Today is National Organize Your Home Day

To Do List and key holder

Today is National Organize Your Home Day.  It is a good reminder of the importance of having an organized home and no it’s not to avoid shame if company drops in unexpectedly.  Rather, our home should be a place of refuge from the crazy world we live in. January is a great time to get your home in order; the weather outside is frightful so naturally we spend more time indoors and in our home. I bet like me de-cluttering, simplifying, or organizing made its way to your New Year’s resolution list.

Speaking of the New Year, have you pulled together last year’s financial records? I like to use a colored envelope for all my tax records (this year’s is blue). I went thru my files from last year, shredded the documents I don’t need to keep 7 years and put the rest in the envelope. When my W2 and 1099s show up, I’ll add them too. By early February I’ll be ready for my accountant.

If the cards you buy tend to be of the belated variety, try Send Out Cards. They will send real cards thru the mail to your friends and family for you. Simply upload your contacts and their birthdays, pick out a card or create your own, tell SOC to send the card on your friend’s birthday and forget about it. In one day, you can setup deliveries for the month or year!

We have photos galore and since I’ve been researching our family tree other family members keep gifting me their photos. So while it is hard to tell, I have made progress scanning picture as I try to reduce the actual photos in the house. I’ll keep plugging away at it in 2015; hopefully it will start to look like I’ve made progress soon.

The lack of visual confirmation of progress with the photos got me looking for a project that I could see more immediate results. The linen closet was my chosen target. Now that that is done, I will spend some time shredding some of the incredible amount of non-financial paper I seem to constantly accumulate, while I contemplate my next de-cluttering project.

Fashionistas: Date the Look

I have recently found some old family photos and I don't know a soul. The ultimate goal of course will be to identify the people in the pictures. Unfortunately I'm not even sure what years most of the pictures were taken. So I ask for my costume and fashionista friends to enlighten me what time period these fashions were, well, in fashion.

What style are the girls wearing?

Unknown woman from an unknown era

The boys in what decade?

My grands, guess the year

History Does Matter

My nephew often complains that history is boring, that it isn’t relatable to the present. Tonight I have proof that his hypothesis is wrong. And that the proof involves his family past and present.

Joe Armstrong at
John Armstrong's grave

I’ve had a road block regarding information on my great-great-great grandpa John Armstrong. In my ongoing ancestry quest, I attended a chat tonight on Civil War research tips hoping for someone to help me find more information on John. While I didn’t find a lot of information on John’s individual record, I did find a fascinating book “The Story of the Forty-Eighth, a record of the campaigns of the Forty-Eighth Regiment Pennsylvania veteran volunteer infantry during the four eventful years of it’s service in the war for the preservation of the union” by Joseph Gould. This particular John Armstrong served in the 48^th regiment from 1861 until his death in 1864.
 

The first story that touched me was about the early 1864 furlough of the regiment (pg 156). That trip took the regiment by train from Pittsburgh to Altoona and finally home to Pottsville. What struck me about this trip was the history of these locations for my family. This John came to America from the Isle of Mann in 1838 settling in Pottsville to work as a miner prior to the war.  My 2nd great-grandpa, Michael Armstrong, and his son Edward Lewis also worked the mines until Edward left the area to work on the railroad in Altoona. 

If this was my John Armstrong, he would have left for the war when Michael was 7 and he was dead by the time Michael was 11. He never would have met my great-grandpa Edward or my grandfather or father whom both born in Altoona. He would never know how the tracks he traveled on his last trip home would 87 years later take his great-great grandson on the reverse trip from Altoona to Pittsburgh where my father met my mother.

At this point in time the only facts I know about John’s time in the war are about his final battle at the Spotsylvania Courthouse in May of 1864. Private John Armstrong was wounded by gunshot on May 12^th in Spotsylvania, sent to a backline hospital in Washington DC where he succumbed to his wounds on July 1, 1864. He was laid to rest in Arlington National Cemetery.

On the day Private John Armstrong was mortally wounded, another soldier Comrade John Morrisey had a premonition he would not survive the day (pgs 178-179). Morrisey turned to his friend Sgt William Wells beseeching him to relay a message to his sister Mary that he died facing the enemy. As the battle commenced, Comrade John Morrisey was shot through the head. During a lull in the battle, Sgt Wells buried his friend.  Later during the war, Sgt Wells was injured and sent to a hospital in Chestnut Hill, Pennsylvania where John’s sister Mary Morrisey found him. Sgt Wells shared with Mary Morrisey her brother’s last words. This story gave me chills when I realized not only that John Morrisey and Private John Armstrong fought in a battle on the same day that ultimately killed them both, but the hospital where Sgt Wells and Mary Morrisey met was the same hospital where I born... Can anyone say small world.