52 Ancestors in 52 Weeks - Week 20: Taking Care of Business

This week's title phrase can mean a variety of things.  It can literally mean taking care of one's means of supporting self and family.  Here on this blog, I've discussed businessmen and businesswomen in the family:  Emily [Hoyt] Packard, who was a milliner; Nelson Reed McKee, a jeweler and watchmaker; Frank A. Packard, Bloomington, Illinois, merchant; Perry Wilmer Reed, head of the Pensacola, Florida, Chamber of Commerce; my father, Arden Packard, and his brother Jack, advertising agency owners; Oscar Merry Packard, builder and developer; Walter Hetherington Packard, builder and developer, and stockbroker.

The phrase can also mean buckling down and taking care of the serious stuff in life.  Samuel Packard's religious convictions caused him to take his wife and their firstborn, a daughter, on a risky and most probably quite uncomfortable sea voyage in 1638, from their home in Suffolk, England to a hardscrabble new settlement in a wild land called Massachusetts.  There was Richards Packard, who did his part in taking care of a certain dispute with England at the end of the 1700s.  After that was settled, Richards began a northward migration that left him disappointed in Massachusetts, Vermont and New Hampshire, on up into Canada, which was practically giving land away and not being terribly picky about who they were giving it to, even to those who had previously taken up arms against His Majesty, George III.  The succeeding three generations of my line were born in Canada.  Mathew Hale Packard, a member of that third generation, took a chance on what I call "retro-migration," going from Canada back to the U.S.  He took care of other grim business from 1860 to 1865, serving in two regiments of New York cavalry.  Farther west, at the same time, Charles Reed did the same in a regiment of Indiana infantry.  My father took care of the business of serving in the U.S. Navy, from his education at the Naval Academy to World War II service.

They all, with their brothers and sisters and cousins and aunts and all else, took care of the business of living, as best they could.

A to Z Challenge 2024 - Professionally Speaking - M is for Military

 From the very first English emigrations to the New World, my family has had individuals in it who did military service of one form or another.

As with most men in early colonial times, Samuel Packard, my eighth great-grandfather, served in the militia of his town of residence.  He came to the New World first at Hingham, Massachusetts, shown in some records as New Hingham, named for a town in England.  From there, he moved to Weymouth, and eventually settled in Bridgewater, the part that is now known as Brockton.  A town in New England at that time was centered around the church; and it was the church.  Church membership was required for a man to be considered a "freeman," to be able to vote and hold office.  Now and then, there would be a squabble in a church over something-or-other, and a group would break off and set up another church in another part of town, creating thereby a new town.  Bridgewater eventually split into East Bridgewater, West Bridgewater, and North Bridgewater.  It was in the latter town that Samuel Packard lived, and which later became Brockton.

Samuel's fourth-great-grandson Richards Packard served in the American Revolution.  His name was Richards; he signed several documents, including at least one in his Revolutionary War Pension file, as Richards.  He was probably so named after his mother's maiden name; her name was Mercy Richards.  I have written a booklet on Richards, his ancestors, and his descendants.  In it, I describe his military service:

"Richards Packard’s original enlistment was at Western, Massachusetts, for a term of six months. Western is in Middlesex County, north and west of Bridgewater. Richards mustered in at Springfield, Hampshire County (that part which is now Hampden County), in Captain Wade’s company, Colonel Jackson’s regiment. The company went to West Point, New York; Richards was at Kings Ferry and, as Richards says in his sworn statement, at Haverstraw “when Andre was hung,” referring to the execution of Major John Andre, the British spy who was hanged 2 October 1780 at Tappan, New York. Richards Packard was discharged in the fall of 1780. 

"He enlisted again in February, 1782, at Leverett, Massachusetts and again was at West Point, this time under Captain Smith in Colonel Rufus Putnam’s regiment. During this time, he suffered from smallpox, but apparently recovered. The troops went to Verplank’s Point in the spring of 1783, and were there until fall, when they retired to winter quarters at Newburgh, New York. He was discharged in February of 1783."

I have two direct ancestors who served the Union in the Civil War.  My paternal great-great grandfather, Mathew Hale Packard (not a typo; there was only one "t" in Mathew's name) served in two different regiments of New York Cavalry, the 15th New York Cavalry, and the 2nd Regiment, New York Provisional Cavalry.  My maternal great-great grandfather, Charles Reed, served in the 140th Indiana Infantry.  Both survived, but were disabled by disease.  

My father, Arden Packard, enlisted in the Navy and was admitted to the U.S. Naval Academy in 1930, having passed a competitive exam offered to enlisted personnel.  He graduated from the academy in 1934.  He took flight training at Pensacola Naval Air Station in 1937, and that is where he met my mother and they got married in July of 1937.  He received exemplary fitness reports, placing him in the top 5% of Naval aviators -- "Top Gun" territory.  But he was grounded due to medical problems, and became a flight instructor.  In that capacity, he was sent by the Navy Department to the Empire Central Flying School, outside of London, England, to learn the tactics the British were using against the Germans.  He brought that knowledge home and taught these tactics to his students, who would be shipping out with the Atlantic Fleet to English waters to fight the Germans.

Inspired by our father's service, my brother enlisted in the U.S. Marines after high school, and I enlisted in the U.S. Coast Guard Reserve when I saw how much my husband was enjoying his Coast Guard service.  Our family very much has a military tradition.

 

A to Z Challenge 2024 - Professionally Speaking - F is for Farmer

 It would seem logical that most early arrivals to New England became farmers by necessity.  They had to have a way to feed themselves.  It wasn't any different for Samuel Packard, my 8x-great-grandfather.  He arrived with a wife and one child in 1638 at Hingham, Plymouth Colony.  Not long after, he removed his family to Weymouth, and finally settled in Bridgewater.  By the time of his death in 1684, he had acquired a goodly amount of land, much of it farmed.  

Much later, my great-great grandfather Nelson Reed McKee was listed in the 1860 census as being a farmer in Allen County, Indiana.  Either he did not succeed as a farmer, or he just found that he did not like the occupation, for in the 1870 census, he is listed as a silversmith.  At that time, he was living with his wife and two children in Portland, Jay County, Indiana.  

A several-times great-granduncle was a farmer in Maryland.  His name was Jean-Pierre LeSueur, and he had come over from France to fight on the side of the American colonies in our Revolution.  His descendant, my great-granduncle Levi Curtis LeSourd (the spelling varied over time) was also a farmer, in Indiana.  He and his family lived in a small town called Sleeth, in Carroll County. named for the family of Levi's wife Rachel Anna Sleeth.

Harold Blaine White was the third husband of my grandmother Ruth Nave.  Her first husband, Benjamin Franklin Reed, was my grandfather.  He died in a railroad accident in 1917.  Harold White was raised on a farm, and his first occupation was as a farmer.  From what I have learned of him, he was not a success as a farmer.  He apparently was not much of a success at much of anything, because he attributed to himself several occupations, but in each census in which he was listed, he is shown as unemployed.  His earnings for the year, as shown in censuses, were much less than that of my grandmother.

Farming did not survive as an occupation in my family into the 20th century.  

A to Z Challenge On the Move: C is for Canada and California

The origin of my Packard line in the United States is Massachusetts, the Plymouth Colony, the town of Hingham.  Samuel Packard brought his wife Elizabeth and their infant daughter Mary there in 1638.  Not long after, they went to Weymouth, and even later to Bridgewater.

The next subsequent two generations pretty well stayed put.  Eleazer, Samuel's great-grandson, went west.  Though Richards Packard, Eleazer's son, grew up there in western Massachusetts, he was born in Bridgewater.  

The American Revolution turned things upside down.  Richards, at 17, enlisted in a Massachusetts regiment and ended up serving two enlistments in two different regiments.  After the Revolution, he began a fairly long migration north.  He settled first in Winchester, New Hampshire, where he met and married Sarah "Sally" Coates.  I do not have much information on her as yet.  In Winchester, Richards worked in a foundry.

His feet feeling the need to wander once again, he and Sally took up their anchor and headed north.  They ended up in St. Johnsbury, Vermont, where their son John Allen Packard, my 3x-great grandfather, was born.  It wasn't long after when Richards and Sally sold their farm in Vermont and headed north again, this time ending up in Canada.  They settled in Stanstead, in Quebec, in an area known as the English Townships.  This was their final migration.

This was also where John Allen Packard grew up, and married.  He married Miriam Bullock, and together they had a pack of children.  John Allen was a Methodist preacher.  One of their children, Mathew Hale Packard, also grew up in the English Townships, and married Emily Hoyt.

Mathew Hale and about half of his siblings ended up going back into the United States around 1850.  Mathew and his wife, and their son Oscar Merry, born probably in Hamilton, Ontario in 1848, ended up in Chautauqua County, New York, across Lake Erie where they were enumerated in the 1855 New York State Census in Harmony Township.  They also had a daughter, Augusta, born in New York, probably in Harmony Township, Chautauqua County.  Members of Emily Hoyt's family had settled there, and the Packards had followed.

It was from here the Mathew enlisted in a New York regiment of cavalry for the Civil War.  He served in two different regiments.  As with most who fought on either side in that war, Mathew suffered more from ailments than from war wounds.

After the war, Mathew and his family migrated to Bloomington, Illinois, where a number of his siblings had settled.  This is where Mathew, by occupation a carpenter, and Emily, a milliner, lived the rest of their lives.

Their son, Oscar Merry, became a real estate agent.  He married Augusta Hetherington, born in Chicago in 1851.  They had four children:  Herbert Roy Packard, Ruby Packard, Walter Hetherington Packard, and Hale Boring Packard.  Once he became established in real estate, Oscar packed up his family and migrated to the best place for real estate agents in the late 19th and early 20th centuries -- California.

It was in California that Walter Hetherington Packard grew up, and where he met and married Elizabeth Jane "Bessie" (later "Betty") Reynolds, who was born in Atlantic, Cass County, Iowa.  They, like Walter's parents, had four children:  Walter Reynolds ("Ren"), John Creighton ("Jack"), Arden (no middle name), and Sarah Virginia ("Sally").  

This long enough tale ends here, for the story of Arden and his migrations can be found in my blog entry On the Move: A is for Arden.

A to Z Challenge On the Move: B is for Bicoastal

My father's family line in America began with Samuel Packard, born around 1610 in Stonham Asphal, Suffolk, England.  He became a separatist and left England for the Plymouth Colony in 1638.  With him were his wife Elizabeth and their infant daughter Mary.  Elizabeth's maiden surname has never been discovered.

Samuel and his family settled first in Hingham, Massachusetts, then removed to Weymouth and finally ended up in Bridgewater.  As towns were organized in those colonial days, it all revolved around the church.  There was a squabble in Samuel's church, and one part of the congregation broke away and renamed their part of the town North Bridgewater, which today is known as Brockton.  Samuel was a farmer, and he also kept a tavern, known as an ordinary, in his home.  This was a common colonial practice, and not just in the English colonies, but also in the Spanish colonies in Florida, as my studies of one of those colonies, St. Augustine, Florida, have revealed.

Samuel was also at one time or another the Keeper of Minister's Rates (tax collector) and Surveyor of Highways.  He was obviously literate and worked well with numbers.

Descendants of Samuel, through several generations, scattered to the four winds.  My fourth great-grandfather, Samuel's great-grandson Richards, served in the American Revolution and afterwards, went north in search of land.  He went up into New Hampshire, where he met and married Sarah ("Sally") Coates.  They continued their migration up into Vermont, where my third great-grandfather, John Allen Packard, was born.  And apparently Richards was not satisfied with the land he tried to farm in Vermont, and he heard that the Canadians were giving away land and were not being particular about who they were giving it to.  He eventually settled near Georgeville, Quebec, in an area known as the English Townships, because so many Anglophones settled there.  My great-great grandfather Mathew Hale Packard was born there.*

Mathew Hale Packard married Emily Hoyt in Canada.  Their son Oscar Merry Packard, my great-grandfather, was most likely, by everthing I have found so far, born in Hamilton, Ontario.  His happy-sounding middle name came from the Merry family, close friends of the Packards in Georgeville.  Mathew and Emily also later had a daughter, Sarah Augusta.  This family migrated from Canada to Chautauqua County, New York, after the Civil War, in which Mathew served from two different regiments of New York cavalry.

Another migration was in store for this family, as they ended up in Bloomington, McLean County, Illinois, with a few of Mathew's brothers and sisters, and their families.  It was in Bloomington that Mathew Hale Packard died.

His son, Oscar Merry, continued the peripatetic Packard tradition, and after becoming a real estate agent, took that career to the perfect place for it at the perfect time -- southern California in the early 20th century.  Before leaving Illinois, however, he married Agusta Hetherington.  They had several children, among them my grandfather Walter Hetherington Packard.

It was in California that my grandfather met and married my grandmother, Elizabeth Jane Reynolds.  Their children were Walter Reynolds Packard, Arden Packard, Sarah Packard, and John Creighton Packard.

In my previous post, A is for Arden, the story is told of my father's migrations, which went from California to Maryland to Virginia to Florida, and back to California.  We have been a very bicoastal family.


*Be it noted that, yes, my fourth great-grandfather's name was Richards, with the s.  His mother's maiden name was Mercy Richards, and that is probably where his name came from.  And my great-great grandfather Mathew Hale Packard had only one t in his first name.

#52Ancestors: Number 1 -- Samuel, who started it all

Here's another set of blogging prompts, courtesy of Amy Johnson Crow (thank you, Amy!) that, if I keep up with them, might help me keep this blog more active.  Since I'm starting a week late, I'll  do two this week.

Number 1 on the list is Samuel Packard (c. 1610-1684), who emigrated from Stonham Aspal, Suffolk, England to Hingham, Massachusetts, in 1638, during the "Great Migration."

Samuel was my eighth great-grandfather and the progenitor of most of the Packards present in the United States.  He is directly in my paternal line, my descent being, in the Packard surname:

Samuel
Zaccheus
Zaccheus
Eleazer
Richards
John Allen
Matthew Hale
Oscar Merry
Walter Heatherington
Arden (my father)

Samuel left England as a separatist, a protestor against the Chuch of England and the excesses of Archbishop William Laud.  When I was a kid, I had a Puritanical streak, and always wondered where it came from until I started delving into my family history and discovered myself to be a direct descendant of Massachusetts Puritans!  So I come by it honestly!

His wife was named Elizabeth, though the most reliable family research has failed to turn up her maiden surname.  Samuel and Elizabeth were married in Suffolk, and boarded the ship Diligent with an infant girl, Mary.

Samuel was a farmer and keeper of an ordinary, a word used in those days for a tavern located in one's home.  A room on the first floor of the house would be opened to the public for purchase of libations of an alcoholic nature (Puritans weren't all that pure!), and I would imagine for some lively conversations, too.  He also served the town at different times as surveyor of highways and collector of minister's rates (that is to say, taxes). 

Samuel and Elizabeth had fourteen children.  Two of them, twin girls Jane and Abigail, died young.  One, Israel, lived to young adulthood and then disappeared from records.  He was a soldier, and may have lost his life in that role.

Samuel's will was made 29 October 1684, nine days before his death.  Though Samuel was a literate man, Puritanism being a literate movement and his municipal offices also indicating literacy, he signed his will "by mark," which may indicate that he was too infirm in his terminal illness to have signed his name.

He bequeathed to his "loveing wiff Elizabeth" (ya gotta love the creative spelling of those days before orthography) all of his lands, buildings, and possessions for the rest of her life, then they were to be divided among their children as stipulated in the will.  There was apparently one no-good son-in-law among the flock, at least as Samuel saw him, for there is a stipulation in the will that provides that the inheritance of his daughter Jael, wife of John Smith, should not be delivered to John, but be given directly to hand to Jael.  John apparently was not to be trusted with money.

Samuel worked hard and left his family well enough off.  Good Puritan.

Election Day 2010 -- Family History and General History

Today's meme was suggested by Thomas MacEntee in his daily "Geneabloggers" e-mail.  We are to talk about voting in our family, any traditions, or any ancestors who may have run for office.

The last ancestor I can point to who held public office would be my 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard, who emigrated to Hingham, Massachusetts (Plymouth Colony) in 1638 from Suffolk, England.  He was, at various times, Collector of Ministers' Rates (tax collector, basically) and Surveyor of Highways.  Most of the rest of us have kept a low profile, politically speaking.

I have made a point of voting in each election since I became eligible to vote in 1968 -- primaries, general elections, special elections, whatever.  My husband had an unbroken streak until last spring's primary, when he ended up in the hospital on voting day, and had not taken advantage of early voting.

Early voting is what we have here in Florida, and I'm sure other places must have it, too.  Polling places are established at various venues, usually the local public library or a school.  The polling place is run exactly as the usual Tuesday-election-day polling place, under the direction of the county Supervisor of Elections.  The early voting goes on for something like a week (maybe 2, not really sure) before the election.  My younger daughter and I even voted on Sunday this week!  The library itself was closed, but the meeting room was open, and set up just like the regular polling place.  And the best sight of all was that we had to wait for a voting booth.  There were at least 10 of them set up, and every one of them was full, with a line waiting.  I hope this kept up all week.  We need bigger voter turnouts.

So with voting going on even on the weekends, there's no excuse for anyone able to do so not doing so!  And for the rest, absentee ballots are good, too.  They just require a little planning.

Elections themselves, and the polling places, are quieter than in the past -- at least on election day.  The run-up to the election is pretty doggone noisy these days, but the election itself is not.  No more do party hacks and other malefactors ply voters with liquor, or attempt to bribe them to vote a certain way.  (It's a secret ballot and always has been.  How did these crooks know whether or not a voter was just taking their money and voting how they pleased?)  Polling places are policed by the pollworkers, and poll-watchers can observe and report any shenanigans.  Political signs have to be a certain distance from the polling place (50 feet in Florida; lots of near-sighted oldsters like me who can't see that far!)  And no "electioneering" is allowed within that 50-foot perimeter.  Nobody can accost you in the polling place and urge -- or threaten -- you to vote a certain way.  That is a change from the early days of the Republic, and a good one.

Now if we could just get the screamers and thumpers on the extreme ends of the spectrum to dial it down a bit!

Women's History Month: Names and naming

Here's today's Women's History instruction:

March 3 — Do you share a first name with one of your female ancestors? Perhaps you were named for your great-grandmother, or your name follows a particular naming pattern. If not, then list the most unique or unusual female first name you’ve come across in your family tree.

First name, no. My mother told me that she was going to name me Barbara -- which is not a name which appears in the family -- but she changed her mind when she read something in a magazine and came across the name Karen, and liked it. It is probably a good thing she did change her mind, because I know several Barbaras, including one of my best friends. I have two great close friends, Amanda and Barbara, and if my mother had not changed her mind, introducing ourselves might have sounded like a routine out of the old Newhart television show: "Hi, I'm Amanda and this is my friend Barbara and this is my other friend Barbara."

There have been several Elizabeths in the family, including the maternal progenitress of my paternal line, Elizabeth who married Samuel Packard in around 1635 or so, her surname being so far unknown. Elizabeth, in fact, seems to be the most common female name in the family on both sides. My great-great grandmothers include Florence Elizabeth McKee and Elizabeth Jane Reynolds.

One of my favorite given names comes from the old Puritan line of my father's, the name being Freelove Packard. I don't think it meant to the Puritans what we think of when we hear that name, especially those of us who came of age in the 1960s!
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Where there's a will, there's often paleography

My cousin Ginger, who has been a museum director (and therefore appreciates good research and good citations), returned not long ago from a trip to England, the lucky dog! I wanted to stow away in her luggage, but that would have far exceeded the weight limit!

She went to Suffolk, ancestral home of our 8x-great-grandfather Samuel Packard. She brought back copies for both of us of a few wills from ancestors a little further back, including one from probably our 10x-great-grandfather Moses Packard, who died in 1604. The writing is florid, though it is a hand I am familiar with from paleographical studies in connection with the course of study I took from the National Institute of Genealogical Studies, Toronto, Ontario Canada (through the University of Toronto, which records the grades and issues the transcripts and the certificates of completion). I can read a little bit of it right off, but to read it completely will take study and time I do not have right now.

Many of the letter forms used in these documents are similar to those I find in the Spanish documents I sometimes work with. The scribes who wrote these documents were not isolated and insular fellows. Many of them traveled around Europe. Many of them were taught by instructors who had traveled around Europe, and who might be from a different country. So they used many of the same letter forms and often the same or similar abbreviations.

Abbreviations were used to save penstrokes, because after all, they were doing this all day -- writing documents laboriously by hand. With quill pens. It makes my arthritis-riddled hands ache to think of it!

The other fun of paleography is the lack of orthogaphy - that is, there was no regularized spelling, no "correct" way to spell a word - in those days. Thee other funne of palaeographie is ye lacke of orthographye - thatt is, there was noe regularized speling, no "corect" way to spelle a worde - in thos daies. That's how the sentence might have looked in the 16th or 17th century. Makes for interesting reading, for sure.

I'm looking forward to continuing to be a blatant history nerd (and genealogy nerd, of course) and studying the wills over the holiday break in December. Ginger and I are hoping they will open up new leads to the study of the family, especially of those who remained behind in England while Samuel - an outcast because he had abandoned the family's affiliation to the Church of England and become a Separatist - left England for Puritan Massachusetts.

Blog Action Day -- Climate Change

"Change is the law of life," I remember John F. Kennedy saying. Certainly he was right. Some changes take eons; some only days. Right now, we're in a period of climate change which I particularly don't like. I am a fan of cool weather. I like wearing sweatshirts and sweaters and long pants. I don't like heat, which is an unfortunate thing, as I live in Florida.

I really do not have any concrete information about how climate over the centuries has affected my ancestors. My ancestors were not journal-keepers of any sort at all, apparently. At least, nothing has survived to come down to me. There is other evidence, though, which give some hints as to how climate may have affected my ancestors.

Samuel Packard, the colonial progenitor on my father's side of the family, came over from Suffolk, England to Hingham, Massachusetts in 1638. According to one book I have on life in colonial America, the climate on this side of the Atlantic was harsher both in summer and winter than in Europe at the time. Winters were colder and more severe; summers hotter and plagued with insects. It was a difficult time to begin a farm, much less doing it on a wild and unknown continent. At first, settlers had to depend on what they brought with them, and the list of recommended items was long, indeed, including cooking utensils, farm implements, tools and tack for handling livestock and domestic animals, clothing, medicines (until the natives taught the colonists herbal medicine), right down to fishhooks and sewing needles.

As time went by, they became more self-sufficient, producing textiles, furs for clothing, blankets, and other necessities. And in order to keep their homes warm -- and, indeed, to build the homes in the first place -- they pretty much deforested the area around them. That deforestation in itself would have affected the climate further. I know from experience that having an abundance of trees in an area has a definite effect on the local ambient temperature. Driving out of the city into the country around here, when you get away from the sprawl and into the country where there are many more trees, you can feel a perceptible drop in the temperature.

My great-great grandfather Nelson Reed McKee, of whom I've written as the black sheep of the family on my mother's side, began as a farmer. Evidently he did not succeed at it -- or possibly he just did not like it -- for he soon switched professions to jeweler and watchmaker. Did weather or climate have a hand in his decision? I have not yet had time to investigate that to any extent, but it is certainly possible.

Weather affected my husband's great-grandfather Daniel McLeod Marshall, who migrated from Alabama to Florida after the Civil War (with, according to family lore, five or so of his brothers). He first settled in Apopka, in Orange County, where he raised citrus fruit and cattle. There was a freeze in 1883, and his crop was ruined. He was not fond of Apopka, his opinion of it being that it would never amount to much, and he moved further south to Lakeland, in Polk County. There he again grew citrus, and also strawberries, and again he ran cattle. There was another freeze in about 1895, and the frozen oranges fell off the trees. He thought that would make fodder for the cattle, and he turned them loose in the grove. Apparently, too many frozen oranges are not good for cattle, for they all bloated up and died. oops . . .

My husband has an amusing climate-related story. Here in Florida, it is not only hot, it is very humid (which makes it feel even hotter). Humidity around here can run between 80% and 90% or more. A few years ago, my husband and some of his co-workers were sent to California to install a network or some such. The trip took place in June or July, when it is, of course, extremely hot and humid here. When the plane landed in California, they immediately felt the dryness in the air, it being noticeable. The individual who greeted them at the airport, however, was apologizing all over himself for the extreme humidity they were experiencing. The Floridians, feeling dry as bones, looked at each other and wondered what was wrong with this guy. When they got to the base (my husband and his co-workers were Navy civil service computer programmers), another official apologized profusely for the horrible humidity they were experiencing. My husband and the others shook their heads.

When they got into the conference room where everyone was meeting to go over what was to be done, another individual apologized. This time, the Floridians burst out laughing, unable to contain themselves any longer. The Californians were baffled, again emphasizing how awfully humid it was, and that they just knew everyone must be grossly uncomfortable. My husband asked what the humidity reading was that had them so apologetic. Oh, it was about 35%, according to one of the Californians. The Floridians laughed again. My husband explained the levels of humidity we routinely put up with, and also explained that when they got off the plane and realized that their shirts were not sticking to their backs, they were extremely glad, and thought it felt just fine.

Finally, in 1998, we had an unusual year in which the humidity plummeted to the levels that would make Californians uncomfortable -- around 35% to 40%. We had been experiencing drought for a few years already; our rainfall levels were drastically below normal. With the unusual and extreme dryness in 1998, we began to have fires. Eventually, half the state was on fire. Our younger daughter, on her way to visit a friend in Brevard County, on the east coast of Florida, a trip that usually takes less than 2 hours, took over 8 hours and had to detour over all the way to the west coast of the state to get there, being redirected here and there and yonder by fire officials because roads were impassable. We live on the edge of a state forest, and one day we had fires coming our way from two different directions -- one up the country road which is the only way in or out for us, and another from the other side of the forest. The fire breaks that the forest service plowed on the edge of the forest seemed irrelevant when we saw video on the television of fires jumping the interstate highways! Fortunately, those two fires were controlled before they got to us.

Along with the plummeting humidity levels, we had a dry west wind that would blow every day, very contrary to the usually moist south or east wind we normally get. The wind reminded me of the dry, hot westerly wind that blows in California, called the Santa Ana. I'm from southern California originally, and a neighbor who is also a transplanted Californian understood what I meant when I told him that if I wanted the Santa Ana, I'd go back to California.

This time, we are in more danger, I believe, than we have been before. Around the world, habitats are changing or disappearing, endangering not only animal species but also plants -- both of which we depend on for our sustenance. There are few who doubt that there is a change occurring which does present danger to us. There are things we can do, and should do. And if we do do these things we need to do, we'll all be healthier in the long run.

Weather in our Ancestors' Lives

It is June, so the weather is really heating up in Florida. It was 95 degrees (F.) today, and will be hot tomorrow, too. My washer and dryer are in the garage, which faces west, with a metal door which really gets hot in that summer afternoon sun, and puts the temperature in the garage during a Florida summer day in the range of 110 to 120 degrees. This is the time of year I start doing my laundry at 2:00 in the morning!

Thinking of that got me to thinking about weather and our ancestors. Weather influenced our ancestors' lives at least as much as it does ours, and in many ways probably more. Florida's early pioneers, the Spanish, went mucking about in the jungly Florida forests in all the heat and humidity, wearing mail, plate, or quilted armor. Not only did they not have air conditioning, they didn't have Gold Bond powder, either! Even in the late nineteenth century, when my husband's great-grandfather Daniel McLeod Marshall arrived from Alabama and settled first in Apopka and then in Lakeland, the weather was not suited to the clothing! Men dressed in suits, sometimes three-piece suits, and women had dresses that covered just about everything. I cannot imagine how uncomfortable people must have been in 1883, wearing all those clothes in a Florida summer.

Further back, weather was very much a factor in the life of my ancestor Samuel Packard, who arrived at Hingham, Massachusetts, in August of 1638. Hingham at the time was only three years old, and conditions were fairly primitive. Add to that the fact that the climate in New England was harsher than that in England, both in winter and in summer. Samuel and his fellow immigrants were mostly farmers, trying to get a living in harsh weather out of rocky New England soil. There are not many people more dependent on and more influenced by the weather than farmers.

It is also now hurricane season in Florida. Hurricane season begins 1 June and ends 30 November. When I was a child, the season ended on 1 November. The extension of the season to the end of the month is no guarantee of coverage; several years ago, there was a hurricane in April. I remember my mother telling me about the hurricane of 1926 that hit Pensacola, where she was raised. She was nine years old at the time. Back then, there was not the predictive capability we have today. We know a hurricane is coming several days before it gets to us, and we have time to take precautions, from boarding up windows and clearing potentially airborne items from our yards, to evacuating.

The captains of Spanish treasure ships in the sixteenth century didn't have any foreknowledge of approaching hurricanes, any more than my mother's family did in 1926. Many such ships came to rest at the bottom of the Atlantic Ocean, driven there by hurricanes. Some peoples' ancestors from the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries helped shipwrecked sailors and passengers on the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Other people's ancestors lured the ships onto those shoals with false lights, so they could plunder the cargo. The rescuers were hampered by the weather, the "wreckers" abetted by it.

From sixteenth-century hurricanes to the Dust Bowl of the 1930s, weather has been part of our ancestors' lives. We should try to find out what sort of weather events or climate factors may have influenced our ancestors' lives. And we would do our descendants a favor by noting important weather events in our own lives.