Santa and me at D.H.Holmes in Delmont Village in 1967 Every Christmas season our little noses were pressed against the store windows of Delmont Village Shopping Center which was located just a couple of blocks from Byron Street. We closely inspected every detail of the colorful, animated window displays. The mechanical elves slowly repeated their…
Category: Branch: Broome
Life on Byron Street: Grandma’s House
We didn’t have to go over the river and through the woods to get to my Grandma’s house, because she lived right down the street from us. That meant that I spent lots of time in that little red-brick house. I spent much of my time in her kitchen “helping” her cook. As a former…
Life on Byron Street: A Tale of Two Stores
Me with my Pa-pa in front of his toy store (1962) Besides my house and yard, which were great places to play, I spent most of my time at the two stores of my father and my “Pa-pa.” The close proximity of the stores to my house and the possibilities they afforded children with vivid…
Life on Byron Street
Life was good on Byron Street. My father could walk to work every morning from our house to his store located on the corner at Plank Road. My grandmother lived down the street behind my Pa-pa’s store, which was connected to my father’s store. The local fruit stand was next to them. I could walk…
A Picture is Worth More Than a Thousand Words (Pt. 2)
I am blowing the dust off of these old images of the Broome family and allied family members to reveal the identities and likenesses of those individuals who may never have been seen by their descendants. I hope that by posting these images and names that some of their descendents will have the joy of…
A Picture is Worth More Than a Thousand Words
Images of our ancestors are the golden nuggets of family history. Often we are not able to find an image of an ancestor, but when we do, even when the image is small and faded, it gives life to their name and dates. When you look into the eyes of people who lived so long…
The Courtship of Ick and Jez
She called him Ick…short for Ichabod Crane because he was so skinny. He called her Jez…short for Jezebel, the evil queen from the Bible, because, well — he would have to answer that. Stamps, pen and paper, funny quips, warm fuzzies, and the occasional light jab all came together in over 400 letters written from…
The Curious Civil War Photo
The well-worn, crimson-colored velvet album of the Broome family contains many family photos from the turn of the century as well as some photos and tintypes from the Civil War era. But one curious photo loosely stashed alongside other less curious photos in the back of the album caught my attention. The photo, small and…
The Woman Wore Black
Mary Mariah Louisa Currie Morgan (1824-1900) As Mary sat down in the firm wooden chair in front of the large boxy camera in the photographer’s studio in Hazlehurst, Mississippi, she called her little great grand-daughter, Olivette, to come over to her. Mary held her tightly just as she had done so many times with her…
Fascinating stories discovered along my heritage journey 