Author Archives: Diana - Page 6
Richardson Pan-American Highway Expedition 1940-1941
Check out this fun film of the Richardson Expedition from 1941 that gives a good sense of the magnitude of Chuck Moudy’s journey into Costa Rica. It is more likely he did not drive all the way in, and instead caught a boat up the coast. Watch the first part, and then skip to 29:40 for southern Costa Rica, which was impassible by car just two years earlier in 1941. Footage of the Panama Canal…
KGU Pearl Harbor Broadcast
Three hours into the Pearl Harbor attack, a KGU reporter climbed to the roof of the Advertiser building with a microphone in one hand and telephone in the other to broadcast a transoceanic telephone call to NBC radio headquarters in New York City. Chuck Moudy may have been on that very roof at the time of the broadcast. "Reporter: Hello, NBC. Hello, NBC. This is KGU in Honolulu, Hawaii. I am speaking from the roof…
Generations [song]
By ©Diana Thornton I was a regular at O'Flaherty's, Danny O'Flaherty's pub in the French Quarter of New Orleans. O'Flaherty's was as close as one can come to a real Irish pub here in the states. Danny and his brother Patrick both spoke Gaelic and may of the people who worked and frequented were Irish, Scottish, Welsh, etc. My great grandmother was a Graham. The DNA says I'm 24% Irish or Scottish. In 1993, Danny…
Graham-Thornton Cemetery
In 2016 I visited the graves of my great great grandparents GJ Thornton and Maggie Boothe. They are buried in the Graham-Thornton Cemetery near Snowville in Pulaski County, ; The Graham-Thornton Cemetery has 32 identified burials between 1912 to 1979 spanning 4 generations of Grahams and ;All but one buried here are directly related to both the Thorntons and Grahams by blood or marriage. The Thorntons descend from GJ Thornton and Maggie Boothe. The Grahams…
Rhoda Elizabeth Roop
Another sad story. Rhoda was admitted to Southwestern Mental Hospital in Marion, Virginia after she tried to kill herself. Southwestern was the same place Rhoda's sister's daughter Daisy's husband George Wade Thornton ended up (they were there at the same time for a while). Download Rhoda's PDF Chapter
Snowville, Virginia by Aida Carter
I found this short description written in 1937 of Snowville, Virginia online at the Library of Virginia. It does draw from Hundley's Historical Sketch (see below for link) as well as several others. Download PDF
Grandma Weiler’s Spinning Wheel
Reverend William Weiler wrote about his father's loom and his mother's "spinning outfit" which he brought back from Germany in 1908 when he visited home. Granddaughter Eleanor Wagner kept it and then gave it to me. My father learned the trade of a linen weaver, but switched over to farming after the machine looms were invented. I well remember the big loom he had in their bedroom and how he plied his trade it times…
[TIP] Transcribing old documents
Do you have lots of old scribbled letters and other documents that need to be transcribed? Not a great typer? Use your phone! There are several free dictation phone apps that allow you to read aloud and it will transcribe. They're amazingly accurate. I recently tried "Dictate" (free version has ads, but they're not too distracting and the premium version might be worth it if you're using it a lot). Dragon Dictation is another one.…
Christina Behringer Strebe
In 1891 my great grandfather William Weiler came to America from Germany at the age of 14. He went directly to Lafayette, Indiana to stay with his aunt Christina. This is excerpted from Reverend William Weiler's autobiography Photos found on Ancestry - originally shared by Jodi Austin Christina (maiden name Behringer) was William’s mother’s next older sister who had come to the United States in 1873 at the age of 26. Her husband, Heinrich…
Ulrich and Juliana Lahr
In 1891, my great grandfather Rev. William Weiler, age 14 and fresh off the boat from Germany, went to live and work with Ulrich Lahr and his wife and son William in Lafayette, Indiana. Rev. Weiler spoke of them in his autobiography. I am posting this PDF of an excerpt about the Lahrs for any descendants who might find ; Feel free to download the excerpt, as well as the full autobiography. Please reach out…