Doctor Grandma

President Obama’s speech

July 26, 2011

The President addressed the nation tonight. He told the American people to call their Congressmen and women & tell them to quit playing games, raise the debt ceiling like it’s been done for every President throughout HISTORY UP TO TODAY, or we are in serious trouble. Then, his short speech ended & Boehner came on to get “equal time”! I was floored. Equal time? to the President? What does this mean? It means that our Congress, our out of touch, self absorbed elected “leaders” consider themselves SO COMPLETELY divided, that they believe the American people want to hear “both sides” because they are diametrically opposed to one another.

I cannot write in a blog the language I used in my own living room, but I have this to say to Mr. Boehner.

SHAME ON YOU! SHAME ON YOU, SHAME ON YOU. Who the “heck” do you think you are? Who are you serving? Who elected you? Who are your constituents? It certainly is not ME, one lowly worker whose husband just got laid off through no fault of his own. It’s not me you’re speaking to. You are obviously speaking to corporations, private companies who are mad its taken so long to let them take over and privatize Social Security and Medicare.

Go ahead guys, stop the presses, make it so the rest of the entire world looks over here and says, “Oh my gosh! The heck with their credit, they can’t even come to agreement enough to prevent a wholesale slaughter of their economy.” I got cold chills listening to tonight’s broadcast, because I realized, “It’s beyond the great divide. They are completely, totally divided, and they don’t care.” We are on our own, folks. We’re about to crumble and fall like a house of cards. We thought this last 3 year recession was bad, wait ’till we see what’s around the corner.

I would like to think that our Representatives will wake up and do something, even just for show, something to make it look like they care whether or not every social program in America is cut down to nothing. People are on the streets already, but the masses that could be there will be WAY beyond what we’re seeing today. Rather than people under the bridges and camped out in parks, we will see people dying in the streets en masse.

But I really don’t think they’re going to do anything. I think they are THAT FAR GONE. There is a point of no return, and it appears we are there. I believe Obama is one of the most progressive, far-sighted Presidents in our history, and could have taken us far. Perhaps we might have caught up somewhat with Europe and Asia. But they’re not going to let him do it. They are hell bent on stopping him, and they don’t care if they take down the whole country to do it.

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Caldecotts 1967-71

July 25, 2011

It’s trying to rain but the rain, thunder and dark clouds just keep rolling on by. They don’t stop here.

Counting gender. Caldecotts of 1967-71:

Names in Titles of Books: 15 male, 3 female.

Main characters in titles of books: 12 male, 2 female.

Main character of stories: 17 males, 3 females, some of which are not in the title or front cover illustration.

Illustrations on front cover: 23 males, 5 females.

Illustrations on title pages: 18 male, 2 female.

Male “Single-gender” illustrations, meaning, the # of pictures where ONLY males or ONLY females are represented: 243.

Female ” ” ” : 12.

Total # of MALES illustrated in ALL the pictures in the book: 642.

Total # of FEMALES ” ” ” : 131.

ROLES assumed byMALE characters in all the books:

Friend, rescuer, boy, son, father, brother,husband, friend, Angry Moon, Drummer, Private, Corporal, Sergeant, Captain, Major, General, Emperor, Monk, Evil men, Czar, Fool (hero), Peasant, Servant, prisoner, Moujik, Ancient old man, Storyteller, Sky God, Poet (hero), Hoodlums, Prophet, fisherman, blacksmith, miller, baker, carpenter, gardener, Chief, the Moon, and Water.

Males were also mice, donkeys, frog, toad, goat, dog, bear, cat, a magic lizard, a pig.

FEMALES were: friend (gets rescued), daughter, sister, wife, mother, Grandmother, princess, prisoner, carpenter, gardener, teacher, seller of fish at market, the Moon (Sun’s wife), a fairy, a Sea maiden, a doll.

Females were also donkey, pig.

In 18 books, 4 were completely animal stories, 5 more had both animals and human characters with gender, and 8 had magical characters of some kind.

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journal article: counting gender

July 17, 2011

It would seem an easy enough, if not tedious task, to count depictions of gender in children’s PICTURE books. Each character, when it appears in an illustration as male or female, is counted as: male, or conversely, female. Well, it’s not easy.

In most studies, they differentiate human vs. animal. So how do you count: the Sky God? He is illustrated as a human man. Is he human? How about characters named “Grandma” and “Boy” but they can fly and appear in the Sky Kingdom with an African mask for their faces?

How do you count the character of “the Moon” in “ANGRY MOON”? It is neither human nor animal.

How do you count the magical fairy, Mmotia, or the Gum Baby doll made by Anansi the Spider man, when the doll is refered to as “she”?

Leopard is easy enough; he is an animal and refered to as “he”. Male animal. Toad and Frog are friends and they are male animals. But how about Sylvester, who is a male donkey but turns himself into a ROCK by accident, with use of a magic pebble? Do you count 1 male for each time the rock appears? We know it is Sylvester. And we hear his thoughts in the text. And when his family appears in a “photo” on the wall in their living room, do you count them again?

And what do you do with all the villagers in the background of Anansi, the storyteller spider man? Some of them are clearly male or female– the mother in dress, holding a baby in a sling; a wife in dress and scarf, standing next to her husband holding a spear. But then there are all the people of the Czar’s kingdom awaiting the “Fool and the Flying Ship” to arrive and take the princess as his “prize”. Some are clearly male and female, others, it’s hard to say… You would think the children in dress with hair pulled back and up are female, but then there are two children in only shorts with their hair done the same. Are they male or female?

In “Seashore Story,” Japanese children from a ballet school wander along the beach and tell the story of “Urashima” the ancient fisherman who saves the life of a turtle and then travels with the turtle under the sea to a magic kingdom. The beach pictures depct children with a beautiful swish of the paint brush. Some appear clearly female, others you really can’t say what they are.

In sociology, the important thing is to be as scientific as possible, not swayed into saying male or female by some judgement based on a stereotype, such as only females have long hair, or even wear a dress. In such cases, we are making a judgement perhaps based on our own cultural expectations, or a stereotype. You have to define exactly how you will count such figures and then be consistent throughout all the books in your study. For example, one author takes any picture with MORE than 6 figures and decides whether most characters are male, or female, then counts only ONE for that gender. If they are basically equal in number, then you don’t count them at all. This prevents giving all the villagers in the background the same status as the main characters in the story.

It’s a long and tedious process, always more to it than you think there will be. I first have to do all this tedious work of counting & then at the end, I get to figure out what statistical test makes sense to compare results of each book set, and how the hell to do it! I haven’t done statistics in years. My best talent is qualitative work.

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journal article

July 14, 2011

I’m beginning systematic work on a journal article which has been in my mind for over 10 years. First came to me during a qualitative methods class in graduate school. Do you know how hard it is to bring this together after carrying it that long in your mind? I have files and papers, research done by students over the years to corroborate what I found, notebooks, even transparencies. It has to do with gender and race in children’s picture books, a subject overdone in articles already but I have a new “twist”. I’m good at twists. Twists and interesting article titles tend to get you published and into conferences. It will be amazing to bring this project to fruition, one of those long-term goals I’ve had that will feel good to accomplish.

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Hidden Words of Baha’u’llah, no.44

July 12, 2011

I was posting these every once in awhile but haven’t for a long time. Going slowly through the small book of Baha’u’llah’s called “Hidden Words” which is said to contain the spiritual truths of all religious traditions. They are all meditative, short and universal. He composed them while banished to Baghdad, and from what I remember, while walking along the banks of the Tigris river. Here is the next one we haven’t yet seen on this blog:

44. O SON OF THE THRONE!
Thy hearing is My hearing, hear thou therewith. Thy sight is My sight, do thou see therewith, that in thine inmost soul thou mayest testify unto My exalted sanctity, and I within Myself may bear witness unto an exalted station for thee.

(Baha’u’llah, The Arabic Hidden Words)

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twins on 3 sides of the family

July 5, 2011

Twins:

AGNEW line: My grandfather John Wesley had a twin sister, Gertrude Myrtle (“Beulah”).

PLANTENGA: My grandfather had 2 twin brothers, Ralph and Clarence.

ORNDORF: Earl Black’s mother Romelia had a twin sister Rosalia.

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Indian grandmother on my husband’s side

July 1, 2011

This is for the “Black” side:

Earl Black’s mother is Julia Morgan (Grandma Julia, my husband’s grandma Black).

Julia’s mother is Johanna Haniford.

Johanna’s mother is said in family stories to be 1/2 Indian.

Johanna’s parents were Thomas and Julia Haniford. Thomas immigrated from Ireland.

Julia Haniford’s maiden name is Corkley.

Julia Corkley’s father was Irish, by the last name. He probably immigrated and married a full blood Native American wife. So far, I have found an immigration record for a Thomas Haniford but none for Julia Corkley. Now that makes sense.

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Secrets and Mysteries: poem for my great grandfather

July 1, 2011

Secrets and mysteries

To my great grandfather

In all families, there are secrets and mysteries,

Connecting generations through time and space,

Blanks in the puzzle

That don’t quite fit,

Amid names and places

closely knit,

I have been studying you,

I know when you were born,

Where you lived and

Where you worked,

When you had children and

how you died,

I could sit down in your kitchen

Share a cup of coffee,

Go over the collection,

Ask you, What fits here? And what goes there?

I can almost hear your voice as you

Call to your loved ones, as you

Worry about where the next meal will come from, as you

Learn of a parent’s death, or

Grieve over a child gone too soon,

It’s all there, on paper, on

Microfilm, transcribed, and then entered online, in

Microchips and megabytes,

Records of decades and centuries gone by,

The records of our lives,

But I want to ask you, WHY did you LIE

to the census taker who came by,

when she asked you, Where were your parents born?

Was it so hard to tell the truth?

Did you think it not the government’s business, and so you

Changed the story 3 different times, giving

Different answers from one decade to the next?

One time they were both born in England, but

The next time it was different –

your father was born in Virginia, and your mother came from Germany,

And I think, My God, if you didn’t want anyone to know

Who your mother was or,

WHERE she was born,

Couldn’t you decide to lie consistently,

to at least make it LOOK

As if we came from somewhere?

But instead you — lie, you

change the story, you make

pieces into the puzzle that just don’t fit,

and so I have to think that,

You really did have something to hide,

(And so you lied).

There’s that time when you were

8 years old and

Left there hanging, at the bottom of the census page, like

Someone’s forgotten anecdote.

Why WAS that, Did they almost forget you and

call to the census taker, already half way down the street

On your neighbor’s porch, saying, Wait!

We forgot – there is another boy here!

Let’s add him to the bottom of the page . . .

as an afterthought,

And the wife of your father there,

She is too young to be your mother,

(Unless she had you at age 13),

I think it more likely there was a-

nother mother,

Was she Indian?

Was her skin too brown to claim, or

Was your step-mother just too

busy holding her new baby in her arms,

to remember you?

I know you fought for the Union army, you

Came down the Ohio river,

from Cincinnati to New Albany

and settled yourself in southern Indiana, started your own family,

and never again, that I can find,

visited your Ohio family,

I know your first wife died young,

But I can’t find where you buried her,

And with her you had 2 daughters

Who live into adulthood.

Then you married my great grandmother,

Who was 19 years your junior and you

live out the rest of your lives in this place where the

Great Ohio river separates Indiana, from Kentucky,

North from south,

And with her you had 6 children,

The 2^nd one dying in infancy, but the

5^th and 6^th were a set of twins,

One of them being my grandfather.

And I wish I could sit down with you,

Share a cup of coffee at your kitchen table,

Because you see, I’ve grown to know you,

And there’s so much we could talk about,

So many pieces of the puzzle never found,

So many blanks to fill,

But you’ve been

Dead in the ground now 105 years,

and your birth was 112 years

before mine,

But you see, that’s part of the problem,

because the men in my family

DIE SO YOUNG,

You, your son (my grandfather)

And my own father, gone before their time,

None of them living to 65,

All of them leaving their families behind,

to pick through the puzzles of their lives and to

Try to make sense of all the truths

And the lies,

and I

Come to the conclusion that,

We sometimes have to go with what we know and,

Be happy with the pieces we were able to find,

And I hope that you will help me from

the place that you are now because

I know that your spirit is still alive,

and I know that family lines, with all our

secrets and mysteries,

Family lines and blood runs dark,

and deep,

and we all are a part of

those souls who’ve gone before us,

our stories intertwine,

our secrets long to be released.

CF Black 30 June 2011

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story of James and Carrie Agnew

June 28, 2011

Story of James and Carrie Agnew (my great-grandfather)

b. July 10, 1841 in Ohio

d. 27 June 1906, New Albany, IN, from a fall off a ladder

[His 2^nd wife, my great grandmother, Carrie (Clara, Clara E., Clerry) was born somewhere in Indiana, April 1860. Her parents were: William R. Bybee and Anna Easum. She always reports William was born in Indiana; Anna was born in Kentucky.]

There is a lot to the story of James Agnew and many mysteries yet to be solved. His birth date is validated in a letter sent to me years ago by Norma, who was the daughter of John Wesley Agnew’s twin Gertrude Myrtle. Norma was raised by John Wesley and Mary Agnew when her mother Gertrude died at a very young age. His birth date is also validated on his grave stone.

One question is who James’ parents were. It remains unresolved. However, his death record from the cemetery had his father’s name as also James. This becomes important in locating James with his parents and family in Ohio.

James sometimes changes the story of where his parents were born. These stories will be included below. He never wavers on his own birth place as Ohio, however.

In looking for James, I find one who matches his birth date being from the Cincinnati area. This makes sense for him to eventually go down the Ohio river and settle in New Albany, Indiana which is where he lives out most of his adult life.

In the 1850 census in Hamilton County, Ohio, an 8-yr-old James is listed as a child at the bottom of the census page, away from his family, almost as an afterthought. The Agnew family on this page is the father James, with a much younger wife, Mary, and a baby, Alfred age 1 (b. 1849-50). Importantly, there is also an elder Samuel Agnew, who is very likely to be James’ father, living with them. Samuel, age 72, says he is born in PA. (This would make Samuel’s birth date about 1778 in PA.) The father James, here, is 38, born about 1812 in Ohio. His wife, Mary A. Agnew, says she was born also in PA. However, she is James’ junior by 16 years, 22 years old in 1850 and born about 1828.

Significantly, this makes Mary too young to be the younger James’ mother. She would have had James when she was 13. I don’t think so. — which begs the question: Who is the 8-yr old James’ mother?? This is the eternal question. Was she Indian? Black? Is he adopted from another family? Was the older James married once before? (He is old enough.) Why is little James at the bottom of the page, as if an afterthought? This is the unsolved mystery, especially curious since our James (the 8-9 yr old here) continually changes the story as to where his parents were from. If SAMUEL here is his real grandfather, then why would our James later keep changing the story of where his own parents were born? Did he just think it was none of the govt’s business? (He never says his own father was born in OH, as this older James states he was.) The father James Agnew, here is a “ship carpenter”. They live on the Ohio river. The name is mistakenly transcribed as: AGNEWE.

1860. Another mystery.

The only James Agnew, age 18, showing up in Ohio in 1860 lives with WILLIAM AGNEW family, in the same Cincinnati area. (Is William a brother to the older James we met in 1850? What happened to James and Mary? Is this the same James as the one from 1850?)

William has no wife. He is 54 (b.1806). He has 2 daughters, ANN and JENNETT, younger than James, ages 15 & 13.

William here gives his birth place as PA. (another clue he MAY be a brother to the older James, with father Samuel?)

William’s occupation is “cooper”.

Ann’s birth place is for some weird reason LOUISIANA. (She surely is not the wife, here?)

Jennett and James’ birth place is OHIO.

In 1861 there is a 19-yr-old James from the Cincinnati area who signs up into the UNION ARMY (military registration card).

By Aug. 3^rd, 1863, James A. Agnew marries Mary Caroline Gross (or Gorp?) in New Albany, Indiana. The marriage online record says Gross. The hand written record looks like she wrote: Gorp.

In 1870, in New Albany, they have 2 girls, Annie age 5 and Olith age 3.

This child, Annie, becomes significant to tell us this is our James! A “sister” Annie, shows up in an obituary later, for William Robert Agnew, who is the first child and son of our James Agnew and his (second) wife, my great-grandmother, Carrie Bybee.

James and Carrie have no daughter Annie. So the sister surviving William Robert, has to be the above family sister. No record yet of the death of Mary Caroline or a marker for her.

* What we DO know is OUR James Agnew marries Carrie Bybee, Aug. 11, 1879, in New Albany. From this marriage 6 children are born:

William Robert 1880-1943,

James Garfield, 1882, dies same year as a baby

Frederick Louis 1883-1951,

Alfred Edward, 1886-1948,

And the twins: John Wesley and Gertrude Myrtle, b. 17 Aug. 1892,

Gertrude dies at age 43 in 1935; John Wesley dies in 1952 at age 60 (1 yr before I was born).

They live in New Albany their entire married life. James becomes a painter of houses. It is while high up on a ladder painting a house that he falls and dies within a few minutes, shortly before his 65^th birthday.

One of his sons was with him when he died. (Wm.) Robert was also listed as a “painter” in the 1900 census, so it could be he is the one who was with him. He fractured his skull & many ribs after falling 20 feet.

In the 1880 census, James says both his parents were born in England. He always says he was born in Ohio. Carrie says the same thing she says in the 1900 census, father Indiana, mother KY.

In the 1888-89 city directory, they lived at 117 East 4^th St., near Spring.

There is an “Ollie Agnew” working as a domestic in that same directory. It could be his daughter from the 1^st marriage, “Olith”.

In the 1900 census, James says his father was born in Virginia, his mother in Germany. That is just so random weird, he can’t even lie good! Why would he say that??

In this census, “Clerry” again says her father was born in Indiana, her mother in KY.

Carrie lives another 10 years after James. In 1910 she is living with ALL the adult kids, plus a 4-yr-old grandson named James F., son of William Robert. It seems strange none of the kids seem to have a spouse living there. William Robert (going by Robert), the oldest, is 30 years old. Did his wife already die?

In the next few years, something happened to Carrie and she was admitted to a hospital for the insane, in Madison. She died there of some sort of brain hemmorage (by cemetary records) and was brought back to New Albany to be buried.

Obit:

Mrs. Carrie Agnew, widow of James Agnew, died Thursday night at the Southeastern hospital for the Insane in Madison, and the body arrived Friday. Mrs. Agnew was 56 years old. She is survived by 4 sons, Robert, Fred and Edward Agnew, of this city, and John Agnew of Bloomington, and a daughter, Mrs. Beulah Warley, of Bloomington. She also is survived by 3 brothers, William Bybee of Indianapolis; the Rev. J.H. Bybee of Jeffersonville, and Robert Bybee of Louisville.

Detail

Obituary “Public Press” p4c3, New Albany library

Date

05-09-1916 date published

(Beulah is Gertrude Myrtle, my grandpa’s twin.)

They are buried together in Fairview cemetery, New Albany.

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10 minutes of tv2

June 28, 2011

Greece is rioting. NY Stocks are down a bit from Greece rioting. Someone explain this to me.

Casey Anthony is a habitual liar. So is her mom. This family is so messed up & it ended in death for an innocent little girl. Someone tell the TRUTH! It is obvious no one has any sense of moral shame in this group; if the DEATH of a 2-yr-old doesn’t bring it out, nothing will. Tell the dang truth and put her soul at rest. (not happening)

Floods threaten 2 nuclear power plants in NEBRASKA, and fires threaten Los Alamos facility where plutonuim is in storage (for what, a billion years?).

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