Archive for April, 2010

by Sherry Stocking Kline
18 April 2010

The following excerpt is taken from the NASA.gov website as the astronauts gear up to land Monday morning!

Shuttle Crew Prepares for Monday Landing

Preparations for landing take center stage Sunday as the seven astronauts on space shuttle Discovery wrap up a 10-day stay at the International Space Station that included three spacewalks and delivery of more than seven tons of equipment and supplies.

Commander Alan G. Poindexter, Pilot James P. Dutton Jr. and Mission Specialists Dorothy Metcalf-Lindenburger, Rick Mastracchio, Stephanie Wilson, Clayton Anderson and Japanese astronaut Naoko Yamazaki are scheduled to land their spacecraft at Kennedy Space Center at 8:48 a.m. EDT Monday.

And we appreciate your prayers for their safe landing tomorrow!

Other Related Posts:

Follow the Astronauts & Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger on Facebook

What’s Going Up in Space with Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger

April 5th ABC News Launch Video

Astronaut Cousin Makes History Today!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
17 April 2010

Look, Ma, No Hands! Dorothy Metcalf Lindenburger

The above photograph was posted on the STS 131 NASA Facebook page.  Become a Fan Here: http://www.facebook.com/#!/pages/Houston-TX/NASA-Fit-Explorer/79062778725 and you can see all the latest Facebook posts and photographs, some uploaded before launch and some since.

What fun it is to watch and see what’s going on, and think about the work that goes into becoming prepared to make this trip.  Just think about all the advancements and inventions that have come about because of the space exploration.  If I remember right, even the ubiquitous velcro came about because something was needed to keep things from floating off.

I’m not sure I understand the ramifications of the new billion dollar space program at all, but I do understand that Dottie’s team is one of the last that will be going ‘up’ with our own launches.  I’ve not watched enough television to know for sure, but think I heard someone saying on the country radio news station that I listen to that we will be paying another country to take our astronauts into space.  What a change!

Here is the NASA website http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/shuttlemissions/sts131/index.html where you can read more about the mission and it’s payload!  Dottie told me via Facebook e-mail that she would be working with the robotic arm that will move the 18,000 pound cargo onto the space station.

Wouldn’t you just love to be a mouse in the corner when they all get back to Earth!

Other Related Posts:

What’s Going Up in Space with Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger

April 5th ABC News Launch Video

Astronaut Cousin Makes History Today!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
14 April 2010

I love this wonderful old photograph of the family, and am so glad that someone snapped a photo of their get-together.

And like many photographs, I wonder, was this just an ordinary family gathering?  A funeral?  Someone’s wedding?

I may never know, but the question itself reminds me to make an extra note on the back of my photos or in my scrapbooks!

L – R: Ira, baby Paul, & Dee (Hoover) Breneman, Constantine Breneman, Carrie (Breneman) Jones & Children, Rose, Daryl, and toddler Dorothy.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
13 April 2010

I snapped this Tombstone for a couple of reasons. One, I hoped he was family, and Two, it just caught my eye.  It stood there, and though it said  “Gone, but not forgotten,” it seemed, well, lonely.

And like some tombstones that you see, it just made me wonder, who was he?  Why is he buried there all by himself?  What did he  do for a living? What did he die of?

All those questions ran through my mind, but I guess first and foremost, was the question, is he part of my family?

Julian Jones - Caney Fork Baptist Cemetery

On the Stone:

Julian Jones
1863 – 1932
Gone But Not Forgotten

Today I don’t have those answers, and even though he is buried near my Smith family stones, I don’t have the answer to the  “is he family” question.

But it’s a puzzle that I plan to solve!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
11 April 2010

Just over a year ago, I picked up a box of photographs at a yard sale.  (they did not belong to the family who was selling them)

Off and on, I’ve worked on trying to locate information about the ‘inhabitants’ of this box, researching the census, etc., but lately I’ve just not taken/made/had the time to do much with it.

So I’ve decided to start posting some of the photographs and other info here, on the off chance that someone will find the posts and I can at last re-unite at least some of the memories with the family who will love to have them.

The names in the box include Wimp and Newland, and the towns include Blackwell, Oklahoma, Wellington, Kansas, and Eads, Colorado.

Wilma Erma Ford Marries Fred Walter Newland

And yes, if we are able to re-unite these family treasures with their family, I’ll be posting about it right here!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
10 April 2010

Here is this week’s Saturday Night Genealogy Fun Challenge from Randy Seaver!

Your mission, should you decide to accept it, is to:

1) Tell us: Which ancestor or relative do you readily identify with? Which one do you admire? Which one are you most like, or wish that you were most like? Which one would you really like to sit down and have a heart-to-heart conversation with?

2) Write your response in a blog post on your own blog, in a Facebook note or response to this post, or in a comment on this post.

Oh my, which ancestor or relative do I most identify with?  I think my ancestors, especially the women, were brave and courageous, so in some ways I wish I were more like them.  My great-grandmother Frances Hitchcock Stocking picked up her life, packed up their belongings, and followed the man she loved, Roderick Remine Stocking, here to Kansas, a flat prairie with tall grass and no trees for firewood (read they used buffalo chips to heat their homestead with) or they drove their wagon about 15 miles south into Oklahoma’s Indian Territory (which was illegal, mind you) to pick up firewood.  They also lived within a few miles of the Chisholm Trail, and those who still traveled up and down it, even after the cattle drives ended.

And then there is my other great-grandmother on my mother’s side, Salinda Rose Breneman, who lived out on the prairie in Nebraska, where Indians might (and did) poke their heads in the window wanting food.  And Indians wouldn’t have been their only danger.  They would have lived in fear of prairie fires as well as rattle snakes, and her children, even at a young age, were sent out on horseback, sometimes with their lunch in a pail to herd the cattle, often being out of site of the homestead for the whole day.

Could I do what they did?  I don’t think so.

Who would I most want to sit down with?  My great-great grandmother, Elizabeth Laird Jones Crabb!

I would ask her what her first husband’s name was and thereby break down that brick wall!  I would learn first-hand from her what her husband died from (or if they were divorced!) and I would ask her what brought them here to Kansas, and did they miss their home state of Kentucky and their daughter who stayed there?

And maybe I would just ask them how they ‘managed?’  How did they cope with the hardships, water that came from a well and wasn’t the clear liquid that we’re used to today, growing and canning and preserving much of their food, and sewing many of their clothes?

And particularly, where did they find the courage to go on when they had to bury their young children because their lives were cut short from disease and farm accidents?

So many questions that I would ask these courageous women!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
07 April 2010

I had no idea that so much ‘stuff’ went up into space with the astronauts, but I can see what kind of impact it can have on the students of a school!  What a great idea!

You can read the story here: http://www.nasa.gov/mission_pages/shuttle/behindscenes/whatsgoingup131.html and then check out the podcast here.

The news just said that the Discovery was able to dock with the Space Station, though they had some problems with an antenna, and would be having their first space walk soon.

Dottie told me in an e-mail on Facebook that she would not be walking, but would be directing the robotic arm that would be moving 18,000 pounds of equipment.  That’s a pretty big load!  (I’m used to thinking in terms of a wheat truck load,  and this is many times that!)

Here is some of the NASA info on the mission:

Mission: STS-131
Space Shuttle: Discovery
Primary Payload: Leonardo multi-purpose logistics module
Launch Date: April 5, 2010
Launch Time: 6:21 a.m. EDT
Launch Pad: 39A
Landing: April 18, 2010
Landing Time: 8:29 a.m. EDT
Landing Site: Kennedy Space Center, Fla.
Mission Duration: 13 days
Inclination/Altitude: 51.6 degrees/122 nautical miles

You can read today’s Space Shuttle news here.

Our whole family is very proud of Dottie, and we appreciate your interest and your prayers for her safety!

Other Related Posts:

Follow the Astronauts on Facebook

April 5th ABC News Launch Video

Astronaut Cousin Makes History Today!

by Sherry Stocking Kline
07 April 2010

I love this cool photograph of one of my mother’s favorite cousins, Kenneth Jones, fishing!   It looks like he is fishing on a fairly large lake, perhaps even Lake Superior itself.

He also fished and hunted for agates (he was an avid and knowledgeable rock hound!) on many of the lakes in Minnesota near their home in the outskirts of Duluth, Minnesota.

Kenneth Jones - Fishing

Thanks to Kenneth, and those fun vacation days of hunting agates along the shores of Lake Superior and another beautiful Minnesota lake, I’m still a bit of a rock hound!

We’ve lost touch with Kenneth and Lois’s children, and would love to re-connect with them, so if by chance one of them (or their children) find this blog, I hope you will stop and say ‘hello’ and leave your e-mail address!

Other Related Posts:

Kenneth’s Mother – May Breneman Jones

Kenneth Jones Toddler photo taken in Wichita, Kansas.

Kenneth Jones in front of his Kingman Kansas High School.

Kenneth’s Grandfather, Constantine “Tom” Breneman and his buggy horse photograph.

Kenneth’s Grandmother, Salinda E. (Rose) Breneman, photo and tombstone photo.

by Sherry Stocking Kline
06 April 2010

This week’s Tombstone Tuesday is my Mom’s Great-Aunt Bettie Crabb.

Bettie Crabb's Stone - Glasgow Cemetery, Barren County, Kentucky

On The Stone:

Bettie Crabb
Oct 15, 1866
Oct 31, 1932

What you can’t see in the photograph here is that Bettie is buried next to her father, J. R. U. Crabb who died 11 years before she did.  (Bettie never married.)

For a few years, J. R. U. and Bettie’s mother, Elizabeth Laird Jones Crabb lived on a farm in Sumner County, Kansas, just east of Milan, Kansas.

Bettie’s mother Elizabeth, died and is buried there, far away in the Milan Cemetery, Sumner County, Kansas.  You can see her tombstone here.

Sometime after Elizabeth died, J. R. U. and Bettie returned to Glasgow, Barren County, Kentucky, to be near Bettie’s sister, Sally Crabb Mayfield, wife of George. Sally and George are buried in the Glasgow Cemetery, Glasgow, Kentucky, also.

The photograph below shows Bettie and J. R. U.’s  place in the cemetery next to each other:

L - R: Bettie Crabb and father J. R. U. Crabb Stone - Glasgow Cemetery, Barren County, Kentucky

Our new-found cousins, Dennis and Nancy (Bertram) Bush who so kindly showed us around Barren County, told us that just a couple of years earlier, some man picked this spot, and this tree, to hang himself…  Gave me shivers then.  (Still does.)

Related Posts (also included in the Text):

J. R. U. Crabb’s Tombstone

Elizabeth Laird Jones Crabb Tombstone

Milan Cemetery Listings, Milan, Sumner County, Kansas

by Sherry Stocking Kline
06 April 2010

Thanks to so many who have sent e-mails and left comments.  I hadn’t thought to keep updating this site on Dottie, but I thank you for those suggestions, and I will do that!

It is amazing to think that as I tuck into bed with night-time prayers, sit here at the computer, do everyday stuff, that Dottie and her fellow astronauts are far above the earth circling us and working.  Hard to imagine!

Here is a link to a nice article from ABC News about Dottie, “Discovery Teacher Breaks the Mold” and a short lift-off video that they call “the picture perfect” lift off!  For those of us who remember when  the lift off ended quickly with an explosion, “picture perfect” are great words!

You can see the latest news about the STS-131 mission here at the NASA.gov website, as well as an awesome lift-off photograph taken by NASA personnel.

And you can see more great STS-131 Mission Photographs here!

Here you can see a great photograph of the space station, and read about what the mission will be doing, how many space walks it will do, etc.  Dottie told me what her job will be, and you can read about that in my first post here.

God Bless, Dottie!

Other Related Posts:

Follow the STS-131 Astronauts on Facebook

What’s Going Up in Space with Dottie Metcalf-Lindenburger

Astronaut Cousin Makes History Today!