Out On A Limb With Jean

          Every October for the past few years, Craig, our pooch Char, and I have taken off in our fifth-wheel trailer.   In the past, we’ve attended a Civil War Battlefield tour sponsored by the Civil War Museum in Kenosha, where I worked for about 7 years (previously, I worked at the Kenosha Public Museum for 8 years before the CWM was built).   Unfortunately, in 2020, COVID-19 prevented any such tour from taking place, but we still hit the road in our RV.   We decided to head to Kentucky and Tennessee. We toured the Creation Museum and the Ark Encounter, Mammoth Cave National Park (a disappointment), Crystal Onyx Cave (a real treat), the Corvette Museum (where in 2014 a sinkhole swallowed 8 cars), and Lincoln’s birthplace and boyhood home, all in Kentucky.   We then went on to Tennessee.             We really enjoyed Tennessee – the fall colors, Gatlinburg, Smoky Mountains National Park, ...

               It is said a picture is worth a thousand words, so this post will not be nearly as long as it could be, since it’s largely made up of photos!  I have many photos of family homes, some indoor, some outdoor.  Some photos that appear to be the interior of a home may in fact be a photo backdrop, which was popular early on in photographic history.  I don’t have many photos of the interior of my ancestor’s homes, but I do have several of the exteriors.  The oldest residence photo I have is from 1897, and is of my great-grandparents, Francis Marion and Sarah CHURCHWELL and their children.  This is a favorite of mine, not only because of the people, but of the view of the house, yard, barn and some horses.  This must have been taken in late fall or early spring since the trees are bare of leaves.    1897 – Left to Right:  Rebecca Ellen, Richard Henry, William Thornton, Thomas Herman, Father -...