At the Shake Shack...
We made one last trip to Temple Square to take pictures with the Christmas lights, and then it was on the airport. I was just starting to get acclimatised to the city. And I was really enjoying being with Stephen. Shame I had to leave... but I might be back.
Ooops, I meant to save this as a draft, not post it yet. But since it's up I'd better give it a caption. This is Interpol at Madison Square Garden last Friday, 14 September. The show was amazing. The new songs sounded great live, but the best thing... the tickets were free. A friend at work had put them aside especially for me.
Earlier in the afternoon I had ventured out to the Red Hook Ballfields in Brooklyn with friends (Brigham Barnes, Michelle Hales, Dave Almond and Kim Jones) to try the Latin American food on offer every Saturday afternoon. I tried something called a huarrache
and an elote, which was ridiculously delicious. I also tried papusas from El Salvador.
Georgian Republic
we did a bit of shopping, went to see the birds in Trafalgar Square, ate kebabs for lunch in Leicester Square and walked through Covent Garden and over to St Pauls Cathedral and the Millenium Bridge. 
Friday we ran went shopping in Luton and then headed over to St Albans to pick up some clothes for the wedding. On the way home, we stopped at St Albans Abbey.
Saturday my little sister Lucy got married. I was the maid of honour.
Lucy looked lovely and they were both glowing. It was a lovely wedding.
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.
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...
Now it's 8pm on Christmas Eve and Jonathan is getting really excited. He and Stephen are checking the internet for Santa sightings.
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.
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!
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.
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.
mother's family lived before the last century. After catching up with everyone at church on Sunday morning, we headed to the Suffolk coast (that's the bump bit of England to the east). We were heading for Aldeburgh, a seaside town my Mum has been wanting to visit for sometime. Turns out it's rather a posh little place with lots of Londoners inhabiting the beautiful sea front houses over the long weekend. Jonathan had a wonderful time, chucking hundreds of pebbles into the sea.The drive home was exciting. We joined the little car parade. English roads are chock full of dinky little cars (most of them, ironically, imported from large European countries like France, Spain and Italy). We were driving a modest sized French-made Peugot, which could just about handle the 70 mph speed limit, when we were suddenly passed by three tiny little cars you almost needed a magnifying glass to see. They were like Jonathan's toy cars, yet some of them were doing at least 85. A physical impossibility I would have thought. We all chased each other for miles, passing and repassing, until the parade broke up when we turned off onto the A6.
Tuesday, Lucy was back at work so Mum and Jonathan and I had one last day out in the car. We went to the Welney Wetlands Center in the morning to see ducks and other wild fowl. It's a nature reserve in the middle on the fenlands of Cambridgeshire. The fens are marshlands that have been drained for agriculture. The roads are all built up several feet above the level of the land and the water is drained into a system of canals. The Welney reserve is the winter grounds for thousands of ducks and swans. In the summer, it's a little quieter, but we did see a little family of ducks up close, as well as swans and several South African swallows who are here for the winter (in S.A. that is). The arrival of the swallows is a sign the summer has come. The little fellows were darting about all over the place.
Then we headed west, via the Houghton Water Mill (the last working water mill in the East of England), to see the Eleanor Cross in the village of Geddington. If you've seen Braveheart (my condolences if you have), the old king of England in the film is Edward I, and Eleanor was his wife. She was on a pilgrimage to Lincoln Catherdral 200 miles north of London when she popped her clogs. Her body was brought back to London in a grand procession and everywhere they stopped for the night, Edward had an "Eleanor Cross" built to mark the spot. There were fourteen, but only three have survived the last 800 years.
Our last stop was Kirby Hall, which Lauren will recognise as Mansfield Park. The house is actually a ruin, except for the wing of the house with the rounded bay windows. Jonathan really got into the audio tour, insisting on listening to entire commentary for each room. I don't have the patience and kept wandering on ahead, much to Jonathan's consternation (he likes things done in proper order). He's cheerful in this photo, but the moment before he was giving me the evil eye for walking into the library before he was done with the previous room.
There are lots more pictures here, but they're in reverse order. The last two days I've been playing games with Jonathan and doing battle with him for control of the television and computer. Tomorrow we're going to London to see the Queen. And shop!
