Road Trip with a Surprise

Just got back from a trip to Fairfax, Virginia to help DearMYRTLE with 4 presentations at the Fairfax Genealogical Society Spring Conference.

On the way home, I had two stops to make. One was to drop off a book that I had created on the Worthington’s who lived in the Worthington House in the Monocacy Battlefield.

On the way there, I stopped by an old cemetery just south of the Battle field to see the renovations that had been done to the Zion Church and Cemetery, Founded in 1802.

Here is a picture I took in 1999.

and today

Incredible.

Dropped of the book, as promised but stopped by the “Thomas Farm” house, the neighboring farm to the Worthington House. Have driven by it many times, but not close enough to take a photo.

(the surprise is coming)

I have a 2nd cousin who lives just north of Gettysburg, but have never stopped by to visit.

The “back story” is that I works for my 2nd cousin’s father one summer. I knew about “the Gettysburg Farm” but didn’t know where it was. Today, I stopped, not out of the blue, but they were going to be home and it was OK to visit.

The surprise was as soon as the door was open, I thought I had escaped by 60+ years, as the smell of Apple Sauce cooking just rolled out of the door. It was like walking into the kitchen of my grandmothers house, or even my mother as they cooks apple sauce. I had forgotten just how great freshly made, home made, apple sauce really was.

Where was my camera when I needed it. On the stove was an apple sauce grinder just like my grandmother had and used on the stove, with it still dripping the sauce. In fact, the grinder was my grandmothers SISTERs apply sauce grinder doing all of the work, with a little help from my 2nd cousin.

Oh was that good.

After catching up a little and talking about what I had been doing, and sharing my spare copy of the Monocacy book, we talked about my other cousin DearMYRTLE and how we were connected. Now, my 2nd cousin was from Chester County. I mentioned one of the names on a Power Point slide the Myrt showed in Fairfax the day before, and my cousin know immediately the surname. I didn’t have to say any more. We talked a little more and mentioned Conrad Weiser, one my Myrt’s ancestors.

This is the Conrad Weiser Homestead in Womelsdorf, PA.

As soon as I mentioned “Weiser”, my cousin’s face lit up, her husband got up and went to a collection of CDs and brought back a Music CD by a Weiser. (sorry, forgot the artist name). But my cousin’s children KNOW the many Weiser family members living in the area. Now the homestead is probably 45 minutes away from where I was, but to make that connection, was NOT Expected.