"The little church was crowded, and since the Massey pews were at the front, they had to walk the length of the aisle. Katrina was very conscious of the smiling stares and more than that thankful to have Lucius's calm bulk beside her. The family pews were full, of course; the younger cousins had overflowed into the pew behind, but two places had been kept for Lucius and herself. Her own pew was empty. Singing the opening carol while the choir, in clean surplices, processed to their places, she thought busily. Hardly the place in which to arrange one's future, she reminded herself, but she didn't seem able to stop herself."
-Roses and Champagne
So glad their surplices were clean.....;o)
ReplyDeleteThe clean surplices were probably a labor of love and bribes, as the choirs in the UK tend to have lots of grubby little boys. My mother had to launder and iron the white choir robes (probably surplices, as our church when I was growing up was all about emulating English cathedrals). Ross's mother volunteered to launder and iron the priest's vestments (no choir at their church).
ReplyDeleteBetty Debbie is definitely standing in front of a fairly classic style CofE church. When I would visit in England, I got dragged along (well, I was hardly a prisoner) with Thomas & Anne (Hub 1.0's parents) on sightseeing trips. They had the guide books (all by a German fellow named Nikolaus Pevsner who became a British citizen sometime around WWII) and would follow them assiduously.
What made this fun was the similarities of the churches. Thomas was an avid photographer, so he would take tons of photos, which were developed as slides. When it was time to review the slides, he'd have to get Pevsner out again because this church was different from that church only which was which? Ah, I see now -- this one has three corbels on its tower. That one had a 15th century font cover.
Ah, the British tourist!
Betty Debbie is checking out the cemetery, rather than the church. Back in the 1800s our great-great grandmother left home and religion to cross the great plains on the Mormon migration. But here we see her humble beginnings...She was quite a colorful lady in family history.
ReplyDeleteThat's so cool. Brit Hub 1.0 did genealogy on the White side of his family. I wish someone in my family took up the study of the Bradens. My dad was interested, but anything he wrote down is lost in boxes currently in the custody of one of my brothers and that effectively means no one will ever see them again! *g*
ReplyDeleteAmong other fun stories I was told, supposedly some ancestor of my mother's came over on the Mayflower as an indentured servant. That would be interesting to prove or disprove, but who's got the time?
Another story is of a distant ancestor of mine who had a fellowship in England. His wife (or was she?) lived two towns over. Three theories for this exist: 1) the fellowship was for more money if he was single (the idea being that if he could afford to marry, then the university didn't have to pay him as much :-\); 2) his lady friend was a Gypsy (and thus we all have fortune telling abilities); and 3) she was Jewish. If it's #3, then we're all of the Jewish Tribe as it's our mother's mother's mother's mother's mother we're talking about.
Wouldn't mean much to me, but my cousin John married the love of his life and it was a concern that her very Jewish parents wouldn't approve of their last daughter marrying an Episcopalian. (The solution was that she'd keep her surname and their kids would be raised Jewish and have that surname. John already had three sons by his first marriage.)
But when we told him a year or two later that he might actually BE Jewish, he slapped his forehead and exclaimed, "Now you tell me!"
"Now you tell me!" That's a riot.
ReplyDeleteIt's a lot of fun to find out stuff about families...my husband and I both had ancestors on the Mayflower - but I don't know in what capacity. They must have known your ancestor!
I'm still waiting to find out which antecedent I had that passed the color deficiency gene down...to all 5 of my boys. (Our eye doctor loves to quote me the odds on that). I'm inclined to blame it on my maternal grandparents (Wirt and Wrennie). Evidently that "first cousins, once removed thing" is not a great idea, genetically speaking.
See -- it was fated to be. I bet my indentured servant ancestor was best buds with your ancestors. We're practically family on that basis alone! Whoo-hoo!
ReplyDeleteFate is remarkable...;)
ReplyDelete