I got to participate in something rather special last night. I went to the temple to do the 6pm session. And as I was coming out, the shift coordinator asked if I would like to participate in some sealings. I assumed that it was just some proxy sealings. Turned out however, that there was a couple there, who were sealed together on behalf of her parents. And once that was done, the wife and her sister were sealed to their parents. This was the first living ordinance sealing that I've attended. And it made me think of my grandfather Tom and grandmother Doris, and Mum and little Molly and their little eternal family. It was a lovely evening.

I haven't been writing because I've been too busy working and playing Guitar Hero in my off time. Dave Almond lent me his playstation while he works on some bloody awful take-home test for PhD school. Me and the girls have been playing until our eyes bleed. I've got Mike hooked as well. He's rocking out on "Carry On My Wayward Son" while I write. He played for the first time last Sunday and it truly was love at first sight.

So check out these really cool chocolates Dad sent me for Valentine's.

They're called Telluride Truffles. I'm no chocolate eater, but these were amazing. Each one has a mountain-themed name and my favourite was the Bunny Hill banana flavoured one.

Oh and I've decided maybe it's about time I did my PhD. In history of course. So I've started reading books again. I'm working on "Life In a Medieval Village" and I just two more books, one about the Cathars and one about politics and culture in Vienna in the last days before the First World War. They were having a sale at the secondhand bookshop in SoHo so I got both for under a tenner. I'm feeling smarter already!

Jonathan Frost

It's not often they get enough snow in southern England to build a snowman. I love his celery hair and the arms that are bigger than the snowman himself. I wonder if he comes to life at night and flies to the North Pole to dance with all the other snowman.

It's almost here!

I just saw this on Amazon.com's front page. I had no idea it was coming so soon. I'm so excited I can hardly breathe! Only 169 days, 11 hours and 48 mintues to go...

Duceys make money, not babies

I think my grandmother Rosalba Ducie O'Brien came from one of the least fertile families in America. Her grandfather John Ducie, my great-great grandpa, has just five descendents in my generation. The average family would have dozens and dozens. And if this were a family from Utah they'd have like 200! More on this later.

I've been investigating Duceys/Ducys/Ducies the last couple weeks, inspired by my trip to eastern Ohio. After just five days back from my Christmas hols I felt like I needed to get away. So I flew to Cleveland over the three-day weekend to do some research onsite into this branch of my family. My Dad and us kids are the only Mormons in this part of the family, so it's fun to be the only people looking into their history and doing their temple work. My main goal was to find out what happened to John's mother, Mary Ducey. Her husband died in 1876 (just 14 years after they came to Ohio from Ireland via England) and her four surviving children all went far west to make their fortunes: in the case of John Ducie about $40-50 million. I couldn't understand why they just abandoned her. Well, it turns out she was more than capable of looking after herself. But let's not get ahead of ourselves.

First of all, I can't believe they let me have a rental car, with my British driving license and pathetic little credit card. But drive away with a nice little four-door I did. Inspite of how much I dislike cars and am horrified at the thought of being dependant on one, I had this overwhelming feeling of freedom. I could drive anywhere and explore any place I liked! The drive south to Wayne County was very pretty despite it being winter. It was rolling hills with huge white farmhouses and red barns dotted everywhere. I spent Saturday afternoon in the country public library, looking through all their vital records, cemetery and land information. I found birth and burial records for some of John Ducie's nieces and nephews. I knew Patrick Ducey (John's father) had owned a small parcel of land in an area called Peacock or Rogue's Hollow so I looked up the land sale. The description gave the well at Peacock's Hollow as the starting reference point. The librarian and I were trying to find this on old maps of the area. She brought over a map from a book on the history of Rogues Hollow:

I spotted the well in the center (where the roads converge) and then noticed just above it Mrs Ducey's Saloon. This is not a common name! It had to be my great-great-great grandmother. And just then some of the pages of the book fell back to another page where my eyes immediately alighted on the name "Ducey". I quickly scanned through the book and found that Mary Ducey is mentioned several times. I think she was a bit of a local celebrity. Here's a brief extract from what is a rather gossipy history of the Hollow:

The story is told by an old timer about how Sarah [Chidester, a local saintly young woman] nursed a Mrs. Ducey from certain death to health. Mrs. Mary Ducey ran one of the six saloons in the Hollow.

One day she became seriously ill. A doctor was sent for at Doylestown. He said after several calls that there was nothing he could do to help Mrs. Ducey to get well and left her to die in bed. Sarah had been helping Mrs. Ducey several days. She had learned about Mrs. Ducey being ill. She had walked down the muddy road with her familiar basket to help out. She knew that Mrs. Ducey did not go to church. She knew that Mrs. Ducey kept her saloon open on Sundays. It was closed now. She never approved the use of liquor and never approved of anyone serving the fiery stuff which kept so many wage earners poor. But Mrs. Ducey was ill and needed nursing. Because Mrs. Ducey was not the church-going type of woman or ran a saloon made no difference to Sarah. She had the evangelistic spirit in trying to win souls to heaven. Here was a sick woman who was alone and forlorn, and hope for her recovery was lost. After finding that Mrs. Ducey could not keep water on her stomach, Sarah tried an old remedy. She went back home to get some whey and fed it to the patient. For three nights Sarah nursed her,
prayed with her, cooled her brow with cold cloths and massaged her aching back and neck.

On the third night, the fever broke. Mrs. Ducey went into a deep sleep. When she awoke Sarah again spooned hot whey into her mouth. Hourly her strength returned. Quickly her eyes brightened and she began to talk hopefully. Soon she was raising herself on her elbow and then she began to sit up, and before long she was walking haltingly. Sarah went back to her family with a heart singing thankfulness to God. Mary Ducey went back to setting up drinks for her miners and lived until 1901. Many miners were lonely and tired from working bent over digging coal in the mines. They came to Mrs. Ducey’s saloon for relaxation. Deborah Chidester says she remembers when she was about eight or ten years old, Mrs. Ducey gave her a beautiful cup and saucer. This was one way of showing gratitude to the Chidester family. The year was about 1890.

I also read that she owned several parcels of land and that some had been probated in 1901. So I knew I needed to head back to the library the next day to look up those land sales and the probate packet for Mary. Sunday morning I drove down to the village of Doylestown and Chippewa Township where the Duceys had settled in 1862. First stop was the Sts Peter and Paul Catholic Cemetery to visit the grave of my great-great-great grandfather Patrick Ducey:

Patrick and Mary fled the Irish famine in the 1840s, settling first in England where he mined coal and eventually they came to Ohio, where he continued to work in the coal mines. As you can see from the map above, the steep hills around Rogues Hollow contained dozens of mines. Also buried in this cemetery is Patrick's brother Anthony, his wife Mariah and their son Edward, along with James Schoenberger, son of Patrick's eldest daughter Mary.

Then I drove down the hills into the Hollow to find the land which Patrick and Mary had owned. It was pretty easy to spot, across the road from the well and to the left of the road. Somebody with a red truck lives there now:

There are just a handful of houses in the area. It's a very peaceful spot, but in Patrick and Mary's time it was a rambunctious community of miners and, according to the History, all sorts of criminals and ne'er-do-wells. I had a little wander around and then headed back to the library in Wooster to look for Mary Ducey's will. And here it is:

I knew she had been re-married to a William Collier, who owned much of the land on the other side of the highway. But the will gave me the identity of one of Mary's daughters, Bridget, who I had not been able to trace past the age of 17. It appears she is in fact the infamous Lizzie Chadwick of San Francisco. Her mother named her Bridget, but she had other ideas it seems. So all in all, it was a very successful trip in terms of information found. But most importantly, I don't just now have the bare bones information about Mary, I feel like I have some sense of her character and personality. She was most definitely a gutsy lady. Although she herself was never able to read and write, she and her children went on to become successful business people. As Dad put it, "She may not have been able to read, but she could certainly count!"

Inspired by the success of my trip, I've been doing some further work on the descendents of Patrick and Mary Ducey. They had four of eight children who survived to adulthood: Mary, Bridget/Elizabeth, John and Margaret. Mary and Elizabeth each had six children, my John had two, and Margaret just one. Most of them married but I was surprised to discover that only one each of Mary and Bridget's children had children themselves. John, as I said, has just a handful of descendents and although Margaret had one son, I don't think he think he had any children either. We Ducies are a rare breed. It's a shame... there were some good genes in the family. Thank goodness for Jonathan!

Oh, and I spent the Monday of my trip in Kirtland...

It was a dismal day so I was the only person there and I got a personal tour of the place.

SIZE 2 !!!

Or perhaps I should say size 2. My favourite trousers, the beige ones (fourth picture down), are literally falling off me. I tried rolling them over around the waist... that worked for a couple weeks, but now even that doesn't keep them up. On Saturday I flashed half of JFK and all the people renting cars at Cleveland Hopkins Airport. It was time to face facts and go buy them again in the smaller size. Only the 4 was a little baggy as well. So the 2 it just had to be.

I think I'm "The Incredible Shrinking Woman". We watched that film in the hotel in Hong Kong when I was a 5. It had Lily Tomlin in it. Does anyone remember it? It would probably be just awful if I tried to sit through it again, but at the time I thought it was amazing.

The unseasonably warm weather seems to be continuing. I haven't come out the house with a scarf or gloves since I returned last Tuesday. Saturday was the best day of all. My roommates Juleen and Sara and I went to SoHo to browse in the wool shops. As we walked up West Broadway, all the restaurants had their glass doors opened to the elements - they're usually bolted shut til May with a canvas awning covering the door to keep out the chill. People were dining at sidewalk tables, laughing and enjoying the weather and especially the atmosphere. Brazilian music and delicious smells wafted out on to the street. In every way it was springtime.

Let's hope this keeps up!

Platform 9 3/4

We were changing trains at Kings Cross the other day and nearly ended up at Hogwarts!

Somebody likes Stephen...

Little Eleanor has taken quite a shine to our Stephen. We spent yesterday in Cambridge and today we drove up to Norwich to visit Stuart, Christopher and Eleanor at their house. Stephen and Eleanor were rarely apart. At lunch yesterday, Eleanor wouldn't sit down, so Stephen told her that if she didn't do as she had been asked, then they couldn't be friends anymore. Eleanor announced "Too late, I'm already your girlfriend."

Pictures from Christmas and from Cambridge and Norwich.

My parents are telling stories about their past, but they can't remember the details. We're calling it trips down memory loss lane...

Bovees + Kings

My future brother-in-law, Stuart, and new niece Eleanor and nephew Christopher.


They came to visit this afternoon and I got to meet them all for the first time. It was a little odd meeting my sister's new family, but they're all terrific. I'm looking forward to going up to their house in Norwich next week. It was total chaos at our place: nine people in a what even by New York standards is a small flat. But we had a nice little party for Lucy's 28th birthday. Later I'll get her to model the cow tipping t-shirt I brought for her from Wisconsin.

Now it's 8pm on Christmas Eve and Jonathan is getting really excited. He and Stephen are checking the internet for Santa sightings.

It's bah-luuudy cold!

England is covered in fog. It's like a horror film. It started the morning I arrived and will hang around until after Christmas. I rode the train into London yesterday and you can't see the fields beyond the railway line, it's just a blanket of fog. The weather is freezing, nothing like New York, and I'm having trouble adjusting. Been spending lots of time under blankets just trying to stay warm. And reading Jonathan Christmas stories.

We went shopping in London yesterday and hit all my favourite shops, Patridges, John Lewis, Selfridges, and bought some of my favourite treats. It's beautiful in London. Christmas lights everywhere.

Only three days to Christmas! And on Christmas Eve I get to meet Stuart, Christopher, and Eleanor. I'm really excited about that.

I'm a size 4

It's official. I bought the trousers yesterday. I needed new jeans. The one pair I have are getting kinda big and it's a right nuisance when your trousers start falling down.

My blog has been unloved

Yes, I temporarily abandoned it. And I'm not quite ready to put my heart into it again. I will begin again in earnest when I go home for Christmas - I arrive in England three weeks today! But for those who are interested, a quick recap of the last two months:

*Broke up with boyfriend - but we're still mates
*Jury duty was utterly ridiculous but mercifully short
*New boss at work is completely groovy
*Have knitted a ton of hats
*Started dating again, but turns out I'm pretty crap at it
*Love my new apartment and having all my friends nearby
*Looking forward to Christmas
*Am about to acquire a new nephew, a niece and a brother-in-law

That's it for now. Keep tuning in.

Happy birthday to me!

So, a quick recap of my birthday weekend. Thursday night Sara and Jill had a little birthday party for me at 99 John St with Casey, Kristian and Joe. We watched The Office and eat carrot cake with my name on it! I haven't had a cake with my name in icing since I was a kid.

Friday I stayed overnight with Joanne and in the morning we went apple and raspberry picking near Princeton. These apples later became two scrummy pies!

Back in Manhattan that evening, Mike and I dined on steak fried swimming in butter. Sounded good in theory, looked somewhat terrifying in progress, but the proof is in the eating and the steak was D-licious! Chef Michael gets a full four stars. Then it was on to see Mates of State at Irving Plaza. The show was great and I came away with some birthday swag.

Sunday we went to conference at 12, then home to make pies and castle-shaped birthday cakes. We had our first dinner on Jenn Cook's terrace downstairs, with the singing of Happy Birthday and, I swear, fireworks over the river to follow. All for me, of course! With phone calls from family and friends galore the day was complete. I'm a happy girlie!

"Avante-garde is French for bullshit." - John Lennon

Things are still quiet on this end, but look for upcoming posts on:

* fabulous birthday celebrations
* truth, justice and the American way a.k.a. Genevieve does jury duty
* a possible trip to The Islands

Lucy has just rung to tell me that instead of coming to New York to visit me, she, Mum and J are going to Croatia and Bosnia for Fall half-term holidays. I've been dumped for this:

Is it really any wonder?!

I am so envious, I had heart palpitations when she told me. I haven't been to any new beautiful and exotic places this year. Wisconsin SO does not count. Aileen better make good on her promise to take me to Puerto Rico next spring. I'm almost tempted to go whole hog and blow the thousand bucks it would cost to go to Bermuda for my birthday. But I'm not that crazy just yet.

A quick update: we are all moved in to the new digs on Wall Street. We don't have a bed yet or a bookcase yet, but soon. Nearly done with the painting. The wall in our living room went up yesterday. I think I've run out of headaches. Oh happy day! I promise to post some pictures soon.

It's a little guy's birthday today

Jonathan was born seven years ago today. It was a Monday. It was a crazy day. Lucy rang at 6 am to tell me, "I have a son." Dad had to leave for Heathrow aiport shortly after to catch a flight home to Saudi Arabia. Mum arrived home from the hospital later in the morning. I remember helping her make the bed, we were in a bit of a daze, and she called me auntie for the first time. We made a dash to Mothercare to buy little person clothes - I couldn't believe how tiny the socks were - and at 3pm that afternoon I held my little friend for the first time.
I wasn't prepared for a little baby to come into my life. It meant complete upheaval at home, and truly, the flat - actually my whole life - has never been the same since. He looked like me. People used to stop the three of us in the street and tell my sister she had such a gorgeous little nephew. It’s the dark hair. We match. We spent four years together before I moved to New York. We had wonderful adventures, especially Barceloooona.

Now he’s seven. He’s the smartest kid in his class/school/county/the universe. He says prayers that could part the Red Sea if he so needed. He’s interested in everything: astronomy, history, trains, teletubbie custard. He talks about them all, without ever stopping for air. And most importantly – finally something we can take credit for – he knows his family loves him and he’s a happy, secure little boy.

Happy Birthday Jonathan!!