It all started with a Prince

In 1820 Jefferson County, Indiana had a population of only 8,038. The town of Madison had been settled about 1810 and was located on the Ohio river. When my 3x great grandparents Aaron and Lavina (Chapman) Porter arrived from the Lake George, New York area with their four children the surrounding countryside would have been heavily wooded.  Early descriptions of the region emphasized the tree-covered hills and the beauty of the Ohio River valley. One early settler even marked the location of what would become Madison by carving his name into two large beech trees. The Ohio River marked the southern border.  New settlers were slowly arriving from Virginia, Ohio, Kentucky and other eastern states. The pull of western migration, the offer of free and/or cheap land were a great incentive to make the hazardous trek. They would have built a one or two room log cabin, a small garden and planted a patch of corn. Maybe an outbuilding for oxen and a cow. The forest would have come right...

I grew up with my mom having five or six pieces of Guardian service Cookware. They were given to her by my grandmother Nellie (Dillingham) Porter.  As I am older now, I wonder why Grandma Porter would have given them to her?  Did she not like the way they cooked? Did she have other pieces and the ones she shared were extras? I never heard that they were a wedding gift.... boy, I sure wish I had asked a whole lot more questions. When J Holly founded the Guardian Service Cookware company in 1930, he never realized that the durability of his cookware would survive generations of homemakers. He was looking for a product that would incorporate long-lasting aluminum (a fairly new product), innovative design that would produce successful heat conductivity and help women to create a satisfying meal. The hammered aluminum pieces had domed shaped aluminum lids that helped with 'waterless' cooking and maintained moisture so the food would cook in its own juices and at a lower temperature...

Not having a lot of multiple births in my family or accountants that are into multiple numbers, I chose to write about my great-aunt Lois Ann Dillingham. 'Loattie' was the oldest of 12 children of Sidney and Katherine (Sweet) Dillingham, my 2x great-grandparents. Of those 12 children, 10 lived to adulthood and there were no multiple births. She was the original 'Loattie' in the family although there were multiple descendants that also carried that nickname. She also married multiple times and had a total of 11 children. She was born June 23, 1837, in New York. The family had moved to Cherry Valley, Winnebago County, Illinois by the 1850 census, after a stop in Michigan for a few years. At the young age of 15, she married John Beard July 17, 1852, in Winnebago County, Illinois. They had four children: Catherine, Margaret, William and Alicia. William and Alicia both died in 1864 at ages four and three. John enlisted in the Civil War in the 52nd Illinois Infantry, Company ...

The Sheridan family has been in Perrinton, Gratiot County, Michigan since the 1850's when Patrick Sheridan filed for 80 acres of land in Gratiot County through the Bureau of Land Management in Ionia.  The first school in Perrinton was built in 1888 and had 52 total students with one teacher. The brick Perrinton High School was built in 1917 and was the one that my mom (Lorraine Sheridan) would have attended. 1939 was the last graduating class when Perrinton and Middleton consolidated and they built the Fulton High School that we know today.  At the time of my mother's High School years (1939-1942) the town's population was less than 400 persons.  Including students from Middleton along with Perrinton, 33 were in the graduation class of 1942. Mom's sister Alice Sheridan was in the first graduation class of the new High School in 1940. My mom's 'Autograph Book' from 1939 has comments from friends from her community.  Some were neighbors and others were just sc...

  As the sun was slowly lightening the morning sky, Pauline let herself into the storefront after inserting the large cumbersome key into the lock. The rustling of her skirts could be heard along with the chirping of birds in the trees. A horse neighed in the distance and a wagon rattled along the deserted street. The front window on the south side of the store was glistening in the early daylight. Pauline settled herself into the overstuffed chair located to catch those early rays and picked up a dainty green velveteen hat piece. She began slowly and steadily stitching the small piece of veiling just off side of center. After she finished this and added the green dyed marabou feather it would be placed on a wooden millinery stand in the window to show it off. Hopefully, it would also pull a few ladies in to check out her hats. She still had to finish black hats for Mrs. Baker and her daughter.  It was so sad that she lost Mr. Baker so unexpectedly. She was just waiting for th...

My maternal great-grandmother was Elizabeth (Holland) Sheridan. Elizabeth was the youngest child of Thomas and Mary (Shevlen) Holland both of which were Irish immigrants. She had an older sister Minerva and an older brother Thomas Holland, Jr. Her brother Thomas, Jr was born April 12, 1854, in Union, Cook County, Ohio.  By 1870 the family had moved from Ohio to Fulton, Gratiot County, Michigan where Thomas, Sr took up farming on 80 acres of land next door to the Patrick Sheridan family. (Now you know how our great-grandparents Michael and Elizabeth met) Thomas, Jr married Lillian Aurilla Fairchild at the young age of 19 on September 25, 1873, in Ithaca, Gratiot County, Michigan.  By the 1880 census they were living on a farm in Fulton and were the parents of four children: John, Charles, Minerva and George. The call for free land and open space must have caused them to want more for their young family. They sold their farm, packed up and followed along with others going West. ...