What to do for England

When choosing the blocks for my ancestors, I was stumped by what to do for England. I thought English Patchwork, but no, that was the technique I used for Granny's block, and I wanted something different. I finally settled on a Tudor rose not because we have any major Tudor connections, but because its such a quintessentially English motif.

When I was searching out my English ancestors I was not surprised to find a healthy dose of them. I think they are neck and neck with the Dutch as far as how many there are, maybe they even out number the Nederlanders by a few. They are an interesting lot too. Among my English ancestors are Brewsters, and though they did not come over on the Mayflower, they most likely are related to those who did. There is also the interesting case of Nathaniel Ingersoll and Sarah Rice of Salem Massachusetts. They were not related to each other, but both are related to me. Nathaniel in his roll as town magistrate actually brought charges of witchcraft against Sarah for which she was jailed, but thankfully not executed...those wacky Puritans! Speaking of Purtians, you know the famous statue of the Purtian Deacon Samuel Chapin by Agustus St. Gauden, well, he's ours too!...Chapin, not St. Gauden that is. I wonder if my usual love of ancestral foods will make me crave black pudding...nope...aint gonna happen, not even on my birthday.

Dutchman's Puzzle

The Dutchman's Puzzle was chosen for all my Dutch ancestors. In one of those funny little things God likes to do, he plopped me down in the middle of the Netherlands. That's where we were when our son Zach was born . In the very town of Amersfoort that almost 400 years earlier his own ancestors lived and died. Wolphert Gerrets Van Couevenhoven married his wife Neeletje in the church who's shadow we rested in on our trips into town, indeed I have the tower of that very Church worked in Cross stitch tucked away somewhere. We greeted Sinter Klaas at the Koppleport where the Couevenhovens owned a bleaching camp. I lived there for 3 and half years never realizing that I was about as Dutch as a person could get! I wish I had known then that I shared in the history of that amazing little country. We were quite at home there and as with Germany I felt an instant affinity to the people and the food. I also felt a strange connection with the place too. There were times, when I would be overcome with such a strange sense of de ja vu that I found it unsettling and inexplicable! Now I know that maybe it was the hum of genetic memory stirring within. While we have personal reasons for loving Amersfoort, we have links all over the Netherlands, in Utrecht, Gelderland, Friesland too. Our Dutch names are many...Banta, Terhune, Brickers, Fonda,De Ruine,Van Der Stratton,Van Arsdale, Van Houten,Van Der Beek, Van Nuyse,Voorheese, Hegeman and many more. I must not forget our Huegonot forebears who fled to The Netherlands from France, Denyce, Demarest and most notably Jan DeMandeville who was a Doctor in Seventeenth century Nijmegen who eventually succumbed to the plague he was battling. So beloved was he by the town that after he passed they payed to put two of his sons through college and they were named Town Physicians.


Our Dutch roots in America run long and deep, over 15 generations ago our ancestors came with Bedford Stuyvesant and helped him settle New Amsterdam. I like knowing that. I like knowing that my American heritage is my Dutch heritage and vice versa. I wish I had known it while I was living in The Netherlands!

A Nod to Germany

Twice now I have lived in places to which I actually have ancestral ties. I don't mean I lived in the general vicinity, I mean I trod the very streets that my ancestors did over 300 years ago! This may not mean much to Europeans who do it all the time, but for an American, and a westerner and descendant of pioneers that is a rare occurance. Antiquity of that variety is a novelty to us. We either have the very ancient, or the brand new, those are usually our only choices.



Once such place was in Germany. I did not know it then, but I could have gone to the town hall in Kaiserslautern and looked up the records of my own family. We have a lot of German ancestry. Maybe that's why I fell instantly in love with the food, so I guess its fitting that I chose the Dresden Plate pattern for my German block. Growing up one of my favorite dishes was chicken fried steak. Who knew it was really a rahm schnitzel in disguise, or the Gesundheit we reflexivly muttered to one another at the sound of sneeze actually meant something.



One of our earliest German Ancestors in America was Johan Jakob Darner who emigrated from the Rhineland Pfalz in the early 1700s and settled near Fredrick Maryland on a tract of land he named after his home in Germany, "Landau". He is one among many though. We also can lay claim to belonging to the Beiser, Sturm, Pfuster,Sauer,Werneich,Gah, Gloss and Strihl,Specht, Yost, and Everhart families just to name a few. Many more go unidentified. But we carry within us evidence of their existance. Its in our blond hair, our celtic skins, our love of pork and beer and the instant familiarity I felt with Germany . I wonder if Jamie felt it too? So now when we say Gesundheit its more than just a vestige of our German ancestory, it really means something. So Gesundheit- Good health to you!

My Family Tree

The next few blocks on my quilt represent my family tree. It's grown over recent years from a sketchy sapling to an enormous thing so full of branches and leaves I can scarcely keep track. Its been very rewarding learning about my family and their places in history.


My Mom and I at first flush seem to be a lot alike, and in many respects we are, but there are certain points in our personalities where we clearly took divergent paths. Once such place is with our family history. Mom is no more interested in what her ancestors where up to than she is with the latest plot twists on daytime Television drama. Both are equally uninteresting to her. While I on the other hand find the little tidbits of history that I can tie into my own family story to be more captivating than anything Luke and Laura ever did. As mystified as she is with my intense interest in my family history I am equally astounded by her utter indifference to it all. Maybe because I have always been a history buff it appeals to me to be able to plug in the names of people I am descended from to actual moments in history, making me less of a spectator and more a participant in all those amazing events I was taught about in school. I revel in that connectedness and sink into it like cozy chair. Maybe that's the same reason I have always liked the doctrine of the Communion of saints, I am comforted to know I belong and have a place among them, both the saints and my family, and hopfully they are most often one and the same!

Birds revisited

I have been enchanted with birds lately. Maybe its the warm weather bringing new and interesting visiters to my yard, or maybe I am developing an eye for spotting who has been there all along. I know that happens. I can spot sea glass at 10 paces now, when before it practically had to jump up and shout "Here I am" before I noticed it. I think maybe its a little of both. In just the past few weeks I have been treated to a rainbow of birds. The two pictured above are among my current favorites. The Eastern Towhee, and the eastern Bluebird. The Bluebird might as well have jumped up and shouted "Here I am" It flew to a trellis a few yards from the back door where I stood and perched there long enough for me to get bored looking at it. Maybe I should have relished the moment more, he has not been back since and I wonder if I will get a chance to see him again. I will keep the feeder filled and the binoculars at the ready just in case.

Spending other people's money

The other day I got to indulge in a rare treat that I find I really enjoy. Its spending other people's money. I have done it before, most memorably a few Christmas's ago with my Friend June. We were browsing the Christmas displays at Macy's in Kane'ohe when she decided then and there to live out one of my dearest fantasies. She decided to update her Christmas tree with all new ornaments and she took me along for the ride! Having chosen a Chinese theme She and I circled the displays picking out multiples of the ornaments we liked. We pawed through the branches of the display trees to see if we were missing anything fabulous and if we were we snapped it up and added it to the basket. I have always wanted to buy Christmas ornaments that way, but never could manage it, so have instead built a lush collection over the years adding one or two really nice ornaments each year. So I had the best of both worlds, my eclectic collection that I would never be able to give up, and the pleasure of planning and shopping for a really posh theme tree.



Just the other day I was blessed with another such opportunity. My friend Kathy lives in a big brick showplace with a drop dead gorgeous crimson dining room. The last time I was at her house we talked about getting together to make a centerpiece for her dining table. The time came when we had a day together and Hobby Lobby was running a sale, so we struck while the iron was hot. Just like June and I had circled those Christmas trees looking for the perfect ornaments, Kathy and I prowled the floral department hunting for just the right stems for her arrangement. After a sizable bill, we left the store with bags of flowers, Kathy I am sure with a slight case of sticker shock and me with a slight case of panic. What if I botched it? What if I just lured her into spending all that money and then couldn't deliver and wound up handing over a big, expensive flower studded embarrassment?! I felt reasonably confident in my abilities, but still, that was a lot of money to be spending for a centerpiece and the pressure was on. As soon as I got home I began work and quickly realized that we had chosen well. The project would be a rousing success. The picture above taken in my dining room does not do it justice. It looks kind of small in the picture but in reality it stood easily 2 feet high and two feet long and was every bit the opulent show stopper that her dining room was made for. I have always wanted to make such an arrangement, but never had the means to fund it, or the house to warrant it. Doing the centerpiece for Kathy's table definitely scratched an itch. When she came by to pick it up she told me that a similar arrangement could sell in her brothers furniture store for 3 times what ours cost. So even though it was not cheap, it was still a bargain and that makes it all the lovelier!

Birds at my Window

The Dutch artist Marjolein Bastin has done a series for Hallmark called "The Birds at my window" That phrase runs through my mind quite a lot here on Allaire Court North. I call our backyard the wasteland if that give you any indication of its condition. If we were staying we would have laid sod and started landscaping, but since we are renters it seemed silly to put that much money and effort into something that was not ours to keep. So we let Mother Nature have her way back there. the front part closest to the house is sand mixed with crab grass and weeds and the back part is a mini native woodland full of oaks and pines and sticky bushes with which I am not familiar . The whole thing is tied together with Jessamine vines that run throughout. Its the State flower for South Carolina and in the spring the yellow blossoms of the Jessamine cover everything including the back 40 of our wasteland. The one thing we have done to alter nature back there is put in a bird feeder and bird bath next to the bird house that was already in situ. Since Milford is not with us to scare away our customers we have plenty of them. Its been a real pleasure to watch all the wildlife in our yard. We have lots of the more common varieties. There are mourning doves, crows, sparrows and in season there are robins and cowbirds, junco's and chickadees. They are a joy to watch, but the real thrill comes when I catch sight of a flash of color and realize I've spotted a newcomer, somebody I've never noticed before. Here lately the one I look for is the Blue Grosbeak. He and his drab colored bride come and go so quickly I hardly get a good look. That's probably for the best. If he hung around too long the joy of spotting him would undoubtedly diminish in proportion to the length of his stays.