Keys To My Heart

Today I received a nice letter with a photo of William and Rebecca from my double cousin, Marlene Versluis of Glendale, Arizona. I was really excited because I don’t have any photos of my Great Grandfather, George Washington Wade, Senior. He is the ONLY Great Grandparent of whom I’m missing a photo! This photo is of his father’s sister and his mother’s brother. Rebecca Wade Gabbert was the sister of John William Wade, who was my Great Great Grandfather and my Grandpa Wade’s Grandfather. William Gabbert was not only the husband of Rebecca Wade, but he was also the brother of John Wade’s wife, Mary Polly Gabbert. I got to see John Wade’s grave in December of 2005, when my Aunt Joan and Uncle Bill drove me around to some local cemeteries. One was the Union Chapel or Bachelor Cemetery–way out past Deep Cut Lake. It is the final resting place of John William Wade and his second wife, Virginia Robertson. Unfortunately, no one knows where Polly is buried. Polly’s mother is buried in an empty field near Salem, Indiana. I went there in November 2008. There is just one slab on the ground, but the area has a fence around space for two graves. Polly’s mother, also a Polly, Polly DePauw Gabbert, was the sister of Napoleon Bonapart DePauw. He also was the only relative that I ever found who owned slaves at one time or another, as in his will in 1858, he gave two their freedom. Anyway, Napoleon put these slabs on several graves of close relatives (his brothers, sister, and father).

Speaking of slaves, William and Rebecca Gabbert were very involved as southern sympathizers. They were living in Missouri at the time of the Civil War. They not only were sympathizers, but William was a famous guerrilla Bushwhacker in Vernon County, Missouri. His exploits and those of his and Rebecca’s daughter and son, Eliza and John, and John’s wife Lennora, are chronicled in several books and displays at the Bushwhacker Museum, located in Nevada, Missouri. For more info about Rebecca and William, see my genealogy website. Don’t forget to click the links in the History section on their individual pages for more stories. Also, check out their children, John and Eliza, for more tales about spying for the Confederacy. John’s wife, Lennora, and Eliza both risked their lives as couriers. In the post about Confederate sisters, Lennora and Eliza tricked Northern soldiers into releasing their captured friends by posing as their distraught lovers. John Gabbert however had died in the fighting in 1863.

If you are interested in these Gabberts and want to find out more about them, I’ve also been corresponding with Jon Lockhart. John Gabbert and Polly Gabbert Wade’s older sister, Rachel Gabbert Lockhart, is his ancestor. He has a great blog called Family Ramblings and has done a lot of research on the Gabberts and the DePauw’s. Also, on this page, Merida Wade, John Wade’s father, is mentioned in a couple of posts about land patents. The two maps show where all the families (Wades, Gabberts, DePauws, Lockharts, etc.) originally lived in Washington County, Indiana. The Wade Farm was very close to West Washington High School, a few miles from Salem. Merrida and his wife Ferrabee, are buried just down the road at the site of the current Mount Tabor Church of Christ. I visited there in January of 2009, but I couldn’t find their graves, but I did find several other family members.

Here are some photos related to this post:

Mac Davis said it best. You gotta stop. And smell the roses. This week has been wild for me. I’ve been sick from a flu bug for the past two weeks so it was nice hearing from the girls that I was to receive some sort of surprise this week from both of them. Thursday I received first a card and two dozen beautiful (really beautiful) roses in assorted colors. I stopped at the post office on the way home from work that day, and I also got a package with bath salts and an iTunes gift card. Wow! Unfortunately, I no more than got home and put the flowers in their vase than I got a call from Mom that said that Dad needed to have another heart surgery. How can that be when he has been doing so well? So I go to the doctor on Friday because I want to make sure that I can head to Florida to be with Mom. I had 102 degree fever (no idea, hope I didn’t infect any school kids on Thursday) but no pneumonia.  I got my medicine and went home to bed. By Friday evening my fever was gone. Carrie was worried the flowers wouldn’t be pretty because they were delayed two days due to the heavy snow we had here in southern Indiana. I sent the girls some pictures on my iPhone, but they didn’t do them justice, and Sarah couldn’t download them on her phone. There was nothing else to do but to pull out my DSL and take some more. Hey! It’s not often I get photo subjects that don’t yell at me, “Mom, put the camera down!” I decided to take pictures of them all over the house–in the living room, by the window, on the table, etc. When I put them on the hearth, a funny thing happened. My silly cat  started smelling them, walking around the vase to smell all the different colored roses. So I put them on the floor and snapped away quite happily until I started losing my good daylight. I may not have been able to smell the roses, but somebody else sure did!

When I was much younger, I used to get The Who and The Guess Who mixed up. I learned to love the different styles of both the bands however. It’s exciting that one of the groups, The Who, will be playing at the Super Bowl. I used to have such a crush on Roger Daltry. When I saw the movie Tommy was on tv earlier this year, I recorded it on my computer. I still love their music and hope they play “Behind Blue Eyes,” “Baba O’Riley” and “Who Are You.” Of course, “Pinball Wizard” is a favorite, but I also play a lot of “Won’t Get Fooled Again,” “I Can See For Miles,” “Magic Bus,” and “My Generation.” “Squeeze Box” used to crack me up. “The Seeker” is on one of my Rock Band games, but I don’t remember for sure which one. The Who are from Britain, and I think the Guess Who are from Canada, but they are both on several playlists in my iTunes.

I braved the snow today to go to CVS in Loogootee. I could be wrong, but I don’t think there is any place in Shoals that sells Advil Cold & Sinus. That product is the only thing that can keep me going when my allergies are bad. It could be a cold or flu, but I’m hoping it’s just allergies that’s had me down for the last couple of days. The trees were so beautiful on the drive over, so I stopped and took some pictures. After Christmas I bought a small little camera to keep with me so I don’t have to haul the DSL around. The snow is nothing like what Carrie is dealing with in the Baltimore/DC area, but I still thought it was really pretty.