Desert Rats: October 2008

Ok, so I have just realized how long it's been since I last posted. Travis put me to work, so we'll just blame him. Over the last six weeks or so we've had lots of excitement. Travis had a football reunion at Centre College in Danville, KY, so we went out to that and had a great time at the game and doing a little family history. Then a couple of weeks later we went to Manassa and spent about a week with grandma and grandpa. September was a busy month, but such fun.

So, first things first. We flew out to Louisville on Thursday night, and Travis was meeting an old buddy on Friday night, so we spent Friday wandering around and finding all sorts of things. This first picture is of the house that my great, great-grandparents lived in, Frederick Clawson Buddington and Mary Nellie Stites. The last time we were in Louisville, I didn't realize that they had lived there. This time we did a little homework before we went and we were able to find their house, their second son's house, and their gravesites.

1873 Rutherford Ave.

The home of Frederick Clawson Buddington and
Mary Nellie Stites.

This is the house right next door. I believe their second son, Lloyd Stites Buddington lived here with his wife, Mary. If not, then Mary lived here after Lloyd died.

Here we are at Resthaven Cemetery. It's quite a huge place, and when we got there we realized there was no way we were going to be able to just wander and look, so we went to the office and a very nice man looked the gravesites up for us and gave us a map. Turns out, we were right close to it. We were only expecting to find Frederick and Mary's graves, but we were surprised to find that on the back side of their headstone was Lloyd and his wife Mary, so they're both right there together. Notice how excited GraceAnn looks at being in the cemetery in the rain.

On Saturday we left Louisville and drove a couple of hours to Danville. After a stop at the bookstore (we had to get some new t-shirts for Travis and a shirt for GraceAnn and me-we were very school spirity at the game) we drove out to a little town called Paint Lick. This place was pretty teeny. The Terrill family were in this area back in the late 1700's and early 1800's before they left and went to Tennessee. George Terrill (our line) married a little gal named Patsy Stephenson, who supposedly killed an indian chief when she was a young girl. If you're interested in the story, let me know, I'll forward it. Anyway, her family's home was near the headwaters of Paint Lick Creek, which, as far as we could tell, was near the town of Paint Lick. So we drove over to see what we could see. We found this sign by the road, and decided that they probably lived near the fort, as most people would have. The fort was no where in sight, but we drove over the creek bridge and saw a little road that went up along the creek. The sign said no trespassing, so we thought best not follow it...you never know. But we did go up another road for about a mile until Travis chickened out and turned around. I pointed out all of the houses along the road, but he pointed back that they were trailers and they were probably all family and we needed to turn around. I think I called him a weenie as he drove back to the main road.

Here's the "No Trespassing" road.

Here's the creek from the bridge we drove across. We are assuming (because of the sign we read) the fort was just up the creek a little way and close to the bank. It's so pretty...can anyone say Deer Tick?

You know, the funny thing, I just realized that if I had done a little more research, I probably could have found Terrills that are still there. I'll bet they might have even been along the weenie road that Travis turned around on....next trip

As we were leaving the area, we remembered we had driven by an old church and decided to stop and look at the cemetery. The cemetery was actually an old cemetery that was up a side road, and it was at the site of the OLD church, which was a log cabin, which was no longer there. We did find several Terrill headstones, so I am going to assume that the Terrills went to that church, and probably the Stephenson's too. Look at how happy Travis and Gracie are. They love to walk through the cemetery with mom. The picture below this one is of the site of the old log church. I would love to go back and get a look at what life was like then.

Travis and GraceAnn at the ball game. We had such a good time, and it was fun for Travis to be back at his old school. I have to say that the cheerleaders had much improved since the last time we were there, and we were all grateful that the "dance team" didn't perform at halftime. The last time we were there they went out on the field and gyrated in their sports bras and leggings with their guts hanging out. It was really unattractive and quite disturbing.

On Sunday morning we checked out of our hotel and went up on campus before making our way back to Louisville. Here are Travis and GraceAnn in front of "Old Centre." It's such a beautiful old building. The whole campus is beautiful. I'm so glad we got a chance to go. In case anyone wants to check it out, here's the website:

http://www.centre.edu/

Here we are on the way home. GraceAnn was so good on the plane. On the way out she slept a little bit, and when she wasn't sleeping, she was busy watching the flight attendants in the back. On the way back, she was absolutely not going to sleep, I don't care what you say. I'm a big girl and I don't need a nap...so we gave her a bag of cookies so play with, and she played with them almost the whole way home. The cookies were crumbs by the time we landed, but hey, they kept her happy. I tried to be discreet while taking these pictures, because I didn't want to be that mom...you know, the one who takes pictures of her kids on the plane.....