Happy Anniversary!

 26 Years

Andy & Angela August 9, 1996

The Florida Duncan's

Evangeline and Owen are now Florida residents in Plant City.  They left St. Louis and stopped in Atlanta on the way to Florida and visited the Georgia Aquarium.  Swimming in the picture behind them are some Beluga whales.  Evangeline wrote that they have settled in their new apartment and now are exploring the area.  In a nature preserve they were able to see their first alligators in the wild!  

Junior High School!

Duncan is now an official student at New Way Academy!  With a mascot no less.  He is now one of the Bulldogs!  

NYC!

Last weekend the North Dakota Duncan's headed to New York City to bring Miriam home.  It was a quick trip but they managed to get a lot in during that time.  Miriam is home until she leaves for Spain for her semester abroad!  While in New York they got her packed up, visited the 911 Memorial, took their lives in their own hands as they rode on a New York Subway, and visited other areas of New York.  I have to compliment Miriam.  She found a place in the car for her houseplant to come home with her.  I'm not sure if she plans to leave it in her parents care while in Spain.  That is a lot of pressure to put of them!

She's Home!

Earlier I posted a picture as Meg prepared to go to a five week "dig" in the four corners area.  Last weekend she came home to rest up, regroup and get ready to start another semester at BYU.  At the field school  the site they were digging in was called Coalbed Village and it is in San Juan county near the town of Blanding in Utah.  

Meg wrote, 

" Before we were able to start digging and figuring out answers to research questions, we had to remove the dirt that had been put back into the holes that were dug last year. Every year at the end of the digging season we have to fill in every hole that we dig to prevent artifacts and features from being damaged or stolen. We put weed cloth down before filling in the holes so that it is easy for the next year's crew to remove the extra dirt. Another one of the unlabeled photos features my friend Ally's legs while she digs some of the dirt out of an already dug hole. 

We found some pretty cool things while we were there. I have included a picture of an arrowhead we found on site. We also found a lot of pottery, small bits of faunal (animal) bone, and lots of pieces of chipped stone. I, unfortunately, do not have pictures of any of those things but if you want to see what the pottery we found looks like, you can google "Mesa Verde black on white pottery" and you can see some examples of whole pots and bowls. We mostly found small pieces of pottery though not stuff like the pictures that will come up. 

I also found part of a baby tooth during one of our last days of digging! In another area on-site, someone found a human skeleton buried underneath a floor. When we find human remains we have a special process we have to go through to ensure that we are treating the burials with respect. The main thing that we do is to stop digging and bury the body again. We also make a note of where the body was found so that we know not to dig there in the future. We also have to notify the local law enforcement that we found a body so that they can verify that the body was deposited anciently and not a cause for concern. Usually, we would take pictures of every large find we make, but we don't take pictures of burials. In the case of the human tooth I found, we have taken it back to BYU to document, but we will eventually return it to one of the Native American tribes that claim ancestral ties to the people who lived in Coalbed village at the time the tooth was deposited. 

We also got to go on a lot of field trips while we were in southern Utah. One of the trips was to the Edge of the Cedars museum in Blanding where we got a tour of the back rooms and saw a really cool spearpoint (I included a picture of it), two hair brushes, and some shoes among other things. 

Another one of our field trips was to Mesa Verde where we hiked to a cliff house and were given a tour by a ranger. I have included two pictures of the cliff house along with a group selfie Dr. Yoder from Weber State University took while we were there. The last picture from Mesa Verde I have included is of a Kiva in the cliff house. A Kiva is a large circular room used for group gatherings and was built into a house. In the picture, you can see a circular hearth on the floor with a little wall of stones to one side. The wall of stones is there to deflect air coming in through the small hole in the wall near it. They needed fresh air to circulate inside the Kiva, but they needed to have fresh air without blowing the fire out. 

I made some great friends at field school! I am very glad that I went with the people I did. The people who come to the site every field season with students told us that this year's group got along better than any other group has in the past. There were no arguments or bad feelings between us. I have included a group picture of just some of the great people who were on the trip."

I am so impressed by what Meg this this summer.  One day in the dirt and heat would have put me over the edge!  You go Meg!  You are the best of the best!  One question though,  how long did you soak in the tub when you got home!?😀

Did You Know?

When your great Grandmother Elizabeth Jane Hickey (Betty Jane) was about 8 years old her Aunt Grace asked her father if they could take one of their five children to live with them.  I don't know how it was decided but mom was sent to live with the Ellis family.  My mom said that each Sunday night she went to live with them and on Friday's her Aunt Grace would bring her back to spend the weekend with her family.  I asked her one time if she felt bad that she was chosen to go and she said she was very homesick for her parents and siblings but Aunt Grace and her Uncle Bill treated her really good.  She said each day when she got home from school Aunt Grace would say "you better go check your bedroom because I thought I heard some noise in there."  When she would go look there would be some new clothes, or a toy or a book for her.  Until the day Aunt Grace died my mother loved spending time with her and she was often included in our family activities. (later I will share an interesting story about Aunt Grace).  My mom said that Aunt Grace was an absolute committed Catholic and thought part of her motivation was to get at least one of her brothers children to become a Catholic.  One of my moms' favorite memories was one day at school they were giving vaccinations and she was so scared and trying hard not to cry.  As her turn came up she walked up to the nurse and someone put her hand on her shoulder and squeezed it.  She look up and there was her Aunt Grace beside her.  As soon as the shot was given,  Aunt Grace said good-bye and left.  Mom lived with them for one school year, completed her catechism classes and didn't go back the next year.  No other children in the family went to live with them.  

Uncle Bill, Aunt Grace, and Bob Ellis

France