In 1981 I visited the Kennedy Cemetery near the now non-existent town of Swan Creek, Ohio.  This is the place my great-grandfather, Charles Drennan Kennedy, left in 1873.  Small family cemeteries dot the countryside.  I suppose they were started by early settlers burying family members near home.  Gallia County has a wonderful genealogical society, and they pointed me in the direction of the cemetery.  Well, even though it was right on the highway, we had a hard time finding it.  After making three inquiries in the vicinity, an older lady was kind enough to lead us to it.

You can see how we might have missed it.  Unfortunately, it isn’t maintained.  On my 1981 visit I found it recently mowed, but now it appears no one has given it any attention for years.  Since it’s on private property, the township or county doesn’t maintain it, either.  

Bob and I waded in, though.  Do you see the grave marker in this photo?

Once we pulled the vines aside, we could read it.

There were many more, all covered over.

The stones themselves were in quite nice condition.

We wish we knew how to contact the property owner, as we’d gladly hire someone to go in and do some maintenance.  I’ll have to do some digging….(ooh, bad choice of words).  I’ll have to do some investigating!

But now it was time to head back toward Pittsburgh.  We had a busy Saturday planned, then home on Sunday.  While we enjoyed the beauty of Ohio immensely, there were plenty of reminders that this coal mining country.  

And where there’s coal, there’s industry.

But that’s what keeps the economy ticking….

Gallipolis

This charming town is Gallipolis, Ohio, the County Seat of Gallia County.  Please note the large white building on the right.  It’s the Park or Central Hotel, built in the 1880′s.

My great-grandfather, Charles Drennan Kennedy, was raised in a small community called Swan Creek, about 15 miles south of this town.  Swan Creek no longer exists as a town, and my great-grandfather left there in 1873.  This is beautiful country, right on the Ohio River. 

I decided that I should at least dip a toe in the River!

Gallipolis has a gorgeous, large city park right on the river, and the downtown business area faces the park.  It is truly a magical setting.  Here’s the gazebo in the park.

And look at the roses on the porch of this house.

We arrived in late afternoon, and discovered the road through downtown was blocked off.  At first we thought there was a fire.  Then we discovered that a few days before, part of the Park Central Hotel had fallen down!  Now they were taking the rest down with an excavator.

Obviously, it was the most exciting thing going on!  And what do you think Bob found more interesting–stories about my forebearers or watching a big excavator working?  There was a beautiful brick Victorian house right next door.  We watched for awhile, but it was getting late, so headed out to find lodging.

The next morning we had to check in on the progress of the demolition. And oh, and did I mention there was a basement in the building?  Just as the excavator started taking down the wall closest to the house, the whole machine dropped unceremoniously into the basement!

Did you notice the “V” shaped hole it made in the wall.  This is what it looked like from the other side.

Amazingly, they got it out.  They used a lift to get up and break away the wall around the arm, and a second excavator to smooth out the pile of debris.  Then the first excavator drove itself out!

Do we know how to have fun or what!

Longaberger Baskets

    We discovered that we were in Longaberger Basket country, so decided to check it out.  They have something called the Longaberger Homestead–which is a terrific facility.  There’s a beautiful visitor’s center, huge building filled with shops, a big barn that’s original to the property and, most interesting of all, the production facility!  It’s 22 acres under one roof!

There’s a fabulous cat walk that extends the entire length of the building with great interpretive panels.  We spent a long time walking along, watching the production below and reading the information.  

Of course we had to get our photos in a basket.  

Here’s the barn.  It houses sale items and a cafe where we had a great lunch.

Then we headed south to the Ohio River.  We passed several old barns that had remnant of Mail Pouch tobacco ads.

And even barns with quilt blocks on them!

Morning found us near Orrville, Ohio, the home of Smuckers!  Well, who could resist that?

    They have a gorgeous facility, part museum, part gift shop, part restaurant.  We enjoyed it all.  The timeline was wonderful.  I didn’t know that the original Mr. Smucker started by making and selling apple butter.  Made me a bit nostalgic for my early Anna Lena days.  Many of you may not know that Anna Lena’s began as a gourmet cranberry products business!  But that’s another story!  

We did a little damage in the shop and enjoyed some sweets before we left.

    Then we headed south.  Once again, I loved the scenery.  There must be something in my genes that makes me loves farms, farmland and barns.  And I must say Bob was so good about turning around for photos!

    We went to a very interesting place called Historic Roscoe Village.  Who knew that in the late 1800′s two canals were dug from Lake Erie south to the Ohio River!  It was all about moving goods to market.  The canals were quite successful, and the towns that grew up along the canals prospered.  As the canals fell into disuse, the town deteriorated.  In the 1960′s, some people with great foresight decided to restore Roscoe Village and a stretch of the canal.  I loved all the old brick buildings.  

The canal boats were drawn by horses walking alongside the canal on a path.  There was a section of the path that is now a walking trail, and Bob and I walked about two miles.  Here I am sitting on the stonework left from one of the old locks.

It was a very warm day, and we were glad we were walking along by the water.  

Day two of our Ohio adventure found us smack in the middle of Amish country.  

I would love to show you all kinds of photos, but I did respect the Amish desire not to be photographed.  Suffice it to say that it was a wonderful experience.  Beautiful countryside, fertile farm fields and picturesque scenery.  

They’ve had a wet spring in Ohio, and the farmers are late getting the corn planted.  It was gorgeous while we were there, so there was lots of planting going on–both by the “English” and the Amish.  I did snap this one photo.

We also stopped at a fascinating place called Warthers.  Mr. Warther was a knife maker by trade, but a carver by hobby.  He created incredible carvings of stream locomotives and trains.  The detail is incredible.  In fact, I don’t have the words to describe them.  I think one of these would be a lifetime’s accomplishment, but there are dozens of them.  Some have as many as 10,000 pieces in them.  Mr. Warther could carve about 1000 pieces a month, so a 10,000 piece train would take about 10 months!  Oh, and that was just carving in the mornings and evenings, before and after work.  If I had that kind of dedication, think of the quilts I could make!

This is President Lincoln’s funeral train.

We stopped at a cheese factory and picked up some goodies and asked directions to a picnic spot.  It was down a few more country roads, and it was a beautiful setting.  And we had the whole place to ourselves!

Some shots of the park

And this was the view across the road.

Another day in paradise!

Bob flew into Pittsburgh on the last day of Market, and early Monday morning, we headed for Ohio!  

Why Ohio, you might ask.  Why not!?!  We love to pick a state and explore.  We don’t have a plan except that we plan to stay off the freeways and out of the big cities.  We were greeted by rolling hills, deciduous forests (which are so different than our evergreen ones) and lots and lots of beautiful farm land.

I love barns, and look at this one that greeted us!

Here’s an oldie.  Check out the foundation.

And I loved this old log cabin and its location near a tiny creek.

This house fascinated me.  It was in a small town on a residential street.  All the houses looked similar with lapped siding.  But this one was being worked on and the siding had been removed to reveal that it was made from hand hewn logs!  I wonder if they all were?

I could tell we were going to like Ohio!

A couple of years ago three women who came to one of my retreats kept talking about their quilt guild, The Blockheads.  At some point the question came up of how many members the guild had.  The answer?  Three!  We had more laughs over that, and it got me to thinking.  While I love being a member of the Peninsula Quilt Guild, it might be fun to be a part of a mini guild, too.  So, the MG’s were born!  We’ve one-upped the Blockheads–we have four members!  In fact, we’ve gotten together with the Blockheads for a couple of rumbles.

Last year the MG’s launched their first world tour.  I’m not sure what happened to the photos from that trip, but it was a smashing success–right down to our custom made shirts.

Connie, one of the MG’s, had deserted us for a warmed clime, and headed to Arizona in November–just to spend a few months basking in the sun.  but, lo and behold, she and Davey bought a house!  Now the rest of us really needed to see this house–and the sun.  Those of you in the Northwest will understand.  So, the second world tour was launched–The Psychedelic Sunshine Tour!  First we ordered new shirts.

Unfortunately, you can’t see the “bling” on these shirts, but they each have a crystal peace sign on them!

Monica, Robin and I winged our way to sunny Phoenix.  Connie was a fabulous hostess, driving us all over creation to visit great quilt shops and great restaurants.  What more could you want?  Perhaps a visit to the Mariner’s spring training facility?

We loved the German restaurant in downtown Glendale, and I don’t think our shirts attracted attention to us.

But, health enthusiasts and nature lovers that we all are, we went on a nature hike to enjoy some of the local flora.

Okay, so it WAS in a parking lot, but we did get out of the car and take pictures!

The sun set too soon on our fun weekend.  Thank you Connie, Thank you MG’s

I had to make a trip to New York last week.  It was time to present my next line of fabrics to Timeless Treasures.  Now mind you, this only takes one day.  But, I’d never been to New York in the fall, and it didn’t take much to persuade my mom and sister to fly back and meet me after my work was done!  Here they are standing in front of the Christmas tree at Rockefeller Center.  The tree is obscured by scaffolding, but you can see the beautiful Swarovski star that’s ready to go on the top.

    Our hotel was right across the street from the Museum of Modern Art.  I really wanted to bring this Roy Lichtenstein piece home.  It would look so cute in my studio.  

    The purpose of our girl get-together was to eat, shop and see some Broadway plays.  I’m happy to report that we were successful on all fronts.  When I say liverwurst, I hope you don’t think Oscar Meyer.  This is what my liverwurst looked like at The Modern.

    On Broadway we saw John Lithgow and Katie Holmes in Arthur Miller’s All My Sons.  It was riveting.  We were in the second row, and we could have leaned forward and touched the actors.  As my sister said, “Good thing Katie shaved her legs, as we’d have known if she hadn’t!”

    For something lighter, we saw The Little Mermaid.  I must admit I didn’t know the story line going in, so the plot was a complete surprise to me.  It was fun and it’s always a thrill to see live theater.  I loved the sets and the costumes, and the fish and mermaids wore those shoes with a wheel in the heel, so they glided across the stage and appeared to be floating.  Again, we were in the second row.  As an aside, more men should dress like those princes in fairy tales–very sexy!

   But, it was the shopping that took the cake!  There’s nothing like the New York stores.  The small shops are wonderful, the museum shops are wonderful, but the flagship stores of the big department stores–all decked out for Christmas–were amazing to see.  As much as I love shopping, I could have just wandered and looked at all the store windows all over the city.  Such creativity!  And the Macy’s store was everything I’d hoped a big New York department store would be at the holidays.

    Magical, huh?

    Thanks for joining me as I relive my adventures in Anna Lena Land – the amusement park in my mind.