New Book

Richard Paul Evans has a new Young Adult Book coming out in August. He was of my favorite authors. 



http://www.facebook.com/notes/richard-paul-evans/the-big-announcement-youve-been-waiting-for/10150194328888025

Hazardous Bus Drivers

Here’s an article about the bus drivers in our area.

http://abclocal.go.com/wtvd/story?section=news/abc11_investigates&id=8127645

100 Bus accidents in a 4 month time frame when those months include spring break and a week off for Christmas.  Follow my math…  if there are approximately 4 weeks per month and only 5 school days per week, that’s 20 school days per month.  Multiply that by the 4 month time frame they are reporting on that is 80 school days.  That’s more than one school bus accident per school day.  Actually the statistics are worse than that because the students had a week off for spring break and a week of other miscellaneous days off from Christmas, student work days, and snow days.  That’s 1.4 bus accidents per day!   That’s crazy.  

Carpool Crazies

Every day I take or pick up my kids from school, the carpool line makes my blood boil.  First of all, it is beyond comprehension why there is only one crossing guard for 5 lanes of traffic.  No one can see that guard standing in the middle.  In fact just this week a police officer ran right past the stop sign holding crossing guard.  Yes, a police officer.  He stops just yards beyond where he should have stopped and lectures the crossing guard for several minutes after the traffic flow resumes blocking an already congested area.  My guess is that the crossing guard is a mom, either volunteering or earning a minimal amount.  Here’s an idea, instead of lecturing the crossing guard, why didn’t the police officer get out and help her?? 

At one school the crossing guard is only on one side of the intersection (see diagram - it didn't copy very well).  When the guard is walking children across the 5 lane road, people of the neighborhood and from the left side of the school think it’s there time to get into the school.  It happens every day.  Maybe this is “allowed” but what really gets me is when people stack up the line into the road so that when the crossing guard is no longer in the street there are several cars blocking 2 or 3 lanes of traffic. 

The other thing that drives me crazy is that the school has sent out notes about making a U-turn in the area of the school.  They ask parents not too because it makes it dangerous for the students and causing more traffic congestion around the school.  Even though when leaving the school you are not permitted to turn left, the school still prefers drivers not to make a U-turn.  But every single day, numerous people make a U-turn.  I need to go the other direction too, but I always go around the block to get back to the direction I need to go.  It’s so frustrating when these drivers could pull into the neighborhood next to the school to get turned around, but everyday numerous people make a U-turn right there on that 5 lane road.  When there are police officers around, they do nothing.  It is so frustrating!

Anyone know the laws concerning crossing guards or U-turns on 5 line roads?

Silence is Golden?

I know I have been MIA for....  a month.  It will most likely continue until after finals.  :(


But for your entertainment, here's a video of Chancellor Thorp playing jazz to promote arts in education.  Yes, that is my son on drums.  :)  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=M4kUC-Y6hvQ

Family Matters Part 6

 The information was confusing at times because names like Charles and Isabel are repeated in different generations.  My initial research also had some discrepancies as well.  There were two different dates for Isabel Turner’s voyage to America more than thirty years apart.  The family Bible anchors the 1881 date for the Turners.  After more research I determined the other date of 1850 to be when the McCreery side of the family came to America.  While it is much more difficult to research women because of the changing of their last name in marriage, I also believe there was more information on the McCreery side partially due to socioeconomic status.  The wealth of the McCreerys makes them more fascinating to research.  This coupled with the fact that the McCreerys had more news articles and other records written about them made information easier to find.  My grandmother’s brothers were also well established, one a surgeon, another a civil engineer that helped build part of Boston, and a third brother who was a principal at a school.  This was documented in more letters in my grandmother’s hand, but I could not authenticate the information on the internet.   
What was baffling was that my mom shared very little of this information before now.  I knew my great grandfather went to Brown and that my grandfather was a research chemist for DuPont with numerous patents to his name and even that my mother cut her leg on the beach while on vacation.  It wasn’t until last week that she revealed that the beach was on Martha’s Vineyard.  This past week I also discovered that my grandmother went to high school with Rose Kennedy.  Additionally my mother also revealed that her family would often hear of the Kennedy gossip through their neighbors in Oak Bluffs.  I never found out exactly what happened to the farm.  My grandmother wrote that it was sold, but she did not say when nor did she say if the big house stayed in the family and if so who retained the deed.  A search on the address my grandmother remembered did not match the current town records.  My assumption was that it was sold to a developer and the original road no longer exists.  The McCreery Department store went out of business in 1953 after 116 years in operation.  It survived the Depression, but closed its doors amidst the news of Stalin’s death, the execution of the Rosenbergs, and the end of the Korean War when Dwight D. Eisenhower served as President.   

Family Matters Part 5

 Discovering that my great, great Grandpa Joseph McCreery owned property in Martha’s Vineyard was just the beginning.  When I tried to ascertain why there was so much information on the McCreery side more details began to surface.  Buried in the pages of hand written correspondence was a sentence about visiting the store Uncle James owned in New York City named McCreery’s Department Store.  In the late 1800’s McCreery’s had the reputation of Macy’s and is listed among the emerging department stores of that era.  I happened upon an advertisement for McCreery Department Store dated 1948 for sale on eBay.  This particular detail surprised even my mother.  Searching for more information yielded little results, although I did find a photograph of the store.  James McCreery was born in Ireland, which corroborates my mother’s claim that there was some Irish in the blood line.  The store was founded before James arrived.  Perhaps James’ reason for coming to America was to run the store.  Later he inherited it or acquired it.  I found some additional information about James McCreery’s descendants online, but I could not validate the information because I did not have records of his wife or children. 

 

Family Matters Part 4

 Letters from my grandmother describe a family farm in Oak Bluffs not far from Fall River where Charles and Isabel McCreery resided.  It was not until I searched for Oak Bluffs, Massachusetts that I realized it was on Martha’s Vineyard.  The family owned farm was the summer vacation home for the brothers and their families.  In old letters my grandmother describes the property as a large orchard located on the northern part of the island.  My grandmother, Isabel Long describes the orchard with over two hundred and fifty trees.  The apple orchard was the largest; the small pear orchard was to the rear of the big house and in the front about a dozen dark cherry trees.  Behind the outhouse was a small peach orchard and beyond that is what she describes as a farm with chickens, cows, and even a large garden.  Isabel Long’s grandfather, Joseph McCreery collected the trees and shrubs on his travels and planted them in his gardens.  The barn and shed were covered in grapevines.  Many people would come and visit the vineyard and leave with sacks of fresh fruit.  The summers must have been heavenly as a child playing among the trees in the orchard until the sun went down.  Grandpa Joseph McCreery was very protective of his gardens and did not want the children to climb the trees but my grandmother confesses that they did.  On occasion the adults must have taken the children to the Flying Horses Carousel located on Circuit Avenue.  The Carousel was brought to Martha’s Vineyard in 1884 and still is in operation today.  My grandmother’s father, Charles John McCreery died as a result of injuries sustained from an automobile accident while vacationing in Oak Bluffs in July 1933.  His wife Isabel died two years later on her sixty-seventh birthday after an appendectomy.  The notes said she was so sad after Charles death that she had no desire to get well.  They are buried in Oak Grove Cemetery in Fall River, Massachusetts.