Photo: Frank and Allison

We met Allison in Front Royal on Saturday to give her a TV set (recently replaced by a new one) and share a meal at Cracker Barrel.

The TV was heavy and so bulky that we gave up trying to take it in my car and put it in the Montero instead. We had no problem getting it in the hatchback of her Hyundai though.

A Look at the Snow Tubing Runs

From Christmas through yesterday, the resort was full of people skiing, snowboarding, tubing, and even playing golf. Here's how it looked on Saturday morning when Ben and I walked around by the snow tubing area. This is the same place where mountain tubing is done in the summer.
A lot of folks left on Sunday to go back to work or back to school.

Educational?

A site called Critics Rant offers a little gizmo that rates the reading level of your blog. This blog didn't rate the Genius award, but that's probably not a bad thing. I'm just sharing photos and information, not trying to build anyone's vocabulary.

My Baby Girls in 1966

These portraits of my daughters are from 1966. Lynn (above) was 18 months old. Her little sister Marie was only a month old and had no idea yet how to smile for the camera. 

Suiter Sisters Around 1957

Peggy, Carol, Linda

at the Dining Room Table

Suiter Siblings Circa 1951

Ricky, Linda, Peggy, Carol

At Home in Fairfax County, VA

Suiter Siblings Circa 1925

This is a photograph from a box of family history and genealogy that my Aunt Clarice sent me in the 90's when she was preparing to move to an assisted living facility. There is no legend written on the back of this one, but I'm certain it's a portrait of my dad and Clarice as youngsters. His little smile and her eyes are unmistakable.

John and Clarice 

As mentioned in an earlier post, Clarice Althea Suiter was born in January 1910, and John Morton Suiter was born in July 1916. They grew up in Michigan.

Philip Jacob Suder

A distant cousin in San Francisco (fourth cousin, not to be confused with my first cousin in that city) writes that the father of my gggg-grandfather Jacob A. Suiter was Philip Jacob Suder. Apparently he anglicized his name to Suiter when he came to Colonial America. He immigrated from Palentine, Germany where he was born in 1740, on the ship "King of Prussia" ship in 1764. He took "Oath of Allegiance" to King George on October 3rd of 1764.

Immigrantships.net lists that voyage of the King of Prussia as follows:

Departure Port: London, England
Arrival Port: Philadelphia, PA
3 October 1764

Another link of interest: Underground railroad article from Ironton (a town near Jacob Suiter's home in Chesapeake, OH)

Jacob Suiter's House in Ohio

I got an email from a distant cousin who found mention of Jacob Suiter on this blog and had some questions about the house he built in Chesapeake, Ohio. That sent me to a box of genealogical material that my dad's sister gave me some years back. I retrieved two old articles that mentioned the house; one from a 1984 Suiter Family Newsletter (Issue #2) and the other a 1925 newspaper article, part of which you see here. It was in the Herald Dispatch of Huntington, West Virginia, dated September 27, 1925.

Log House Built 100 Years Ago is Now Modern Home
Conveniences of Present Day Replace Pioneer Equipment in Old Egerton Home
House was Erected by Jacob Suiter in 1825
Historic Chesapeake Property Has Been in Possession of Egertons Sixty Years

The other source estimates that the home was built in 1808. The above article admits that the 1825 date is not exact; it is based on the recollection of one William Eaton, who attended the log raising of the house as a child. Also, the abstract [of title] "shows that the original grant was recorded in 1825."

The newspaper article by Wiatt Smith begins with a fanciful account of the "log raising" (a term synonymous with house raising, a pioneer custom of neighbors getting together and erecting the frame of a log home in a day). Smith wrote:

One hundred years ago in the year 1825, the date and even the season having now been forgotten, Jacob Suiter had a house raising at his place on the Ohio River, approximately a mile above Symmes Creek in Lawrence County Ohio. Came his neighbors from miles around the sparsely settled country — not only from Ohio but from the farms and villages on the Virginia side, to help him swing the hewn-oak logs and heavy beams into place. How merriment and toil intermingled and how bravely the laborers ate of the dinner spread by the women can only be imagined now....

Smith then describes an imagined meal of venison and other game. He goes on to state that the structure still stands firm and solid. He then tells of improvements made over the years: new woodwork, plaster walls, a telephone... (remember he wrote this in 1925).

And at the door stands the high powered sedan, ready at the will of the tenant to whisk her to the ferry and over into Huntington. The present tenant is one of the owners, Mrs. Elizabeth Egerton Shaw, until recently a resident of Huntington. For 60 years the house and the big acreage to which it is attached has been known as the Egerton property. It was long the seat of the well known Egerton family, of which the late Judge C. B. Egerton was the head and which has since been prominent both in Huntington and Ironton.

An abstract of the title shows that from Jacob Suiter, the builder of the house, the property passed to Israel Suiter, who in turn conveyed it to Martin Frampton...

Certain small sections of the land have been sold... one of the tracts disposed is now the site of the Chesapeake Hight School, which stands just a little above the new old home of Mrs. Shaw. Tradition says that Jacob Suiter, the stout old Pennsylvania Dutchman who built the house and who held patent to the land from the United States government, planted an orchard in the field which included the present site of the school building.

See all my Jacob Suiter posts.
Don't Miss my 2013 Visit to Chesapeake!

Farewell, Christmas Tree

	We took down our Christmas tree on New Year's Day. Here's a picture so you can see what it looked like this year. It was a small tree. So our decorations are now stored away in the storage room under the house. The holidays are officially over.
Frank took this picture of the Christmas tree lights, demonstrating that I'm not the only one who lets the camera move when the shutter clicks. I like the result here.

Carry a Medical ID Card

If you ever wind up in an emergency room, you'll want to have your basic medical information with you. Those of us with allergies to medications especially need that info. If you are dazed from an accident, you might not be able to come up with the name of a medication that you reacted to, or even the names of your current prescriptions.

I once ordered a medical ID card on ebay and carried it for years. After the information got out of date, I found a place on the State Farm Insurance site where you type in your info and print it out as a card for free. Make an extra copy to put in your pocket when you walk the dog and don't carry your wallet.

History Animated

I visited the HistoryAnimated site and clicked through the animated maps of Jackson's Valley Campaign. They're pretty neat. You have to keep clicking the red Play arrow; the visual aids are worth the trouble. However, some of the sound effects seem comical in their simplicity. 

Web log post #1670

First post of 2009:

I only made a few resolutions for the new year:

1. I will join Facebook. After all, both my daughters are on it. (And so I signed up today! Hope I don't let it take up huge amounts of time. I can see where it can be addictive.)
2. I will be nicer at home. I've been irritable for the past few months, basically because I'm impatient with the progress I'm making against pain and how little the medical profession has done for me. (I've had shoulder pain since summer, explained previously, and will see a new doctor next week. Also, intestinal cramping continues although a prescription (dicyclomine) helps. Last week the gastro office said they couldn't schedule a H2 breath test until February! Fortunately, they had a cancellation so I get the test next week.

Peace

We send cards with the word Peace across them, but peace on earth feels like a hopeless dream. Sometimes I hum the old song, "Last Night I had the Strangest Dream" yet the words seem so naive and wishful. Still, the ideal is worth holding up... something to work towards.

Last night I had the strangest dream
I'd ever dreamed before
I dreamed the world had all agreed
To put an end to war.

And if you search for Peace Songs in Wikipedia, you are redirected to a long list of anti-war songs, organized by the conflict that inspired them.

Squirrel Teamwork

Charlie is hanging on the feeder, swinging it around so that birdseed falls to the ground. His siblings are crawling around below, eating the seed.

You Can Walk There from Here but...

It's a different world down at the ski slopes. Hundreds of people are skiing and having fun. The resort core is like a busy town this week, as vacationers take advantage of the days between Christmas and New Years.

The bungee-trampoline-climbing wall combo has been moved to the bottom of the ski slopes. Looks strange but kids enjoy jumping high in the air.

I took Ben down there in the car. (I wouldn't want to walk back up the steep hill to get home.) We parked at the library and walked over to the bunny slope to see what's going on. He likes watching children.

A man asked if he was a cocker-poodle. I said no, he's just a cocker spaniel who needs a haircut.

A Walmart Portrait

I was in Walmart last week and decided to have my picture taken in their studio. It was a weekday and nobody was waiting, and their package deal was really inexpensive.

I was surprised to learn that CPI is running their portrait studio now. I used to work part-time for CPI in a Sears Store, taking photos one after another on Sundays. (Fun but frantic!)

The photographer showed me the results on a monitor. I selected two poses, one for a set of prints (for Frank and my daughters) and the one you see here as an extra on a CD.

Back home, I brightened this one just a little and softened it very subtly in Photoshop. Then I uploaded it to the Walmart website and ordered it on a birthday card for Frank. The CD included a Release of Copyright form which I printed and took to the store with me. (Typically a photo studio owns the copyright of your portraits unless they specifically turn it over to you. The photographer had told me that buying the CD included the copyright, and their website includes cautions against printing material that belongs to someone else.)

Turns out Walmart did insist on seeing copyright information before they would let me purchase the card; in fact, their computerized cash registers would not ring up the card until the photo department examined the copyright ownership form and keyed in something to release the item. The process took extra time, but I'm glad they are protecting copyrights. In this digital age, it is so easy to "steal" pictures and other created works, and if you've ever earned money by creating things, you understand why respecting copyright is important.

Those Neon Pants

When we went to my sister's house on Friday, I wore a new pair of red pants because I thought they looked Christmassy. That is, they looked red to me, with a tinge of orange. When I saw the photos, I thought "Yikes! They look fluorescent."


They are Lands End corduroys in a soft knit fabric that's too comfortable to get rid of. I decided to dye them to be a less showy shade. So yesterday I used some black RIT dye to change them. They came out brown -- black takes two containers of dye and I only had one. But that's okay; I like brown slacks.

Pictured: Me, Marie, & Elias, with Shelby at our feet.

It's Someone's Birthday

Holiday Lunch at Peggy's

Yesterday we drove to my sister's house and had lunch with her, her son and his wife. It's always fun to spend time with them. Right: Peggy Below Left: Marie Below Right: Me

At the table: Marie, Michele, Elias, Frank, Peggy