Rules of the Road

I've been thinking about how much things have changed since I was just a kid. Anymore, kids have to be buckled up when they ride in a vehicle, as well as the adults. There's nothing wrong with that, don't get me wrong, but I can remember as a kid jumping into the back of the pick-up and heading down the road. It was fun to ride in the back. Don't get me wrong. I know why it is that the laws are becoming more strict, to save lives.

One time Jackie, Dinah and I were riding in the back of Grandpa John's pick-up heading down the road toward his house. We always had fun trying to fool him into thinking someone had fallen out. Well, on this particular day, Jackie stood up at the back of the pick-up by the tailgate. She tumbled over the tail-gate (she was facing front) and hit the ground pretty hard. Dinah and I both hollered at Grandpa to tell him that she had fallen out. Talk about the old story about crying wolf, that's exactly what happened. Grandpa ignored us. When we got down the road quite a ways, he saw Jackie running after us. It didn't help that when Dinah and I saw that Jackie was okay, we laughed and giggled while trying to tell Grandpa she had fallen out.

I hope Jackie wears her seat belt now. I think there were a couple of other times that she managed to fall out of a car.

These grape hyacinth were growing all over the yard when Al and I got married. Over the years, we've managed to move most of them to a couple of different places where they are all together. They're such pretty, dainty little bulbs. I had baby lilies earlier that I didn't get a picture of. They came from Al's mother's garden years ago. My sister-in-law Vicky gave them to me.





The tulips are beautiful this year. I know, there is grass in them. Well, there was grass in them. After I took the pictures, I went to work getting rid of grass and weeds.







Some of the flowers that are blooming in my flower gardens right now. I had yellow and white daffodils, but I'm afraid I didn't get out to take pictures of them soon enough. They're about finished.




Al and I both enjoy gardening. He concentrates mostly on the vegetable garden but helps me out a lot with the flowers, too. He used to tease me when I started growing flowers, telling me that I had weeds growing that I needed to get rid of. Now he's as bad as I am about planting flowers. I think it's because all the ladies tell him how beautiful they are.

The vegetable garden is pretty much planted now. I'll have to take some pictures of it later on when it has a chance to grow. There isn't much to look at right now.

This is a picture of my great, great, great grandmother Rachael Poorman Baird, wife to Benjamin Baird shown below.


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Benjamin and Rachel Baird were originally from Scotland and boasted of a Baird Clan Plaid. There each clan or the descendants of the same progenitor, had a plaid designed for them in a particular pattern. Boastfully or apologetically, they say the lineage can be traced back to the house of Stuarts. On the other side, the famed Rudolph Hess, is thought to be our very, very distant cousin (p 9).
Later the family moved to Ducanon, Ireland and from there to America

In her book, Maude Cole says that there were no candles available so her grandmother, Rachel, had an iron teapot that was filled with bear grease. They stuck a wick into the spout and lit it. (p 10).

She tells of the time her Grandmother Rachel was home with only the children when a huge bear tried to force its way into the house. Rachel took a large kettle of hot lye mixture she was using to make soap and fought the bear off with that (p 11).
They lived in a log cabin until 1850 when Benjamin sold off some of his land claim and built a large frame house on the remainder. Ezra and his family lived there until they went west in 1906 (AWAY BACK WHEN by Maude E. Cole).

These stories happened while the Baird family was living in Pennsylvania.

This is a picture of my great, great, great grandparents Benjamin and Susan Sallee. Aunt Dinah says there is a book published about the Sallee's. I need to find out more about it so that I can try to get hold of one.

Rawlins County is updating their History, so I wrote these to add to the collection.

Albert J. Holub
Albert James Holub, Tech Sergeant, Air Craft Mechanic for the U. S. Air Force was raised in Rawlins County on a farm southeast of Beardsley. Al joined the Air Force on the 26 March 1961 and spent the next 20 years serving our country, retiring on 30 March 1981.
Al took his basic training at Lackland Air Force Base in San Antonio, Texas then attended Basic Air Craft Maintenance School in Wichita Falls, Texas. He then went on to Donaldson AFB, South Carolina and during that time served two six month duties in Germany. While at Hunter AFB, Savannah Georgia, Al had a 3 month temporary duty in Guam.
Following these assignments, Al served in Vietnam for a year and three months. During this time he was awarded the Air Force Accommodation Medal. After leaving Vietnam, he was stationed at Peterson AFB, Colorado Springs, Colorado, then moved to Shepherd AFB, Wichita Falls, Texas where he served as a mechanic instructor.
Iceland was next where he worked on EC 121’s for one year, then Wurtsmith AFB, Michigan where he worked on the B 52. Overseas duty was next in Athens, Greece where he worked on EC 135 aircraft, His last assignment was Loring AFB, Maine where he again worked on the B 52.
When Al retired, he lived briefly in Wellington, KS, then moved home to McDonald where he lives at present.

Albert J. and Vonita S. (Faber) Holub
Al and Vonita were married on September 4, 1993 at Al’s home in McDonald, Rawlins County, Kansas with Judge Dorothy Reinert officiating. The wedding was held in the yard with many friends and relatives present.
Al was born in Rawlins County, Kansas on September 27, 1938 to Albert and Vera (Studer) Holub. He grew up on his parents farm northwest of Beardsley with 11 brothers and sisters: Margie (Holub) McFee, Delbert (Bud), Joyce (Holub) Hale, Larry, Judy (Holub) Mann, Patty (Holub) Lloyd, Gary (Pete), Maryjane (Holub) Howard, Ronnie, Randy and Tammy (Holub) Ginther. Al attended grade school in Beardsley. In 1956, Al graduated from McDonald High School, then moved to California for a short time. He came back to McDonald, joined the Air Force and served our country for 20 years.
During this time, Al married Linda Smith in 1963. Two children were born during this marriage; Cheryl on 21 July 1964 and Alan, 20 November 1965, both in Savannah, Georgia. He later married Edna Walton in 1968, and they had a daughter, Michelle, born 3 April 1970 in Wichita Falls, Texas.
In 1981, Al retired from the Air Force, lived in Wellington, Kansas, then moved back home to McDonald where he worked for the County Highway Department as a maintainer driver for thirteen years.
Vonita was born to Jack and Mary (Hurst) Faber in Colby, Kansas and went home to the family farm in Rawlins County south of McDonald. She has a sister Jackie (Faber) Jorgensen and a brother John. John still lives on the family farm. Vonita attended the Mirage School in Rawlins County until 6th grade when the family transferred to Brewster. Vonita graduated from Brewster High School in 1967.
In 1967, Vonita married Robert Wallsmith. To this union three children were born; Julie Marie, 23 March 1968; Matthew Dean, 7 July 1970; Jessica Lane, 17 November 1972. Vonita graduated from Fort Hays State University with a degree in Secondary Education/ English. She taught in Stockton, Kansas for one year then taught Outreach Composition I and II classes for Colby Community College until 1998.
Since their marriage, Al and Vonita have lived in McDonald except from 1996 to 2001 when they owned and operated Big Al’s Steak House in Brewster, Kansas. Between the two of them they have 13 grandchildren who bring joy and excitement into their lives.

It's so much fun to turn on the television and see a relative on national tv. I had a phone call yesterday to watch CNBC around 9:15 this morning to see cousin Mebane Faber as a guest speaker on Squawk on the Street under the heading of Investing Like the Top Endowments. Meb is living in California, I believe (correct me if I'm wrong), and is a financial analyst. He has written a book called The Ivy Portfolio and also does some writing for www.thestreet.com and the World Beta Blog. If anyone would be interested in watching him, you can find the clip at the following address online:

http://www.cnbc.com/id/15840232?video=1101420851&play=1

We had such a wonderful Faber family reunion on April 4. I will write about it in the near future. I've kind of neglected my blog lately, but seems with the nice weather, I am reminded of so much that needs to be done. Well, I think about it a lot, but I haven't gotten a lot of it finished. There's windows to wash, house to clean, garden to plant (Al's pretty much doing all of that this year) and graduations coming up soon.

It's hard to believe that I have another grandchild graduating from high school. Alexis Rose is the graduate, and she plans to go to nursing school in Wichita. Then I have Amber, Caleb and Nakita graduating from 8th grade. I guess I'll be doing some traveling towards the middle of May, which isn't so bad because I still haven't seen my son's new home. Oh, to win the lottery and be able to travel anytime and anywhere that I want to. Dream on!

Just thinking

Well, the history for the day shows John Wilkes Booth as the subject. Makes me think of Aunt Dinah and all the work she has done in Maryland with the preservation of the Booth home. She's put a lot of time and energy into the project, and I admire her for all her hard work. WTG Dinah.

We left Saturday morning and went to Tyrone, OK to visit with Al's two sisters who live there. We stayed at Maryjanes and visited at Judy's. Judy had a houseful of company, neices and their families who we hadn't seen in years. It was nice to see them all even if I did have to ask them who they were because they had changed so much. There was a new baby there, Isabella. She's only a week or so old so I thoroughly enjoyed holding and cuddling her. I love babies. Right now there are no babies left in my immediate family, so I have to enjoy those of other relatives. Maryjane also has a new granddaughter that we hadn't seen. She's older and such a beautiful baby she is. She has gorgeous red hair and a smile that captures your attention immediately. She laughed and talked to me lots while I held her.

We picked up a third sister of Al's who lives close to us but was visiting at Judy's. She had gone down earlier to visit for Easter and we brought her back home with us. On the way home, we were all so tired we decided not to stop at another of Al's sister's on the way. Now I wish we would have stopped because there was another baby new to the family that we hadn't seen. Oh, well, we'll have to catch that one later.

Al comes from a big family. There were 6 boys and 6 girls for his parents to raise. Al was the 2nd and since he went into the Air Force for 20 years, the younger ones were pretty much grown up by the time he moved back to this area. Now that he's here, he enjoys so much visiting with all of them.

Oscar went with us. He stuck pretty close to Al the entire time. But when we went upstairs at bedtime, he wouldn't go up those stairs. They were pretty steep and narrow with carpeting on them and he was afraid of them, so we had to carry him up and down. I think of the three of us, Oscar was the most relieved to leave for home.

It's nice to go visiting, but it's even nicer to come back home. I slept well while I was gone, but still came home worn out. There's just nothing like Home, Sweet Home.

I hope that all of you had a Joyful Easter.