A Wonderful Birthday

I've been absent from Gather for awhile.  It's summer.  There is gardening, outdoor activities and work, etc.  On August 6th I celebrated my 55th birthday.  

My husband, Chris, took a vacation day.  Prior to the event he suggested several things I might consider.  One was a romantic canoe trip and a picnic.  I opted out of that one since while in Texas visiting his family just a few weeks before he got me on a jet ski behind him and we ended up swimming back to shore just in the nick of time avoiding a huge storm.

I had been working on a project I call "Sally."  I've written several things about that project on Gather.  With guests and the travel and other things coming up I had put this project aside for almost a month and a half.  I decided for my birthday I would reopen the project by traveling to Frankfort, just a couple of hours away from us.  Here I planned to visit the Kentucky Museum of History.  I had heard through one source that there was a picture of Sally there included with the Erwin family genealogy that I was studying in order to find out more about Sally.  The Erwins owned the plantation where Sally was born.

When we arrived at the museum we asked at the desk were to find what we were looking for.  The lady directed us upstairs.  At the next desk we were directed to a lady named Sally who would help me.  I considered that a very favorable sign.  She showed me the files although she wasn't hopeful that I would find what I was looking for.  She said a lot of contributions were still stored in boxes and may not be filed yet.  Anyway I opened the drawer pulling out one fairly thin lone file marked Erwin taking it over to a table.  After a few pages there it was, the picture of Sally.  It was only a copy.  She was standing beside an Erwin descendant.  There was just a little bit of the house showing in the picture; but I recognized it as the Bonzo house where Sally lived from the 1920's until the 1960's.  I could see the steps in the background that led to the kitchen.  These were the same steps I walked up entering a screen door where I first saw Sally in 1961.  She is definitely younger in this picture.  

The file also told me several more things such as the nursing home where Sally had been prior to her death.  It was no longer in existence.  Still I was able to contact a grandchild of the lady who ran it.  Also, I was able to contact the son of the other lady in the picture.  The investigation goes on.

Note:  On Sally's death certificate and grave stone it gives her birth date at 1858 and death as 1969.  Sally was born into slavery on the Erwin Plantation in Carter County, Kentucky.