Zanesville, Ohio

We moved and are now settled in Zanesville, Ohio, Gene’s old stomping ground. Actually, we are a few miles east of where he grew up but we had to be in a campground with good Verizon service for his work. But we are close. We had a great trip today. We left Waterford this morning in 38 degree cold and are now basking in the fall sunshine and big blue skies with 70 degrees showing on our thermometer. The traffic was very light all day and the roads were in excellent condition.

Edna on her graduation from High School, 1930.

Gene’s mother was an Ashcraft. This line of the Ashcrafts came from Berkeley County, West Virginia (on the east side of the state in the corner with Virginia, Maryland, and Pennsylvania) to settle in this area around the end of the 1700s by way of Fayette County, Pennsylvania which is just north of the West Virginia border. It has been rumored about for many, many years that the “hillbillies” from Kentucky and West Virginia came looking for jobs in the growing Ohio cities. The 1700s seem to be a bit early for that migration so we don’t really know why they came unless they were just following the trend of the time to “go west”. Daniel B was the first of our line of Ashcrafts to settle in Ohio, but his descendants have scattered beyond here to Indiana, Kentucky, Arizona, and even back to Pennsylvania.

Gene's mother, Edna, was one of 7 children. I didn’t know her until she was in her late 80s. She was a feisty, little lady and little she was. I am not very tall, but I towered over her by almost a full head. She was one of those people who saved everything. Anytime I went in her home, it was always nice and neat with everything in its place. After she passed away and I had the privilege of cleaning out the house, boy did I get a surprise. Every piece of paper that she ever came in contact with, she kept—every receipt, every calendar, and every letter. I don’t know how so much paper got in that little house. Edna also liked to hide money around. She told Gene one time that she had a little stash of money in the vacuum cleaner. I certainly didn’t want to send the vacuum to Good Will with the family fortune in the bag so I searched the vacuum cleaner and every thing else I thought she may have thought a good hiding place. I never did find any money, but you can imagine my surprise when I lifted up the cushions of the living room sofa and found about 200 greeting cards which Edna had received over the 93 years of her life. I guess she had run out of room in all the closets and drawers. You may think we should have noticed something under the sofa cushions, but we didn’t sit on that sofa often because it was for “special occasions”. Edna had set up the living room in 1958 and it was exactly the same in 2005 except that everything had faded and the foam in the sofa cushions had turned to stone. She was a keeper, all right. Edna, Edna, how I wish I had known her better.

I'm wondering who these fine ladies are.
The photo was taken about 1913.

Edna was actually very good at record keeping. She wrote who, what, and where on just about everything. Thankfully, she did that for thousands of photographs. But I still have a few, maybe 50, that are not labeled. Some of the subjects in the photos are so interesting I just have to know who they are. This week we are on a quest to find out.