Our Legacy Continues...Happy Mother's Day

Diana did such a fine job on her post about two mothers that had the greatest influence in our lives and our children's lives that I will just say "Ditto!" When the Deacon read Proverbs 31 this morning, I immediately thought of mother and the example that she left us to follow. So I have decided to write about our ongoing family project and dedicate it to all the women in our family's history.

I took off work Friday to meet a distant cousin and her husband, Nelda and Benny,  that I had never met except through email and the internet. Diana and I met them at the Tioga cemetery that morning, and then the journey began. By 5:00 PM we had visited Tioga, Collinsville, Ethel, Tioga, Hall, and West Hill Cemetery. We had visited atleast 100 graves of the Scoggins branch and I visited some of the other branches if they were in our path. They took 97 pictures; and I took many more than that. My thighs were sore from getting on my knees to get eye-level to take each picture.

We have had our great, great grandfather's marker made and set. Through Nelda's extensive research, she had proof of his war records so she did the paperwork to get him a war marker. She thought she was going to see it in a storage building; but thanks to Flesher Funeral home, they set it Thursday afternoon when they found that she was coming to Grayson county on Friday. She was "almost" speechless when she saw it at the cemetery. We had kept this as a surprise. For some reason he did not have a marker, and his wife did so this had bothered some family members. This fall we are going to have a military memorial service for this ancestor with all the family invited.

Nelda is a walking encyclopedia of Scoggin(s) history. She told many stories all day long of our family's past. As I reflected back on the day Friday night, I realized several things just kept surfacing all day long. One - we have been die-hard Baptists for many generations with strong Christian principles. She was thrilled to death, when she found out we were Baptist.
Two - the men were willing to fight for their country. I have some great war stories for later posts.
Three - the women were hard workers, and usually the mother of many children. Education was important.

With each step of this genealogy project, I am just amazed with the ability of some people to do such extensive research. Many, many thanks to Nelda for all the information that I gained on this day to pass on (or bore) my boys with.