Family History

I've been so busy these past few months with work and home renovations that I actually do Genealogy research to relax. I know that sounds crazy, but I love digging on the Internet and Ancestry.com to add to the family tree.Some of my latest discoveries are shared here.

I knew of one of my late-husband's ancestors who had fought in the Civil War, but didn't know that we also had two volunteer nurses. Rebecca Lemmon Oleson served from 1862-1865 in Nashville and Chattanooga (100 miles from where I live). She filed for a pension in April 1893 in California. She lived to be 91 and died in 1916. I think it is neat when you can connect history with real-life ancestors. 

Her sister-in-law, who I have written about before, Sarah Plummer Lemmon, also served as a volunteer nurse. Here is an article on her.

                             John Gill Lemmon, an ancestor on my late husband's side.
                                             He was a Union soldier in the Civil War.

Here is his obituary card.

This is my late husband's great grandmother and four of her children. I had never seen a picture of her before. I don't know the date, but her husband remarried in 1903, so this picture was taken before then. She was a handsome woman. She had six children.

This soldier fought for the Confederacy. He is the (5 generations) grandfather on my brother-in-law's family tree in Arkansas. He fought alongside two of his brothers and served for one year in the Confederacy, opting not to reenlist after his year was up.

Grace

My favorite word is "Grace". When my grandchildren get in trouble I tell my daughters to give them some grace. "Not everything is a punishable offense," is my opinion. "You have to pick and choose your battles" is another. When people are annoying or getting on my last nerve I try to give them grace. Like the lady that I waited on this past Saturday who was angry because of waiting for an hour to see a representative. I was the fortunate one to be the recipient of her anger. I let her talk and simply said "I'm sorry that you had to wait so long." I didn't make excuses...it was what it was. Sometimes you have to wait and there's no getting around it. After a few minutes she calmed down. We often make situations worse by telling others what they should feel and that's not our place. The flip side is that we make it about ourselves and it's not. Calm down. Take a deep breath. And sprinkle grace abundantly. I would want others to do the same for me. Have a blessed day!