One hundred and one years ago . . . in September of 1910 . . . this century-old letter was mailed from Paris, France to Rockdale, Texas . . . I posted about my acquisition of these letters back in March of this year . . . and now I'm delighted to say that, as of early this a.m., digital copies of all of the letters have found their way into the hands of the descendants of the recipients of some of these missives . . .
This is my hometown . . . Rockdale, Milam County, Texas . . . at five years of age . . . and as shown on pages 230 and 231 in The Texans . . . which is a part of The Old West series of books published by Time-Life Books . . . the caption on this photo says . . .
Cotton bales ready to be weighed on scales (extreme right) lie along the main street of the town of Rockdale, northeast of Austin. The year is 1879, and similar towns were springing up to the west as railroads spread across the plains, opening the hinterland to Texas farmers and ranchers.
Today being the 101st anniversary of the day George Sessions Perry was born in Rockdale, Milam County, Texas, I decided to photograph my copy of an article he wrote about his (and my) hometown . . . it was published in the Saturday Evening Post in the mid-1940s . . . I have the original here . . . somewhere . . . but I guess that's another one of those items I put somewhere for safekeeping . . .
Upper Right
George Oliver Spain, III
1951 ~ 2008
from the pages of
The 1959 Lair
(Rockdale Yearbook)
Oliver's findagrave memorial page
Old City Cemetery, Rockdale, Milam County, Texas
Stormy Skies, Red Oak, Ellis County, Texas
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These are some of the Everhart family photos I need to scan and share . . . the tall Everhart in this photo is 23 years of age as of today . . . and the short one will soon be 18 . . . they are standing in front of the azaleas in my Mom's yard in Rockdale, Texas . . . that is my vintage Canon AE-1 that was used to capture those images . . . there are lots of family photos around today, thanks to that camera . . .
Look what arrived in my mailbox today! . . . I purchased these papers for two reasons . . . for one thing, they are connected to Rockdale, Texas, which is my hometown . . . but the main reason I decided to bid on them was the unique handwriting . . . and the antique papers . . . what wonderful ephemera for scanning and using in digital scrapbooking! . . . if I am reading the dates correctly (some of these are written in French . . . any interpreters out there?), these papers are dated as far back as 1874 . . . which just happens to be the very year Rockdale was founded . . . the Rockdale Centennial cover was not a part of the package . . . that's from a 1974 publication on the history of Rockdale . . .
