Poppa the Apple Peeler

Sara is going to pick up apples tomorrow at her grandparents house so she can make applesauce. Thinking about that brought back memories od Grandma and Poppa.  Grandma would dry apples in the hot summer sun to mak fried pies with in the winter.  She would also make applesauce.  I don't know exactly how she kept bugs or flies out of her apples.  I do know she spread them out everyday in the sun on a piece of plywood that Poppa had set up for her across a couple of sawhorses. I remember seeing Poppa many days sitting under the shade tree peeling apples.  After they moved to town I think Grandma laid the apples on a table in the screened in back porch but Popoa was still the one who peeled them.

A simpler time.  Good memories.

Atlanta

We just drove through Atlanta, GA.  Seeing Atlanta brought back lots of memories.  As far back as I can remember every year we went to GA to visit grandparents and aunts and uncles.  This always entailed going through Atlanta.  My grandparents lived in Kennesaw which was west of  Atlanta but I had aunts and uncles who lived in various suburbs east or south of Atlanta.  And of course we would usually climb Stone Mtn if we could.   I also remember going to the zoo a couple times and one year we got to go the Civil War Cyclorama.  All fun times but the best part of all was time spent with family.  This past weekend a lot of these Brown family members gathered together once again to share good times.  God has blessed me with two wonderful families "the Browns and the Bolands". The family good times and memories is something I hope to pass on to my children and grandchildren all based on the blessings of God.

Emily

July 30, 1977 was a saturday.  i don't remember what i did that day but i clearly remember the night. sam and i lived in a big old 2 bedroom house in coldwater, ms.  he worked for ups and i was a stay at home mom. stephen had turned 2 in march and we were anxiouslly awaiting the birth of our second child. during those days you didn't have all the test they do today unless you were having some kind of major problems no problems for me so we didn't know if we were having a boy or a girl.  but i felt like the baby was a girl.

when stephen was born we had his name picked out and a name for a girl.  we liked the girl name so we were going to go with it for this baby if it turned out to be a girl.  i can't remember what boy's name we had chosen.  i think we had a bit of a problem coming up with one that's why i thought this baby was a girl.

so it was saturday night and being 9 months pregnant i was tired and ready for bed.  sam decided to stay up and watch a movie on the tv. around 10 i woke up with my back killing me. so i got up and went to the couch so sam could give me a back rub.  he did and we went back to bed.  a bit later i woke up with it hurting again and realized that this might be the beginning of labor.  i kinda of dozed off and on until early morning.  after doing some timing we decided to call the doctor around 6am.  he said go to the hospital.

my parents were already planning on coming up to our house so mother could be there to take care of stephen whenever the time came.  so we gave them a call hoping to catch them before they left.  they were just about to get in the car.  sam told them to head on up to the baptist hospital in memphis and not to come to the house.

we got the hospital about 7.  and they did all the wonderful prep work on me.  of course we had stephen with us so sam kept him entertained by riding up and down the escalator until my parents could get there.

at 11:30 am our beautiful blond headed baby girl was born and we named her emily (after Sam's great-grandmother) marie (after me and my mom).  she was born the seventh month in the 77 year, she was the seventh granddaughter of grandma morgan's and the seventh morgan grandchild, she weighed 7 lbs 7 oz. and she was the first granddaughter for my parents and the first great-granddaughter for my grandparets

happy birthday darling daughter. you were worth every backache!

Blessings

i lay in bed the other night thinking about the many blessings in my life -- my parents who made sure that i went to church so i would have an opportunity to hear the gospel of Jesus Christ -- my husband who has loved me these past 42 years -- my four children and their spouses -- and of course my ten grandchildren -- and many, many more. but the ones that i want to focus on here are four particular blessings -- my children -- stephen, emily, matthew, and andrew.  as i lay there thinking and thanking God for my blessings i thought how each of my children are unique.  they each hold a piece of my heart and i love them each dearly. and yet my love for each is different but at the same time it is the same.  it is different because each child is different.  it is the same because they are each a part of me.  there is no room for comparison or for rivalry.  they are each unique and thus should be loved uniquely.

stephen is my first born.  he holds the honor of being the one to teach me the love of a mother for her child.  he will always hold the title of first for everything -- first to call me Mom, first to make things for me, first to make me hurt when he hurt, first to do so many things. because of stephen we became a family and not just a couple.  so it is only fitting that he holds a big piece of my heart.

emily is my first born daughter (ok she is also my only daughter).  she holds the honor of  being my second child but my first and only daughter.  she will always be the one who was first to do girly things, the first to be the little sister, she was the first to teach me the difference in a mother's love for her son and for her daughter. so it is only fitting that she holds a big piece of my heart.

matthew is my first born red head (i have red hair) -- he is my second son and my third child but he is the first to look more like me than his dad. he is first to be the little brother. he was the first to help me understand the blessing it is to be a red-head, he is the first to teach me the difference in 2 little boys and how alike they can be. so it is only fitting that he holds a big piece of my heart.

andrew is my first born last child -- he will always hold the honor of being the baby of the family. he was the first to teach me that there is always room in your heart for another baby boy even though you thought your heart was full.   he taught me that there is always something new to learn and you're never to old to learn. he also taught me that God is still a God of miracles. so it is only fitting that he holds a big piece of my heart.

for each piece of my heart given to each child, God gives back to me another piece to give away.

four children who have each blessed my life in their own unique way and i would have it no other way.

i love you stephen, emily, matthew, and andrew. i loved you the first time i held you in my arms and i love you even more today. i give thanks to God for blessing my life with each of you and for choosing me to be your mother.

stephen

elijah nathanael lee morgan will be a week old tomorrow. he is grandson #5 and grandchild #10 and he is the fifth child of my first - stephen lee morgan.  thinking about eli's birth brought back memories of stephen's birth. in fact eli was almost as big as his daddy -- eli 8lbs 15 ozs -- step 9lbs 3 ozs. another similarity -- eli was born on saturday afternoon and step was born on friday. eli is probably the last child to be born to their family whereas step was the first.

stephen was a bit of a surprise --- well actually all of my children were.  i had a miscarriage in march and then had a terrible stomach flu in april and then come may i got pregnant.  we were living in pensacola, fl and had friends down to visit us for a week during june.  they were a bit older than we were and didn't have any kids.  during their visit they shared their news that they were expecting their first child. unknowing at the time that we also were expecting our first child. kimberly was born about a month before stephen.

sam was working for a construction company that did contract work for southern bell telephone company and i was working for an insurance agency.  after learning our surprising news sam began to think of getting a better paying job.  about that time we went home (mississippi) for a visit.  his brother-in-law bob and his nephew billy had both just hired on with the army corp of engineers to work on the tombigbee waterway project.  after we got back to pensacola, sam made contact with the corp office in mobile, alabama and got a job working on a drill rig. first job was in aliceville, alabama.  i stayed on in pensacola for the first month and gave my notice.  then in october i started travelling with sam.  our plans were to just keep our apartment in pensacola until we decided where we wanted to settle.

those plans changed abruptly when i called our realtor the first of november to make sure they got our rent check and see if things were going ok.  he gave us the news that our apartment had been broken into and some of our stuff stolen.  fortunately the theives were caught with our stuff so we got most of it back. the theives were our next door neighbors -- they crawled through the attic and got into our apartment that way. they were new neighbors who had not lived there very long before i left.

so during thanksgiving holidays sam, bob, billy, and i drove down and loaded everything up and moved us to calhoun city -- to a small apartment (only 1 bedroom -- stephen's crib was in a corner of the dining room) that sat beside the furneral home. so i travelled with sam until february than i stayed at the apartment and he would come home on weekends.  at that time they were working around columbus so it wasn't a bad drive.

i don't remember exactly but i think my due date was not too long after my birthday -- which is february 17.  but i really didn't think he/she would come until the first part of march.  he came on march 7th.  the last couple of weeks i stayed with my folks (just in case).  i remember my aunt louise would call me every morning and say " weeellll how you feeling to day jan?  you feel any different?"
same answer everyday --- nope just the same.

i had a doctor's appointment on march 6. doc decided maybe the baby needed a bit of help to get things started so he told me to check into the hospital that evening and he would induce the next morning. sam came over to see me that night and the plans were for him to come back after work the next day --- thinking that baby wouldn't come before then.  he leaves around 9 and mother and i get settled in for the night.  around midnight i have to go to the bathroom and as i'm getting back into bed my water breaks.  guess stephen didn't like the idea of him not being the one in charge of when he wanted to make an appearance. so we get everything humming along and i go back to sleep (kinda).  when doc comes in to check up on me early in the morning he doesn't like the looks of things and puts a monitor on stephen --- just in case.  daddy calls sam about 5:30 and tells him to hightail it back to houston.  my cousin nell and my aunt louise show up sometime during the day and my daddy gets there as soon after work as possible.  as for me i didn't know about any of this until later.  things rock along all day until the magic time sometime around 5. by this time i'm finally alert and know what's happening.  they wheel me into delivery and there at 5:30 i get to meet my beautiful big baby boy. ( i think daddy got there just as the doctor was coming out to tell everybody what we had.  i also think he got a speeding ticket that evening.)

it was a very special time. i think all my family members were standing around in the hall i know sam was anyway when the doctor came out.  sam said after he told them what we had and how big he was he just looked at sam and just smiled and shook his head then walked off down the hall.

5 days later we got to go home to begin our life as a family.  i stayed at my folks house except for weekends when sam came home.  then in april stephen and i started travelling with him.  he would rent us a trailer so we didn't have to stay in motels.  so for the first year of his life stephen didn't stay in one place more than a few weeks at a time.  he travelled from columbus, ms to fulton, ms to clarksville, tn to kingsport, tn and back to clarksville then finally to calhoun city.  then when he was 17 months old we moved to coldwater, ms and rented a house and he had his own room at last -- at least for a few months.  when he was 28 months he had to share it with his sister emily but that's another story.

"a wonderful Christmas"

i began this blog to help my children understand and know more about my family. the week of christmas they actually were able to live a few of the memories for themselves.  this christmas we did something that the morgan family has not been able to do in a long time.  we spent several days together the week of chirstmas. 

sam and i flew out of eugene on christmas eve headed to memphis, tn and then driving on to calhoun city, ms.  for the first time in 21 years we spent christmas day with my mom and my brother in cc. then later in the afternoon matt, angela, emma, brett, and eleanor got there. then on monday my sister and brother-in-law came in.  when we began to realize we would all be together by wednesday evening my sister and i planned a brown christmas dinner with all the kids, grandkids, and great-grands.  on tuesday andrew, sara, anna and scott arrived. then on wednesday stephen, jessica, rachel katharine, samuel, sophie, noah, emily, jon, maddie, ethan and all of my brother's kids and grandkids got there.  we had about 40 people at the house on wednesday evening. throughout the day cousins came by and vistied which was really nice. so my kids got to experience how the family holidays were when i was little with lots of people going and coming at my house and a big family meal with everybody scattered throughtout the house eating and talking and having a good time.

then we went to a bed and breakfast and spent 3 nights and 2 days together just the morgans but once again friends and family dropped in and visited both days. it was nice to a have a place where everybody had a bed and yet we were all under one roof. hopefully my grandchildren will cherish the memories of those few hours we were all together and will pass the tradition on to their children and grandchildren.

"the Bolands"

my mother was the baby in her family - child number 11. she has often told me that all poppy ( her father Ed Boland) had to do was hang his pants on the bedpost and mommy (ary carter boland) would get pregnant.  in fact when she found out that i was expecting our fourth child she said i must have mommy's genes. mommy and poppy were double first cousins which has caused quite a few statements about it being a miracle there were no crazies in our family.  the bolands and carters are so interwined that it takes a bit of thinking to get it all straight.  fortunately both families have been researched by others who complied a book on the carters and one on the bolands. anyway poppy's daddy and mommy's mother were sister and brother and poppy's mother and mommy's daddy were sister and brother.  we have always know mommy's name as ary but in the carter book we learned that her name was Mary Gonnie but poppy called her ary - possibly just a shortened form for mary.  interesting enough both of the mother's were named louisa and both fathers first name was william. to complicate the family line even more the two oldest girls married brothers.

carrie edna  married attie bounds
clara ethel married timothy bounds
maybelle  married charlie whitworth
ira eugene (called son) married ida bell hubbard
frank carter married eula lucas
william fredrick (called pete) married lelia hubbard
verner jackson ( called jinks) married margaret terry
euewell edward (called coot but known also by U.L.) married mattie sparkman
melvin wilton married madolyn mcquary
louise itascal married karl wayne easley
yvonne marie married prentice brown

i was blessed to know all the brothers and sisters except aunt maybelle.  she died from cancer when her daughter nell was just 10. mother and aunt louise helped raise nell so she has always seemed more like mother's sister than her niece. among the 11 kids they provided mommy and poppy with 30 grandchildren and umpteen great grands and great-great grands. i never got to know mommy.  she died the year before i was born but poppy lived with us some of the time i was growning up.  he developed diabetes which caused him to have to have several amputations.  he was bedridden the last few years of his life.  he would live with aunt louise for a while and then he would come stay with us - trying to give mother and aunt lousie a break ever now and then. he was at our house when he got ill the last time and was taken to the hospital where he passed away. i remember the next day at school one of the students came up to us in the hall to tell us that ed boland had died not realizing that he was our grandfather and we already knew all about it.

for such a big family they stayed really close.  i remember visiting the aunts and uncles and having meals at their homes and even spending the night with them at times.  most all of the brothers and sisters got together for  easter, thanksgiving and christmas plus almost every weekend during the summer months. aunt madolyn was from vardaman and at some point she and uncle melvin bought or rented a place in vardaman close to her dad's place.  they lived in shaw but came up to cc almost every weekend.  i can remember one year we went to their vardaman house to have our easter get together.  we had sooo many eggs that the adults who hid them couldn't remember where they all were. thanksgiving was at different homes - sometimes ours, sometimes uncle coot's and sometimes aunt louise's.  christmas was the biggest celebration of them all.  we had christmas eve at one house with a big meal and lots of presents, then christmas morning we had breakfast at a different house with a big meal and we had lunch at a different house with a big meal and then leftovers for supper. to finish the day off we had fireworks (which we had gotten under the christmas tree that morning) after dark. lots of fun times with most of the cousins. of couse some of the cousins were older and had kids themselves. beacause of that some of my first cousins kids seem more like my first cousins because they were closer to my age.

summer months were filled with boland family outings or bbqs. uncle coot and uncle melvin made this big bbq grill and put it down in uncle coot's yard. so most of the weekends were spent eating there with uncle melvin providing the meat and he and uncle coot doing the cooking.  the ladies provided everything else. those were some good hamburgers and steaks. some sunday afternoons would find us going to grenada lake for our cook-outs.

gradually over the years as we grew up and kids were having kids and brother and sisters were getting older our get togethers became limited to christmas dinner and we had to move it to the american legion building to have room for everybody. still good food and good times.

as you can tell eating was an important pass time for the boland family which was also evident by their size. of the 11 children and spouses the only ones still living is my mother and my aunt madolyn.