to overcome what could have been a disastrous family situation.