Are you Irish?

Or do you wish you were Irish?First of all Happy Saint Patrick's Day. I am sure there are many celebrations going on around the world. During the great potato famine, many Irishmen had to leave their homes and friends in search of another home and another place to be able to survive. Thinking about it, it sure must have been hard leaving your homeland for destinations unknown. I often talked about our ancestors coming to North America to make a new life. What was their first reactions? Strange lands, native people, unknown animals. It must have been scary! And for the Irish who remained in Ireland during the great famine, it sure must have been hard times. Have you ever been to Ireland? I have never been there but I saw many images and what I saw were beautiful sceneries. I don't have any Irish ancestors that I know of. I do know there was a Roger Kuessy or Casey who came to Acadie from Cork Ireland so many Caissie's are descendants of his. So if you do have some Irish blood ,be proud of it and of who you are. Without your Irish ancestor you would not be here today.  I love Celtic music, it has an eerie haunting sound to it.  To all of you celebrating, stay safe, drive very carefully, if you drink get another driver who isn't drinking.  Better to be safe than sorry.  Now changing the subject, I am going to add a few items here which you can find at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor*    If you plan on stopping by, have your favorite beverage handy because there is lots to see. There are folders inside of folders so enjoy. Have a great day or night.........

 

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Pioneers

Have you ever wondered what kind of places or houses our ancestors lived in? What the inside of their homes looked like? What did they have for furniture? Well browsing through some of my books and papers, I can across the following notes that I wil l share with you. This is relating to the Acadians, but I imagine many pioneers probably had similar methods.In 1731 Robert Hale of Beverly wrote the following entry in his journal. "They have but one room in yr Houses besides a Cockloft,Cellar and sometimes a closet. Their bedrooms are made something after ye manner of a Sailor's Cabbin, but boarded all round about the bigness of ye Bed, except one little hole on the Foreside,just big eno' to crawl into ,before which is a Curtain drawn and as a Step to get into it, there stands a Chest. They have not above 2 or 3 chairs in a house and those wooden ones,bottom and all. I saw but 2 Muggs among all ye French and ye lip of ym was broken down above 2 inches. When they treat you with a strong drink they bring in a large Bason and give you a Porringer to dip it with. " So can you picture it?  Remember this was in 1731 ,these pioneers did not have much to work with back then. They didn't have chain saws, or electrical tools. Now we are moving to the year 1795 the following was sent to Desbarres from Captain John MacDonald describing the Acadian abodes: " The premises of every one seems to be a house from 18 to 25 feet long and as many in Breadth without a porch or partition but the other door opening immediately into the sole room. There are generally 2 doors, the one being that which is used. The chimney of which the lower part is stone and clay and the highter part is clay wrought upon cross bars of wood between a wooden frame is in the remotest part from the door. The Beds are on both sides of the house from chimney to the doors. In the end of the house, opposite to the chimney, the pots and water vessels lie on the floor, and the milk and milk vessels are disposed of on shelves together with their bowls, muggs etc. As they all sleep, eat ,cook ,wash etc in this house or room, I need not say it must look black and dirty enough particularly as the houses are now old. Behind the chimney on the outside is an oven of clay, the opening to which for bread & fire in on the inside back of the chimney. The oven rest on a square wall of loggs or stone around an appartment three or four feet in the square, where a few pigs enter on the outside, and lie warm from the heat of the chimney and oven. In their barns they are more sumptuous. They are from 40 to 50 feet in length, from 20 to 30 in breadth and from 10 to 15 feet high, the lower story destined for the cattle, and the upper for the corn, hay and threshing floor. At a distance they sett off the whole place and I forgot to mention that their houses have a cellar underground for the roots etc to which they descend by a trap door in the floor."

You must have seen movies about a trap door under the table that would go down to the cellars. I remember seeing the movies. So our pioneer ancestors were smart, they had to learn to survive any way they could. This is something that is good to pass down to our children and grandchildren. Compare our nice warm homes to  those of our ancestors ,some big difference huh? I hope you have enjoyed today's blog. Now I would like to share a few products that you can find at http://www.zazzle.com/allicor* and at http://www.zazzle.com/booteek*    Chow for now!

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