Holiday Inn Express HENDERSON, NC

My grandmother's home

by grandmaR

My mom was born in Henderson. Her mom (my grandmother) had come 'north' with her sister to attend Western Maryland College, and met a Yankee from Pennsylvania. My grandmother traveled south to see her parents several times each year, so my mom grew up half in Pennsylvania and half in North Carolina.

My mom was named Rosalie for her Henderson grandmother (my great great grandmother). So when I was born, she named me after my two great great grandmothers. We always visited all the relatives when we went to Henderson. I never knew my great great grandmother Rosalie at an age when I could remember her, but she had nine children, and I met seven of them (not counting my grandmother) as a child. Two of my grandmother's siblings lived in Maryland, one lived in Pennsylvania with my grandmother, one was in Wisconsin, and one in Greensboro but there were still two - a great aunt and a great uncle, plus and cousins and kissin' cousins to socialize with.

Visiting Ancestral Graves

by grandmaR

"July 25, 2008"

We invited my son's daughter (age 12) to come for a visit. She had swim team meets up to the middle of July, so we decided that she should come up from SC to MD just before her first cousin (my oldest granddaughter - age 26) got married in CT. Then her dad could pick her up on the way to the wedding.

I had a reservation at the Hampton Inn but check-in time was not until 3 pm, so we left in a fairly leisurely fashion. We approached the bridge over to Virginia about noon.

As we drove down I-95, we ran into a big traffic jam north of Richmond. If I had not needed to go down I-85 south of Richmond, we would have taken the bypass, but that goes to I-95 south of Richmond and doesn't go all the way to I-85.

Finally about 2 pm, we got off of I-95 and stopped for lunch at Arby's. This Arby's was a buffet type place rather than the usual fast food.

We wound our way through the Richmond suburbs and eventually found I-85

After we checked in, it was still too early for dinner so I went looking for the cemetery where my great great grandparents were buried. I had marked it on a map. I also saw Big Ruin Creek church marked as number 7 on this map, and thought we could go by there on our way

I wandered around in the woods where I thought the cemetery might be, but never did find anything. Bob was in the car trying to avoid being eaten alive by mosquitoes. I was mostly trying to avoid ticks and poison ivy.

We did find Big Ruin Creek Church, although it was not where it was marked on the map, and there was no sign on the church to tell me that it was the correct one.

They had some interesting and home-made looking graves markers in this cemetery. They looked like they were made from cement.

We decided to eat dinner at Pinos. Then we went back to the hotel to prepare for meeting our son and granddaughter tomorrow (Saturday July 26th)