Sunday's Stories, 52 Ancestor Weeks, Week # 13, The Dews Babies

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This is week 12 of my participation Amy Johnson Crow's, once a week challenge to blog about one ancestor a week, tell their story, biography, a photograph, an outline of a research problem — anything that focuses on that one ancestor. More about the challenge can be found at her Blog, No Story Too Small.

Baby boy Dews and Delphine "Della" Dews were children of William H. Dews and his second wife, Lorena Estelle Eley Norsworthy Dews (William was her second husband).

Baby boy Dews was born November 1, 1896 in Princess Anne County Virginia and died there, unnamed, on November 10, 1896.  His burial place is undiscovered.  His parents were rather poor, it is likely that he was buried in an unmarked grave.  Here is part of his death record, the entire record was not digitized.  Lorena's name was spelled Lurena.

Delphine "Della" Dews was born in July of 1897 in "Virginia" per the 1900 U.S. Census, Kempsville, Princess Anne County, Virginia (the enumeration was done on June 20, 1900).  Her birth record has not been found, as she was born during a time that Virginia did not require the recording of births.  Family tradition is that Della died at age 2 or 3 of burns suffered from boiling kettle of water. Her death record has not been located, nor a burial place.

The only record/document I have found for Delphine "Della" is her appearance in the 1900 census.  Note this record has been edited, several of the first rows of the enumeration were removed to save space here and to show only the Dews clan.  Richard L. Dews, we believe to be Robert L. Dews, brother of (William) Henry.

Wish list:  Anything on either Baby boy Dews or his sister, Della.  Hope runs slim as I have spent considerable time pouring over records and this is all I have found.




* Additional source data can be obtained by contacting me, see the right hand column for a yahoo email address.

** 52 Ancestors Weeks Button courtesy of Amy Johnson Crow.

*** I use many resources to research, FamilySearch.org is a free site.  Ancestry.com is a pay site for which I pay, no discounts, etc.  None of these sites have asked me to review them, or use them.  See my Disclaimers page for further details.

**** In my years of researching this clan and several others that branch to it or from it, I can tell you that Richard can easily be Robert.  There are years and years that males and females only used their initials.  Try searching an entire county where every man and woman are only identified as  "X.X. Surname".   I'll not leave you to wonder - - frustration is the name of that game.

"Cars and Transport"

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

This blog post  is part of my participation in a weekly writing meme called, "The Book of Me, Written By You"  You too can be part of this experiment/experience at this Facebook page.

I may or may not publicly share what I write each week. This week I share.

Week 27 the prompt is:  Cars and Transport.

Did you have a car in your family whilst you were growing up?
What methods of transport were there? And what did you & your family typically use?
Your Driving Test
Where Did you learn? - Can you drive?
Your first car?
Your Favourite Car?
Do you name your cars?
Can you remember the registration details? And perhaps explain what the registration means.

We always had cars when I was growing up, yes, in fact, for many years, my parents had two cars.  I remember very little about most of them, except, the Metropolitan, which I wrote about here.

Methods of transportation, since we did not live in the city, I am not sure there were any methods available for our use.

My driving test.  GROAN.  OK, the short of it is, the way I remember it, I flunked the first time, something about a stop sign??  Passed the second.  I took private driver's training class during the summer, I believe the public classes were full.

My first car?  My first personal car was a Jeep that my father rented for his business.  Man's first car, a 57 Chevy.  Love the 'no socks' look, don't you?

Man and I had a blue 62 Bel Air Chevy when we were first married. At least that is what he tells me, I have conveniently stored that memory in a non-retrievable memory bank.

Over the years I have been blogging at Reflections, I have written a number of posts on cars:

Sharing a Slice of Life, Get Into My Car, where you can read about the Opal Cadet and the 1986 Ford conversion van.

This was the first "second" car we had after we were married.  A big ole Chevy station wagon.  I loved that car, and it was mine to drive most of the time.  Man did not like it so much, as he felt it had too many mechanical issues.  Did I say, I loved that car??

Below is the 1976 Suburban, which came to us via Man's Mother.  This was one great vehicle, was used for many years for towing and camping and eventually for a beast for the kids to learn to drive in.  And, yep, it saw an accident during that time frame.  Many memories with this vehicle.  

There was the time that 8 of us were traveling from Norfolk Virginia to Charleston South Carolina, Man, his mother, my brother, our 3 kids, my grandmother and moi.  We took the ferry route from Nags Head to Wilmington North Carolina.  And, one of the boys managed to lock the door, with the door open.  Of course, something had to jam and now the door would not shut.  Mom (that would be Moi) was NOT a happy Mom.  Mom (that would be me) freaked!  Brother and Man fixed the door lock, and I think I took a sea sickness pill and slept the rest of the trip to Wilmington.  

I believe this may have been the vehicle that I left running in the garage one very cold winter day, for 6 or more hours.  (Garage was NOT attached to the house and the main garage door was left open.) Yep, I did.  The details are foggy, but there was something about carrying groceries in, 3 sons grabbing my attention with other issues, and my forgetting the car was running.  Yep.  Burnt the transmission fluid up good on that one.  Needless to say, Man was not happy.  Oops.

In 1980 Man bought a Honda, in 1985 he totaled it. He was one lucky dude that day. This could have been much worse. He was not hurt, he had to crawl out the other door, but, not so much as a scrape.

The replacement was a 1982 model, it was driven till it was passed on to one of the sons for his college wheels.  He drove it many, many more miles. (Man's mother smiling at him taking the photo.)

Back to stories told on Reflections:  There is the story of my kinda tricking Man into driving the tunnels on the Needles Highway with Big Butt (the predecessor to Jolly).  Part two is here.

Favorite car?  Honestly I am not sure I had a favorite.  Lots of memories, but, not sure there is a favorite.

Do you name your cars?  Until we got the GM dually truck in 2003 I can never remember naming a vehicle. But, we names that one, Big Butt.   Here is a fun post, telling of the naming of Big Butt, Big WHAT?? - How Big Butt Got His Name - 104th COG.   When Jolly came into our lives, we had a bit of fun picking a name.

Registration details:  We pay the fees mandated by the state we live in.  Nothing exciting, nothing special.

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Lakeland Florida, Art and Swans

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

After our pleasant visit to Hollis Garden Man and I found a parking spot closer to downtown, which was rather easy to do, as it was a Sunday.  Sometimes weekend trips ARE the way to go, no downtown traffic.

Sculpture always draws my attention.  I will never profess to understand it all, and in this case, so far, I have been unable to determine the name or artist, but, isn't this lovely?  Outside the Polk Museum of Art.

Lakeland is known for it's swans, here is an interesting article, sadly as of October 2018 this link no longer functions.  There are also swans painted around town. During our short visit I found two, this one is also outside the Polk Museum of Art.

We found a place to grab a burger and a beer and then walked back to Jolly.  In front of the city hall we find:

Another view.  Signage tells us:  Genus Kaleidoscopus, AKA, "Kallie".  Artist:  Roger Haar. Sponsor:  City of Lakeland.

Swanarch.  Artist:  Harrison School of the Arts.  Swansor:  City of Lakeland.

A visit to lovely gardens, a wedding, a nice but short walk around downtown, a good burger, art and swans, several hours delightfully spent.

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Hollis Garden, Lakeland, Florida :: Flora, Statues and Wedding Bells

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Hollis Garden in Lakeland Florida sounded like a nice place to spend an afternoon.  Turned out, it was. There are more than 10,000 flowers and ornamental shrubs, shade trees, a fountain, sculpture and more:

This afternoon, there was a wedding in the park.  Weddings do not stop you from visiting, you are asked to be respectful.  Our pleasure.

It was a fine afternoon for a wedding.




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Nope, Tana WILL NOT Fit Here.

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

The back story:   Tana measures 13' 1" tall.

This happens to be in Lakeland Florida.  There are a number of these across the nation.  IF you are towing your trailer and see this coming, I guarantee, your heart will miss a few beats and you will be braking hard - - or there goes the stuff on the roof, like the vent covers and the air conditioner, and maybe, probably even damage to the roof.  GULP.

If you look closely, you will note that there appears to be some damage just under that red sign.  Yep, our take, that underpass has been hit more than once.  Our empathy to the drivers that hit.

No, we were NOT towing at the time, just driving around seeing the sights.

Tana IS fine!

I repeat, Tana IS fine!

Honeymoon Island State Park, Dunedin Florida, Baby Balds and Doggies

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

At the end of the Osprey Trail at Honeymoon Island State Park there is one lone bald eagle nest.  Because there were 2 babies being raised in that nest the area has barricades in place to keep them safe from inquiring minds.

The babies were actually fledglings.  They had been moving around, hopping to the edge of the nest. We met a fellow there who had been visiting the nest for weeks (he had GREAT photos he let us see).  It was his opinion that these two would be flying any day, maybe any moment.

Man estimates that we were 400 feet from the nest, and of course, it was very high up in the air.  Sony Too had it's work cut out for it.  Most of the photos were out of focus.  No tripod.  I did find a short pole that I hugged as best I could to try to stabilize Sony Too.  Holding my breath and squeezing the shutter release, I had fun trying to capture the fledglings.  I managed to get these two photos, only one baby in each.

We spent some enjoyable minutes chatting with our fellow photographer, and watching the fledglings pop up and down in the nest.  Alas, time to move on down the path, there were more ospreys to see and an owl to try to discover.  Sad to report it was a fail on the owl.

We went for a quick bite to eat.  We sat at the beach, watching people enjoy the sun, surf and sand.

Instead of walking the beach, we decided to go over to the dog beach, little did we realize doing so involved another long walk.  Here comes one of the dogs leaving the beach.

Here are two pooches chasing their ball.  (Ball to far left, see that little splash.)

Nothing better than taking a nap with your best friend (the dog) and your fellow on the beach, is there?

Can we say, ahhhhhhhhhhh, too cute?  This little guy was very happy to ride back to the car.

Honeymoon Island State Park, a great afternoon with several unexpected but nice surprises.  Bald eagle fledglings, ospreys and dogs on the beach and in the back pack.  Nice surprises.




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Honeymoon Island State Park, Dunedin Florida, Osprey Trail

Copyright 2014, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

It was time for Man and I to have a day trip and we chose Honeymoon Island State Park.  It turned out to be a very good choice.

There are beaches, one for dogs, lots for humans.  Picnic grounds and the Osprey Trail.  We started out by walking the Osprey Trail.  The trail was well marked, and reasonably flat.  Part of the trail was under water and we had to turn around.  Needless to say, it had rained a lot in the few days just prior to our visit.  The rest of the trail was in very good shape.

Sony Too was working over time.  I will say, that even tho I never carry a full sized tripod I was wishing I had one this day.  All photos are hand held.  If I ever find a light weight, really light weight tripod, I may rethink my not carrying one.  The current model is just too heavy for me to lug around. Let's look at the Osprey.

An Osprey nest.  Lots of zoom was used.

Sitting on a branch, almost seems as if it is looking back at me.  (I doubt that.  Just what it looks like.)

Same as above, more zoom.

Different bird, note the only editing done on this particular photo was to reduce the size for this blog post.  The light was perfect.  Happy Happy!

We saw so may Osprey and nests it was easy to figure out why this is called the Osprey Trail.  We saw Osprey flying with fish and I have out of focus photos of an Osprey having dinner, high in a tree, eating one of those fish.

The last nest we saw had an occupant.  I thought maybe it was a baby, not sure tho.

So, I zoomed to the max so I could use Sony as binoculars.  I saw this Osprey flying in and I snapped.  Not the most focused photo, but, still, what a thrill!

There was also one bald eagle nest with 2 babies that were just about ready to fly off.

A  stop at the local "cafe" for a beer and a hot dog looking at the Gulf.  Both tasted pretty good after our walk. A visit to the dog beach finished off our visit to the park.  I'll share a bit of that soon.




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