One of my grandmother’s favorite sayings was “Everything happens for a reason.” In an article on the Psychology Today website, this phrase is described as a standard reply to “remarkable synchronicities.” Although I’ve never totally bought into it, this bit of philosophy has come in handy to explain hard to explain events or “remarkable synchronicities” … More Remarkable synchronicity and goosebumps
It all started with the letters. Letters found in family records, written by a doomed young Civil War soldier to his wife. John Williamson was 22 years old, six months married, with a wife three months pregnant when he was mustered into military service as a sergeant in the Union Army in October 1861. The … More You Dream Every Night That I am Home
Today is Veteran’s Day, 2021. It’s the first Veteran’s Day that William Boyd of the town of Jim Thorpe, PA finally has a military marker. William Boyd was a Private in the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry in the Union Army during the Civil War, and for a time he was a prisoner of war in Richmond. … More A Civil War veteran was finally honored for his service on Veteran’s Day
Life can be really unfair. I’ve been doing research for a book that I’m writing based on the letters of the first husband of my great x4 Aunt Hester. John Williamson wrote these letters home to Hester while he was serving in the Union Army during the Civil War. He didn’t make it home. John … More Beyond the battlefield: how one little girl lost not only her father, but her entire family during the Civil War
Somehow, with no idea of what I was doing, I was able to get a military marker for a Civil War veteran who had none. A cousin of mine (four times removed) was in the 4th Pennsylvania Cavalry during the Civil War and became a prisoner of war at Libby Prison in Richmond, from which … More How I was able to honor a hero with the help of a few good people
A bloody Civil War battle engaging 40,000 soldiers and resulting in 1,500 casualties. A field hospital full of wounded men, 2,500 of whom would be left behind to the enemy as night fell, thunderstorms rolled in, and the battle front shifted. Two historic locomotives—one that would come slowly down the track pushing an armored big … More “Remember me is all I ask…”
I spent most of my life in the suburbs of Washington, D.C., which is technically part of the Mid-Atlantic area but I always considered myself a northerner, in the world of north versus south. Recently, my husband and I moved to Virginia, so far south we’re in the Richmond TV market. I wasn’t fully aware … More What is a monument?
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