Bama Planter

Ezekiel West, born in Harford County, Maryland in March of 1755. Died in New London Township, Chester County, Pennsylvania. Died April 21st, 1873. Aged 118 years and one month !

I spray-painted some pine cones from Auntee's yard and placed them in old containers on the front porch. I saved the sunflower stalks ( the red birds eat the seeds) and gave them a little spray paint color and put them on the edge of the porch. This is 100% prim decorating style !! Love it or not. The 1816 cabin in prim-decorating glory ! Nothing fancy but prim always understates the situation. Joe in Denver says my house would be " not bad for a hill Billy house article Ina Yankee mag lol " The mower always seems to look better in the fall ! The house can be deceiving from the outside: the front and back rooms are each 30 feet long and 20 feet wide ! The upstairs is 30 feet long and 12 feet wide with 25 ft. long closets on each side. The back addition ( which you can't see ) is 20 x 12. It's still called "Joe's Room" although he moved back to Denver 22 years ago.

First of all, the front door wasn't intended to be this ugly egg yellow. I was going to grain paint over it. I thought the paint was mustard, but I used the wrong can ! I am getting the paints now but have not decided on the new colors. I haven't painted in ten years. The wreath is made of old bed springs. I use about 15 per wreath. I only have this one that I kept. I reload it each season with whatever is available and suitable for the celebration. One can make and sell at least a dozen wreaths from a set of old bed springs, which people practically give away. They sell as quickly as I can make them. This year, the golden leaves came from Cedar Creek Antiques, which is a local shop. The painted gourd came from my friend Wanda, who deals only in primitives. The dark burlap on top came from a shop about an hour away, which was called Remember When. The new burlap and colorful ribbons on the bottom came from my new friend Pat, who owns Home Farm Antiques in New...

Miss Weeden's work was published in a book in 1962 called "Shadows on the Wall" ( Colonial Press, Northport, Alabama, 148 pages, by Frances C. Roberts and Sarah Huff Fisk ) The book is occasionally listed on ebay, but there were not many copies printed. I have three. Her paintings of local African Americans, were used to illustrate her nostalgic poems about the Old South. Each portrait was chosen to illustrate a particular poem. Her paintings are highly prized and rarely come up for sale. The Weeden house is still standing in Huntsville, Alabama. Here is her painting used to illustrate the poem " Beaten Biscuit."

The truth has been shown the light. My grandmother's typical family stories.... of Cherokee ancestors, of questionable "highwaymen" accounts of great grandfathers who were "deported" long after deportation from England stopped, and the knowledge that her Evans family is from the Appalachian Mountains in Western North Carolina and North Georgia, coupled with the name Evans being a common MELUNGEON sir name.... It all adds up to a typical hidden MELUNGEON ancestry. I am proud of it. the Melungeon people were ALREADY THERE when the English and Scots got to Western North Carolina. They are apparently mixed Native American, African, and Portuguese. The ancestry is no longer being hidden ( generally) and a pride of this heritage is on the rise in the area. It also finally explains my 2 % African American ancestry on my DNA test !

WHEN THE TROUBLE BEGAN. My ancestor James Cunningham of Lunenburg County VA made out his Last Will in 1762. He could not write, so his name was written for him and he "made his mark" ( an X ) on the page. Some researcher about 1980 saw that and thought he had the middle name MARK. NOT SO. I have fought this mistake for 40 years. Now it's on Ancestry and has a life of its own. English law at the time did not allow non-royals to have middle names, with few exceptions. James Cunningham died in the fall of 1762, leaving wife Jane Scott Cunningham, and three sons, William, James, and John. James the son died before reaching adulthood, so his two brothers inherited his part. John joined the Virginia line and was made a Lieutenant during the Revolutionary War. He lived in Lunenburg and Charlotte Counties in Virginia before moving to Wilkes County, North Carolina. His final move was to the area of Coffee and Warren Counties in Tennessee. He died in 1842 and is...

Many Baby Boomers such as myself have been so greatly influenced by our parents that we are living in the Great Depression and don't know it. Let me be clear from the outset. I am not a hoarder. The house of a hoarder has rooms that can no longer function as they were intended to function. Hallways and stairways are so full of "things" that they are unsafe. That is not the condition I am describing. No one has to climb over anything to enter any room in my house. The Baby Boomers have inherited a different sort of condition, one that is hidden from view. We might detect it in each other, but no casual outsider visiting our home would think anything unusual was going on. But it is. We are, in fact, still living in the Great Depression. Let me give you just one example of why this has evolved in me. When my sister redid my father's bathroom after he moved back home, he did what he usually did. He told the men who were working, " Don't worry about hauli...

Private Moses Johnson - Elk Creek District Militia, Virginia. He was a part of the 2nd Virginia Regiment with General George Washington's Continental Army, from Valley Forge until Cornwallis surrendered at Yorktown. My cousin Andy Johnson ( descendant of Moses via his son William) and his daughter attended the February 2022 ceremony here in Shelby County, Alabama to honor our ancestor Moses Johnson. I descend via his son Moses Johnson JR who married Margaret Ann "Anny" West, daughter of Rev. Dr. Joshua West and wife Hannah Prentice. Andy and daughter obtained these wonderful photos of the ceremony.

This is a photo of Theodore Morris Allen and wife Mattie Perry. She was a daughter of Jacob Perry the Old Planter whose plantation house is still standing just north of Montevallo, Shelby County, Alabama. It is now a public park with 167 acres of the original plantation. In the rocking chair is Mattie's sister Amelia Perry. By the curtain holding the fan is Bertie Helen Allen, who was in the first graduating class of what is now the University of Montevallo, Class of 1899 with only 3 members. She never married and was a school teacher. The girl wearing the dark dress and holding flowers is Bessie Allen. The little girl in white is Maggie ( Margaret) Stelle Allen. The young man behind Ameila Perry is Edgar Perry Allen. The young man next to Bessie and Bertie is George Allen. I estimate the photo was taken in the late 1890's. Mrs. Allen died in 1903 so it is no later than that.

This is my best Memento Mori postmortem photograph. She is a cased view ferrotype ( tintype) ca. 1860.

Views of the library room, a 20 x 20 addition to the 1816 log cabin. The Old Paris vases and lusters sit atop a plantation desk a couple of feet below the 12 ft. ceiling. Even the pink Old Paris vase has been converted into a lamp, something that was popular to do in the 1960's. The pink lusterware fills a flat-bottom cupboard from antebellum Alabama. The couches and chairs reflect the pink and blue colors of the room. Copy any and all pictures needed to present my case for the love of pink, even thought mustard is my favorite color !