Florence, A Bit of A Drama Queen

Copyright 2018, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

Man and I were going to take The Estate out this week, now delayed due to the  issue of a vendor not showing up at the set appointment time. We were thinking of heading south a few hundred miles, give or take. HOWEVER:

My grandmother FLORENCE, lived in Norfolk Virginia, and Nags Head North Carolina (the Outer Banks) all her life. She watched her store in Nags Head burn to the water during the Ash Wednesday hurricane of 1962 (before they named hurricanes names like "Florence"  See below for the **) and she died during an epic, once in a hundred years blizzard we had to drive through to get to her funeral (we almost did not make it!) . She was a woman of drama and I am gonna watch out for this name sake storm. Just sayin.

Flo, as many called her, worked for Rice Department Store in Norfolk for years and years. She was a buyer, went to NYC on many buying trips. In 1999 I went to NYC for some dog show fun, we stayed in the same hotel Florence did on many of her buying trips.

After she lost her store in Nags Head she went to work for the Galleon in Nags Head. Peeps would drive down from Norfolk, about 100 miles give or take, if my memory serves, to have her "dress" them.

Carol, skipped that fashion part of the personality, just give me some jeans and a t-shirt. LOL . (But, I do like to do my nails, so, I take that from her, she loved manicured nails.)

She was something. She worked after marriage, but, neglected to tell Rices she had married, so she could keep her job. She worked after the birth of her only child, my dad, not very common in those days.

I have written about her on Reflections several times.

In the meantime, family and friends in the path of "Florence", please be careful and mmmmm, remember, Flo was a bit of a drama queen, by chance or device, it matters not.

**Further research has shown that this storm was not named because it hit before "hurricane" season had started.  Thanks to cuz Anne for that tidbit.

*** Here is a link to a Wikipedia article on the storm.
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Mystery Ship, Aground Somewhere in the Outer Banks, North Carolina :: But WHERE? WHEN? SOLVED!

Copyright 2016, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

(Less than ONE hour after publishing this post and sharing it on FB, two Facebook friends had found the answer.  One happens to be a distant Lashbrook cousin of Mans.  The other is just a great virtual friend.  I have said it frequently, it takes a village.  And, the village rocked it this time.  Thank you both.  For the rest of my great readers:

NavSource Online: Amphibious Photo Archive, USS LST-292

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Cleaning, reviewing, sorting, scanning, questioning, researching, start again and again. Such is my life as a family researcher.  I learn something each time, I find new hints, I find stuff in files and in piles that I remember, but, never fully dealt with.  Yes, it is fun.  For me.

Recent find/review/question/research/frustration:

This little book of photos, from my grandmother Florence.  It measures about 4 inches by 4 inches.  (A quick Uncle Google search failed to present information on this name, or at least information that made sense to me at the time of the search.)

Inside the photos are of what appears to be a ship wreck.  Now, anyone who knows anything about the Outer Banks is well aware that there have been shipwrecks.  LOTS of shipwrecks.

Some of these photos scanned and cleaned up better than others.  I have no idea who this gentleman is.

I have no idea who this lady is either.

This one is horribly out of focus:

I find this photo interesting, as they captured a plane passing nearby:

This one, is very out of focus as well.

In this photo, my grandmother is wearing the peddle pushers.  Her clothing is darker in color than what the other 3 ladies are wearing. You can see numbers on the hull, 292. Note the open bay doors and the ramp.  I presume (??GULP??) this is some kind of a transport ship?

This is the last photo in the group, appears to be the last taken, it is the  last in the "book". As far as I know, that is the Cape Hatteras lighthouse.  My grandmother, Florence is the person in the middle of the back seat.

If you can help me figure out what the name of this ship is, and when it ran aground, please give me a yell.

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Florence Bowen's Christmas Tree Decoration

Copyright 2016, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

I know, it is not the holiday season.  

Sometimes ya just gotta blog it when the mood strikes.

This old holiday tree decoration belonged to my grandmother, Florence Ruth Dews Bowen.  When you yearn for the olden days - - 

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Sentimental Sunday, The Carousel of My Youth

Copyright 2010, CABS for Reflections From the Fence

My grandmother Florence Ruth (nee Dews) Bowen lived and worked around Nags Head, Dare County, North Carolina when I was a youngster.  My parents would take a few weeks each year and travel from Michigan to see both sides of my extended family.  It seems we always stopped in Rockingham County Virginia to see my mother's family and then we would drive down to the "beach" to see my father's family. 

Nags Head, as I remember it from a child's point of view, was the unspoiled beach, traffic, bingo and THE carousel.  I adored that carousel, the magnificently painted horses, so tall off the ground I just know my parents must have lifted me up. 

Slowly the carousel would start, the music, the horses starting to pump up and down.  I was even taken with the mechanical aspects of a carousel, all those poles and the gears in the drive assembly, it was all magical.  We always went to the carousel at night, so there were lights glittering as well, all the more enchantment for a little one.

Moving slow at first, the carousel would start to speed up, round and round we would go, the horses being pulled up and down by the poles.  I would hold on for dear life, I mean, it was going faster and faster and the ponies went high! 

And, then, much too soon, you could see the attendant walk over and pull the mechanical arm, and the carousel would slow down, the ponies would go up and down slower and slower, would you stop at the top, or would your pony stop down low?

I never outgrew that awe and fascination and love of the carousel.  All my life, each and every carousel I see sends those spikes of excitement throughout me, reminding me of Nags Head, the beach, the lights, the sounds, the carousel.

*These beautifully painted carousel horses are from the Davis Mercantile in Shipshewana, Indiana where they have a fully restored 1906 Carousel.

**I know that some parts of my memories are probably a bit wrong, as time passes, so do the particulars, and these memories are from my extreme youth.  However, they are warm and fuzzy memories and even if they are a tad wrong, I'll keep them thank you very much!  I never want to loose that fascination with the carousel.

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Anniversary Observances, Bowen and Dews

On December 23, 1923 at South Mlls, Camden County, North Carolina, Hayden Eugene Bowen (1895 - 1966) and Florence Ruth Dews (1904 - 1996)  were married.

Hayden and Florence, photo dated 1918.

Photo I believe was taken on the porch of the

boarding house run by Florence's mother, Lorena.

* Hayden and Florence were my grandparents.

** Photo shows serious water damage, I am happy it survived the hurricanes.

*** I wrote about Hayden here.  His memorial at Find A Grave is here.

**** I have written about Florence several times, including They Worked Hard for the Family, Bowen style and Memory triggers - -snap goes the flea, and on her birthday, here.  Her memorial at Find A Grave is here.

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Advent Calendar, The Christmas Tree

GeneaBloggers has a Advent Calendar event this year, 24 days of family history related subjects to challenge the researcher. The prompt/challenge for December 1st is:

Did you have a real tree or was it artificial? How big was the tree? Who decorated the tree? What types of Christmas trees did your ancestors have?

For the most part, our families had real trees, that is until Man and I married. First few trees were real till I discovered that I broke out in mini-hives from the pricks of the needles of the trees and Son # 1 was diagnosed with some icky allergies. Thus began the beginning of artificial trees for Man and I.

I have photos of some of our trees, with presents piled around the trunk. One year I cross stitched uncounted decorations, which I still have and use. Several years I had a tree in every room of the house, YES, even the powder rooms, some rooms had more than one, each tree decorated specifically for the room it resided in.

I have photos of the twins helping gramma and grampa decorate our tree.

I even found a photo of my grandmother and her sister, Rena in front of a Christmas tree.

But, I think my most favorite and humorous story about a Christmas tree is about my mother and the tree that was, well, a bit bare, her Charlee Brown tree. I don’t remember the year, I don’t remember how old I was, but, I do remember the story. My mother did an outstanding job of decorating the home for the holidays. We lived in an older home, had some great character, oak built in book cases between the front room and the large dining room. She would put the tree in one of the corners of the front room next to those book cases. I have photos of it in both corners. The tree was real of course, and usually fairly tall.

One year the tree she chose so carefully, when brought in and carefully mounted in its tree stand (maybe a bucket of sand??), well, it was, dare we say it, “thin”. I am gonna guess it was a white pine type, but, I am not sure. Anyway, it had “holes” that made the tree, sadly “ugly”. My mother, the creative one, decided she could fix this little situation, and she did! She went out somewhere, cut some pine limbs, brought them home and nailed them to the tree, filing the “thin” spots. The way I remember it, she even had to tie this tree to the book cases. (Of course, that could be another year’s story, morphed into one as time eases on.)

Now, Mom would have pulled off her little creative tree trimming, except that a holiday guest who was quite well versed in tree attributes noted that there was no way this tree was au-natural. He commented that he had never seen a tree of this type with SOOOOO many limbs! Mom had been caught with her branches nailed!

This might be the Charlee Brown tree, my brother and I and lots of presents.
 

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Ancestor Birthday Celebrations, Florence Ruth Dews Bowen

Florence Ruth Dews was born November 7, 1904 in Kempsville, Princess Anne County, Virginia to William Henry Dews and Lorena Estelle Eley Norsworthy Dews.  (Both William and Lorena had been previously married and were widowed.)

Florence married Hayden Eugene Bowen on December 23, 1923 at South Mills, Camden County, North Carolina.  Florence worked for many years at Rice's Department Store in Norfolk, Virginia and eventually, Hayden and Florence opened their own little clothing store. First they opened Bowen's Sportswear in Great Bridge, Virginia and later opened Nags Head Sportswear in Nags Head, Dare County, North Carolina.  Florence and the Nags Head Sportswear Store were the subject of  They Worked Hard for the Family, Bowen style.

Florence lived her life as an independent woman in a time that the norm was the housewife who was more interested in clean floors and wax build-up. She loved fashion and worked in retail sales most of her life. She had a "career" before it was fashionable or necessary for a woman to do so. When she was first married she had to keep that fact a secrete from her employer so that she could continue to work. She only revealed her marriage when she found herself pregnant and was forced to tell both her family and her employer.

Florence was also the subject of a post titled, Memory triggers - -snap goes the flea.

Florence died on January 8, 1996 in Nags Head, Dare County, North Carolina and is buried at Riverside Memorial Park Cemetery, Norfolk, Virginia with her mother and several siblings.  Her Find A Grave memorial is here.

One of my favorite photos of Florence, my grandmother, in May of 1970 at Kitty Hawk, North Carolina, holding Son #1.

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