Great Uncle's Military Records

This is my great uncle, James Frank Dumas. Wasn't he a handsome man. Unfortunately he died very young at the age of 23 in 1946. He was on a ship that was sunk during WWII and he developed some kind of infection in his lungs from being in the water for so long. He died not too long after he came home from the war.
Several of my family members and me have been trying to find out what the name of the ship was that he was on. The people who are still alive when Frank came home from the service were so young that they don't remember much about his service in the Navy and they definitely don't know what the name of the ship was.

Through a researcher I found out about a website where they will look up peoples military records for you. I sent them all Frank's information and have waited for a couple months for the information. I received a phone call from the National Personnel Records Center, which is the website I mentioned earlier. The man on the phone told me that since my great uncle had been discharged from the Navy over 60 years ago his records are in the archives and it will cost me $65.00 for a copy of them! I was blown away! I told him I could not afford that and that really all I wanted to know was the name of the ship he was on that sunk during WWII. He couldn't tell me that information. I feel like I have hit a brick wall!

Does anyone out there know where I can find a list of ships and their crews that were sunk during WWII free of charge? Please let me know if you do! I would so greatly appreciate it!

Good Thursday Morning

My friend, Linda, came by my store for a little while yesterday. She is planning a High School Reunion and wants to make a power point slide show of some of the old pictures of her classmates. She needed me to show her how to do this. So I did. That Linda is something else! I laugh the most when I am with her! It feels so good to laugh. Anyway, Linda brought by a couple pictures for me to see and I borrowed them so I could scan them into my computer. Here they are.

First is this picture of Linda's dad and some of the crochet pieces he has done. Yes, he crochets! The framed Last Supper up on the wall is huge! It is done in Filet Crochet. She said he as done several of them in different size threads! There is hours and hours of work in one of those! I hope to go over to her dad's with her one day and meet him and see more of his work!
This is a picture of Linda's mom and my Aunt Doodle (one on right). Linda said they were the best of friends. I know it is very light, but I think it is so neat!
This is an old family photo and I am not really sure who it is. Linda didn't bring this one. This is one of my own. We have been trying and trying to figure out who it is. I thought it was my great great grandfather, but everybody else who actually knew him say they don't think so. They said he didn't have horses either. So now I am wondering if maybe it is his father. If anyone has any ideas let me know.
This is the back of the photo.
Last, but definitely not least, is a picture of Amber and her rag dolls! She was 1-1/2 years old when this picture was taken. I made her the rag dolls and the dress to match. I am so glad to have this picture as the rag dolls got thrown away by accident. Notice the little couch she is sitting on. It is just a big piece of foam cut in the shape of a couch and covered with fabric. When I was a little girl my dad brought it home to me. A foam salesman came to my dad furniture plant and he had the couch and a chair so that he could show my dad and his brothers the type of foam he had. My dad somehow got them from him and covered them with fabric for me. I just loved them! They were perfect for my dolls. The chair eventually got threw away, but when Amber was born my dad recovered the couch in new fabric and she played with it for years! It finally just wore out and we threw it away, too.
So I am glad to have a picture of it too. We have other pictures of my little couch in photo albums.

Family Heirlooms

I had a great day Saturday! I went up to visit with my Great Aunt Doodle. Her name is really Annie Lou, but we have always called her Aunt Doodle. She lives just 10 miles from me. You may remember her from one of my previous post. She is the one who makes the porcelain dolls in my great grandfathers old home. Her daughter, Peggy, had told me that Aunt Doodle had an old family Bible and I really wanted to take a look at it. So I asked Aunt Doodle if I could see it and take pictures. She was happy to oblige. She is the sweetest person. Below is a picture of the front of the Bible.
I could not find a date as to when it was printed, but I know it had to have belonged to my great great great grandparents as the first entries written in it are their names and birth dates and their children's names and birth dates. The pages were very brittle and so we did not look at all the pages only the ones with writing on them. I took lots of pictures of them. Below is one of the pictures. On the left side of the page you will see the information that I am sure my great great great grandmother wrote. They had such lovely handwriting back then and you can tell it is written with a quill pen and ink. On the right side of the page is births that my great great grandmother must have written as they are the names and dates of her children, plus one that we believe was a niece or nephew.
Below is a picture of my great grandparents, Lily and George Dumas. This was a picture hanging on the wall in one of Aunt Doodle's bedrooms and I took a picture of the picture. It is the best picture I have seen of the two of them! Notice his white hair. My Aunt Doodle has snow white hair just like his and so does one of my uncles. My great grandmother had died in 1958 before I was even born. But my great grandfather lived until 1972. I can only remember meeting him one time and that was when I was 7 years old. My brother had died and he came to my Aunts house where we were staying. I can remember my daddy taking me over to where he was sitting on the couch and introducing me and the one thing that I was amazed at was how white his hair was and how thick! I don't remember ever seeing him again, but that one memory has stuck with me all these years. People tell me my dad talks a lot like him. My dad tends to mumble when he talks and it is hard to understand him at times and they said Big Daddy talked the same way. We all called my great grandfather Big Daddy. I think my dad and his siblings called him that as they lived for a while with my great grandparents and maybe this was how they distinguished between their daddy and grandfather.
This was another photo that was in the same bedroom in Aunt Doodle's house. It is of her brother, James Franklin Dumas. He died at the age of 23 shortly after coming home from WWII. He was in the Navy and the ship he was on sank. Everyone tells me that he was in some really cold water for a long time and developed lung problems that he never completely healed of. I have never been able to find out what the name of the ship was that he was on. I am still trying. My Aunt Doodle was very young at the time as was my father and his siblings and therefore probably never knew the ships name. I think he was a very handsome young man.
Next Aunt Doodle showed me some beautiful things that were made by her and her mother. Below is a coverlet that my great grandmother made. It is made out of fertilizer sacks. There are four of them sewn together. The material is sort of a cross between muslin and canvas. It is a nice fabric. She drew the peacocks on the squares and embroidered them! I think it is awesome!
Here is a close up of one of the peacocks!
This is a basket quilt made by my great grandmother. Some of the baskets are hand pieced and some are machine pieced. The whole thing is hand quilted. It is lumpy in places as the old cotton batting they used tended to wad up some when washed. My Aunt Doodle said she remembered her mama having dresses made out of some of the materials.
Below are closeups of two of the baskets. I think they are beautiful!

This is a quilt that Aunt Doodle made. It is a queen size with 20 blocks. She hand appliqued the ducks and embroidered the cat tails and water. She also hand quilted it. Her quilting stitches are so small and precise! It is a beautiful quilt!
Notice the quilting on the border. She drew ducks, cat tails, waves, and clouds! It is truly amazing!
Here is a close up of one of the ducks and cat tails she quilted.
I think this was my favorite duck, although it is hard to choose! The photo turned sideways when I uploaded it, but maybe you can tell what it looks like anyway.
This is another quilt Aunt Doodle made. It is a dogwood quilt. I just fell in love with it and had to have the pattern! She lent me the pattern for it and the duck quilt to copy. I am not sure how many squares are in this quilt. There has to be at least 40. I didn't think to count and was unable to get the whole quilt in the picture. I am gonna have to call Aunt Doodle and ask her.
Here is a closeup of one of the dogwood blocks. Once again she did beautiful hand quilting.
This was one of two very old jars on a dresser in the bedroom where the dogwood quilt was.
This is what was inside the jar. It is a lock of Aunt Doodle's hair from when she was 2 years old! She said she had gotten bitten by a red bug on her head and had scratched at it so that it caused a bad sore that got badly infected on her head. So they had to cut off her hair. She had blonde curly hair and she said when it grew back it was straight and then got darker.
For the ones who don't know what red bugs are they are tiny tiny insects that you can't really see. You can get them a lot of times if you are out in the woods. And of course back when Aunt Doodle was young there were lots of woods where she lived. I got some once when I was out picking plums and did not even know it until that night when I started itching. I was still thinking it was mosquito bites until I showed them to my dad and he said it was red bugs and told me to put alcohol on them. They make you feel really sick.

Well, that is all I was able to take pictures of as my battery in my camera went dead. But I continued to look at some of the things in Aunt Doodle's house and told her I would have to take more pictures next time. She has a beautiful cathedral window quilt she had made. She has a beautiful crewel embroidery piece hanging on one wall of two Japanese ladies. Plus there are lots and lots of more beautiful things throughout her house she has made. I told her I knew where I got my love of handwork from! She is like me and likes to do a wide variety of handwork. I hope you have enjoyed my visit with Aunt Doodle. I really need to get up there to see her more. I usually always find out a little more family history while I am there.

Family Reunion Group Photo

I wanted to put this photo on my blog as it is much better than the one taken with my camera! It is one my cousin took of our family line at the reunion.

Amber & Diane

This is a picture that my cousin, Sassy, took of my daughter Amber and me at our family reunion. My daughter has really long hair but she keeps it in a pony tail most of the time. I really like the way Sassy edited this photo. It really makes me look younger! I know you are all looking at the piercing in Amber's nose and saying what is that?! I am sure that a lot of you have seen lots of people with these piercings. However, I live in a very small southern town where this is not the common thing. Imagine our surprise when Amber got home from Lafayette last week and walked in with a nose piercing! I don't really care for it and I think it takes away from her natural beauty but as she reminded me she is 20 years old and can do what she wants. This is true. I just love her and as most parents do I worry about her. We had finally gotten used to the ear thing going on and now have to get used to the nose! She has been stretching the hole in her ear for a couple years now. You know these are just outward things that really don't matter. Inside Amber is a very beautiful and loving person and she is very smart. There are worse things kids could be doing then stretching their ears and piercing their noses. I know Amber will read this as she reads all my blogs. I hope she approves of what I have written. If not she will let me know! My darling hubby is working on putting lamanent floors down in my younger daughters room. He started yesterday but ran out of the flooring and had to drive 70 miles this morning to get more at Lowe's! We live in a very small house and my father lives with us. So all of Tara's bedroom furniture has been sitting out in our carport since yesterday! There is lots of her things all over our den! I feel like our house is totally topsy turvy! My hubby should be finished with the floor before I get off work and hopefully all Tara's stuff will also be back in her room by then!

Family Reunion

This weekend was really great! We had a family reunion on Saturday for my daddy's side of the family. Below is a group shot of my grandfather's line. There were 7 siblings in my grandfather's family. There were people at the reunion representing 5 of these siblings My grandfather was the oldest sibling. Although, he had 6 kids himself not too many from his line came. Only one of his children has died and of the 5 still alive 4 of them were there. But there kids all live distances away and have jobs and such that prevented them from coming. We had a great time with the ones who did come. One of my grandfather's siblings died right after WWII at a very young age and had never married. There were close to 100 people there. As I said this photo is only some of my grandfather's children and there children and grandchildren. We did group photos of each of my grandfather's siblings lines. I hope this makes sense. I only posted my line. It is not a really clear picture as the battery was getting low in my camera. I've got to get a different camera!
This is my father, Benny, and his siblings that were there. Starting on the left is, Benny(age 76) (real name George), Aunt Jackie(age 58), Uncle Goat(age 72) (real name Jerrold), Uncle Junior(age 77) (real name Ivy). My aunt is by my grandfather's second marriage so she is a good bit younger than the three guys. Notice my dad's Jacket?! It was in the 90's outside, but he wears that jacket constantly! Makes me hot just looking at him!
This is my great Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Doodle (real name Annie Lou). She is the only one of my grandfather's siblings still alive. She is 17 years younger than my grandfather and 9 days older than my grandfather's oldest son! This past Saturday was also Uncle Wilbur and Aunt Doodle's 60Th wedding anniversary! There daughter, Peggy, is the one who set this whole reunion up! She worked long and hard on it! Isn't my aunt's hair beautiful? It is snow white. It looks even whiter in real life. Her father had the same white hair and so do my dad and uncle. I hope mine is that beautiful when I get that age.
Do you notice a pattern in the above writing with everybody's names that I have mentioned?! I don't know what it was about the 30's and 40's but everybody had nicknames! I did not even know what my Aunt Doodle's real name was till I was grown! Same thing with another of my dad's sisters (not pictured) from his mother's first marriage. In case you didn't catch that my grandmother was a widow with 4 kids when she married my grandfather who was 17 at the time! My dad still loves to give people nicknames! Crazy, huh?!
So anyway, it was a terrific reunion! Got to meet lots of Dumas' I had never met before! And found out lots of information for my family tree research!

Aunt Doodle's Dolls & Big Daddy and Big Mama's House

The reunion, Saturday, was held at my great aunts church. Then afterwards a lot of us went over to what is called "The Ole House". This is the house where my great grandmother and great grandfather lived with their 7 children. My daddy and some of his siblings lived here for a while when they were little. also. My great Aunt Doodle's house is a beautiful brick house built right beside this one. Her two daughter's have beautiful brick homes on one side of her house and one side of the ole house. My great aunt took care of her father when he was old and sick. Her mother died at the age of 67 of a heart attack and her father lived to the age of 85.
My great Aunt Doodle makes porcelain dolls. Years ago she fixed up the ole house and made it into a porcelain doll studio where she has held classes on making dolls for years. She makes some beautiful dolls and the clothes she sews for these dolls is out of this world! Saturday she told us she was in the process of moving her dolls to her home as her health will not permit her to keep up the ole house. I know I get a lot of my handwork talent from her and her mother.
Below is a picture of my daughter, Amber, standing in front of the chimney at the back of the ole house.And this a Amber in front of an old shed behind the ole house.
This is my great Aunt Doodle with one of her dolls!
This is a bed in one of the rooms of the ole house filled with Aunt Doodle's dolls! There were lots more dolls in the house and I took some other pictures. I will post more later. The old bed in the picture belonged to my great great grandmother. The quilt is one that Aunt Doodle hand cross-stitched and hand quilted. Aunt Doodle also made the tea set on the table at the foot of the bed. I just love going to this ole house and will miss it when there are no longer any dolls in it. It is great to still have a part of my heritage standing.