Unionville, PA: Mama, We're not in Kansas Anymore!

One mission of our trip was to stop in Unionville, PA to have a quick visit with my mom's high school friend Marilyn.  They attended Riley High School together.  Mom moved from LaPorte to South Bend and Marilyn was kind to the new girl.  The rest is history.  Marilyn told me that "your mother was quite the looker (not hooker) and the boys loved the fresh face."  Definitely reminds me of new students arriving in 8th grade.  The two women have been friends for over 70 years!

Marilyn and Bob live on 125 rolling acres in Southeast PA.  Both are Chemical Engineers from Purdue.  Bob has his PHd and worked at DuPont during its glory years.  He has quite the resume.  He took polyester from the science world to commercial use, worked with Mylar and Kevlar, and had a hand in the space shuttle program.  Very nice, kind, everyday people. He served on multiple boards, and is still holds some advisory position at Purdue.

What started as a quick visit evolved into a three night, two day marathon.  We went to Longwood Gardens (built by Pierre S. duPont), which is a formal garden that spans 1077 acres and has a 4-acre conservatory.  Spectacular it the only word I can use to describe this setting.  I was ho-hum about going, but the place is so vast and stunning it definitely tops any other formal gardens I've seen in my lifetime--including those in Europe.

The only catch is that I pushed Mom in a wheelchair, while Marilyn led the tour on a scooter.  Did I mention the rolling hills in the garden yet???  I thought going up was tough---until we went down the first hill.  I could barely maintain control of the wheelchair.  Needless to say, I had quite the whole body workout.  It was pretty funny actually, because neither woman had a clue what was happening to me.  They did, however, comment that I looked "tired" that evening.

The next day Mom and I took a side trip to Lancaster County.  I wanted to visit a quilt shop in Intercourse and Mom wanted to see what all the fuss was about.  The 35 mile drive over took two hours due to traffic and construction, but the return trip was just under an hour and was beautiful. Neither of us felt the "buzz" that Lancaster County must give other people.  LaGrange County is prettier, more realistic, and far less tourist trap-like.  I did, however, find a few things to add to my fabric stash, notions stash, and book collection.

My favorite find is a cute cement doxie that looks just like our aging Oscar.  I asked Mom if it was inappropriate to purchase a memorial for a dog that was still alive.  We concluded that it wasn't as people regularly pre-plan their funerals all the time.  My good choice was verified by the fact that another customer petted the dog while we were waiting to have it wrapped.  She stood there stroking the cement wiener dog for a good five minutes--his tail is never going to wag, lady!

Our evenings were spent lingering over dinner and finishing up those bottles of wine.  I loved hearing tales of my mother's high school days, old boyfriends and antics.  I've never talked to anyone that has known my mother for that long with the exception of my uncle.  Beautiful times and I know both Mom and Marilyn--each at 87 years strong, wonder if they will ever see each other again.  It is times like this, that I am especially grateful to spend such times with my mother.

Hopefully, I will get caught up later today on the blog.  While the rolling hills of the estate were beautiful, the internet was painfully slow or non-existent.  Same with 3G.  Definitely off the grid--which I think was the plan for Bob and Marilyn.

Next Up:  Mom and Joey meet the Revolution.

July 27, 2013

Rain, Rain, Go Away....that was the theme for this leg of our journey.  We drove in rain the entire day.  Sometimes it was light and at other times the rain was quite heavy.  We kept the pedal to the metal and were quite serious about our travel time.

We went via 30 to 75 to 70.  We stopped and took a walk in an antique mall (I don’t remember where) that was huge.  Mom and I split up as we enjoy looking at different things.  I found a vase that is identical to the two that I have at home from my grandmother.  It was priced at $225.  I am planning to give these to Laura as they will look beautiful in her house.  I will mark them so she doesn’t sell them at a garage sale for $1 someday.

Along the way we shared memories of our prior trip to Wheeling, WV with my grandfather, Stinker.  Stinker was quite the guy and passed away two weeks after our return to Indiana.  He kept telling us that this was his farewell trip and he was right. Laura is convinced that he planned it this way.

We were on 70 and were about 20 miles from Wheeling when it began raining in buckets.  I hopped off the interstate and we finished our drive on US 40--The National Road.  It was a delightful drive and took us right downtown Wheeling and then onto the Dallas Pike which will take you to Dallas where Stinker grew up.

The Dallas Pike is a very narrow road that winds up and down, in and out, and snakes back through the hollow to  a tiny, narrow, hillside town called Dallas.  Driving down the pike, Mom and I both noticed that the road seemed in really good shape and was sporting new guard rails.  We thought this interesting and then we started to see many tanker trucks parked along the way.  

Fast Forward:  Our cousin later told us that they are fracking for gas/oil and that almost everyone has been paid for the mineral rights to the land.  She said that they have counted 300 tanker trucks going down the pike on a single day.  Their whole way of life has been disrupted.  She said workers are living in campers as they cannot get housing.  We did notice lots of campers dotting the countryside, but didn’t know why.  It just looked like people were living there and not recreating. This has also led to huge shopping and hotel developments in the area.  A new Cabbella’s, strip malls, Wal-Mart, and every restaurant imaginable now sits where we used to stay in a dumpy hotel.  Our accommodations were much nicer as compared to 20 years ago.

We drove up to Dallas to refresh our memory on Stinkers past.  The town has really changed, but we were able to see a couple of landmarks from Stinker’s memoirs (which I forgot to pack.) We did make a cold call to the Rock Valley Farm where a cousin lived 20 years ago.  She and her husband live on the farm that has been in the family since the 1850s.  The home is constructed from stone that was cut from a huge rock in the pasture.  There is also a wash   room, spring house, and barn that are in near original condition.  They are restoring the spring house this summer.  Earlier last week a construction worker found a pair of pants that had been stuffed into a hole in the wall. The pants were very, very old--without a zipper, but instead a button flap.  They had been mended many, many times.  

Janet and Bill were excited to have us stop in.  We should have called, but Mom couldn’t remember their last name, but she could remember the visits from her childhood.  They shared a few stories and then Janet gave us a tour of the farmhouse.  Mom had been in the house years ago, but it was my first time.  They have worked hard to restore/keep the home in its original condition and were able to place the home on the National Register of Historic Places.  They are working to strip the plaster off of the rock walls which is a huge job, but looks fabulous when it is finished.  They also found the original sale bill advertising the auction when Stinker’s Uncle Bill purchased the property way back when.  The original price for the farm/house/land was $12,000.  It would be many hundreds of thousands now.  I wonder what the oldsters would think of the fracking and the pipeline that now runs through the farm.  Janet didn’t speak too highly of the fracking, but she did admit to getting a fair price for the pipeline fee.  Very different times ahead for these people.

Trip Inspiration

Our journey began with my maternal grandmother, Georgia White, and her quest to be a member of the Daughters of the American Revolution.  Grandma was one grandfather short of her goal when she abandoned her search.  Keep in mind she was searching long before the digital age--no computers or Ancestry.com to assist her.  Fast forward to 2012 and my brother Bill’s desire to find our missing link.  He too, struggled to find the missing link, but he did manage to find multiple possibilities in a small cemetery in Union Township, New Jersey.  Through conversations with a local DAR member he learned that the small cemetery was in fact a family cemetery and that there were multiple spellings of the same family’s name.  Bill visited the cemetery in New Jersey and shared his pictures with us over the holidays.  It didn’t take long for my mom and I to decide that we wanted to head to New Jersey.  

Bill and I spent a good chunk of the Memorial Day weekend on Ancestry.com.  We tossed ideas and new information back and forth all day.  Finally, literally within minutes of each other we confirmed our missing link!!  Nothing brings more meaning to Memorial Day than learning for certain that your sixth generation grandfather was a Revolutionary War Patriot!

Mom and I decided to make the trip to New Jersey this summer.  I asked my mom if there was anything else she wanted to see while on our trip.  She immediately responded with “Yes,  I would like to go to Gettysburg, Lancaster County, Wheeling, WV, Unionville, PA, Williamsburg, Yorktown, and Jamestown.  Whew!!  What started as a quick trip to NJ became a two week extravaganza to the Mid-Atlantic states.

Traveling with a spunky 87 year old does have a few challenges; as does my traveling with a knee recovering from surgery.  We agreed to a few basic rules:  Be at our hotel by 3 PM, if we need a slow day--we take a slow day, if we need a day to rest--we rest, when one of us is ready to go home--we head home.  With the nitty-gritty settled, we are ready to get moving.