Day 15: In Hannibal

In Mark Twain's boyhood home

Day 14: From Springfield to Hannibal

With Frederick Douglas at the Lincoln Museum in Springfield.


On the banks of the Mississippi River in Hannibal.


At the end of the rainbow.

Day 13: At the Milwaukee Museum of Art

"Untitled" (1981) by Donald Judd.

"Cover Girl" (2018) by Sara Cwynar (as are the following)

Day 12: Lake Michigan

While visiting Lake Michigan, Emilio and I took a walk around the campus, which borders Lake Michigan.

After leaving Evanston, we headed to Milwaukee.

Positioned outside the Milwaukee Art Museum, one of the works in this year’s Sculpture Milwaukee is Elmgreen & Dragset’s giant telescope sculpture, “A Greater Perspective.” It points toward Lake Michigan.

Day 11: New Shoes

We shopped for new shoes for Emilio on Michigan Avenue, but we didn't find any that met his standards until we got to Alamo Shoes on Clark Street in our old Andersonville neighborhood. Those are my fingers sticking out of the end of his old shoes.

Emilio is not particularly fond of change.

Day Ten: At the Neo-Futurarium

In the Hall of Presidents.
In the Room Where It Happens.

Day Nine: Navy Pier and the Loop

On State Street in the town where he was born.

The skyscraper behind Emilio that is currently under construction is the "Vista Tower." It will 101 stories tall. It will be the tallest building in the world designed by a woman.

Dragon's Breath on Navy Pier.
Behind Emilio: The Lasalle Street Bridge. It was built in 1928. He is standing on the Wells Street bridge, which was built in 1922. In "The Fugitive" (1993), Richard Kimble (Harrison Ford) gives away his location to Deputy U.S. Marshall Samuel Gerard (Tommy Lee Jones) by making a phone call from the Wells Street Bridge. Gerard can hear "Next Stop: Merchandise Mart" on the P.A. of the Brown Line train as it passes on a recording of a Kimble phone call.

Day Eight: Palmer House, Art Institute, Willis Tower

The Palmer House Hotel.

"Pelican" (?!) (1896) by Emmanuel Fremiet. At the Art Institute of Chicago.

At the Chicago Board of Trade.

The Ledge:  Floor 103 of Willis Tower.

Day Seven: Hamilton

We started the day by visiting the Field Museum of Natural History.
But "Hamilton" was the highlight.

Day Six: Hyde Park

Emilio and I went to the Admissions Office and took a tour of the University of Chicago that was led by a current student at the university who is finishing his first year. He started the talk walking backwards and making a joke about the difficulty of doing that in flip flops. Emilio and I were the only ones on the tour, so I told him I didn't think he needed to walk backwards. I'm sure it's a thing he does when he has big groups. He stopped walking backwards but he never quit using his loud tour-guide voice. I don't think this is a University of Chicago thing. It's a students-leading-campus tours thing.

Emilio is too young to go on college tours, but I think it unlikely that we will return to Chicago before he is old enough, so I wanted to take advantage of this opportunity. I also didn't want his expectations of college tours to be limited by those that are close by. And I also, as a sometimes recruiter myself, I wanted to see how the U of C recruits.

We didn't get to see a dorm room, which was one of the main reasons I wanted the tour. When we got done, Emilio said he didn't know why I thought he was smart enough to go to a place like this.  We had a talk about what "smart" means, with me pointing out the difference between "being knowledgeable," "having the ability to learn," and "wanting to learn."

During the tour, I asked our guide why he chose the U of C.  He said he wanted to live near a big city that had lots of things to do, and he liked that the U of C you apply to the general college and not to a particular school within the college. When I asked him to describe U of C students, he said they were "passionate." I suggested that they were also "verbal," but he didn't know what I meant by that.  "Articulate; talkative," I offered. He said that sounded right.

After the tour, we visited the Oriental Institute Museum. The Human-Headed Winged Bull  in the photo above was excavated by the Oriental Institute between 1928-1935. It formed part of the Palace of Sargon II (721–705 BC) at Khorsabad, which is 10 miles north of Mosul in Kurdistan Iraq.

Day Five: Owensboro, KY and Terre Haute, IN

At the Bluegrass Museum and Hall of Fame in Owensboro, Kentucky.
At the Eugene V. Debs House and Museum in Terre Haute, Indiana.

Day Four: Williamson County

Last year on our summer vacation, we visited Anson, Texas, where my great-grandfather, Gilbert Nathaniel "N.G." Ferrell was elected sheriff in 1908 at the age of 48, three years after my grandmother, Ida Ferrell was born. N.G. died in Anson in 1939, but on that trip, we did not visit his grave or the grave of his wife, Sadie--also buried in Anson--who died in 1960..

N. G. and Sadie were themselves born in Illinois (Ferrell in Williamson County on February 20, 1860, and Sadie in 1868), and they were married in Hunt County (county seat: Greenville), Texas on February 16, 1888. They moved to Jones County (county seat: Anson) in 1890.

This year, we are visiting Williamson County, Illinois. N.G.'s grandfather William Ferrell, his grandmother, Jailey Susannah Barnes, and their son Ezra moved to Williamson County in 1839.

I convinced Emilio to go with me to the Williamson County Historical Society Museum, while the other Ruiz Benton children slept in and Mari read at the hotel.

Emilio intended to read on his phone while were there, but he was soon hooked, time passed quickly, and we were late getting back to the hotel.


Emilio and I didn't uncover much, if anything, new, though we did read several lawsuits brought by the Ferrell family and the Davis family against each other, mostly for trespassing (the Davis family won these court disputes). We also bought the Williamson County Centennial map (1839-1939) above, which shows the history of Williamson County from the time of the French occupation shortly after 1700 to the division of Franklin and Williamson Counties in 1839. The map includes the old French trails, the camps of the Indians, the trail that Revolutionary War general George Rogers Clark followed in 1778 on his way to capturing Kaskaskia from the British; the first European settlement (1810), the three blockhouses built in 1811 as a protection against the Indians, and the "nine prairies." The map also shows Tecumseh "and his  twelve warriors on their way south to enlist the Creek Indians in the War of 1812." Around the border of the map are "the names of the pioneers and the earliest known dates that they crossed the ferries at Shawneetown and Golconda."

Ezra

In 1827, Ezra--my grandmother's grandfather--was born in Tennessee in Smith County (county seat: Carthage--60 miles east of Nashville.

Ezra married Nancy Parks in Williamson County in September 1846 (he was 19: Nancy was 15), and in 1850, he was working as a farmer and living with Nancy, 20-month-old daughter Ruth, and their 11-month-old son John in Williamson County.

Ezra's younger brother Wyatt (b. 1829) served as a 1st sergeant in the 128th Illinois Infantry. I haven't seen a record of Ezra's service; by 1863, he had 8 children, the oldest being 16-year-old Ruth. 

William

William, Ezra's father, was himself born in Fairfax, Virginia in 1788. In 1790, 2 years after William was born, the Ferrells had moved 300 miles south to Wake County, North Carolina, where some of his siblings were born. Here, in 1810, William married a 19-year-old Wake County-native, Jaily Susannah Barnes.

In 1811, William and Jaily moved to Shelbyville,in Bedford County, Tennessee (60 miles southeast of Nashville). He enlisted in Colonel Coffee's regiment for the Creek War and fought under Andrew Jackson in that war and in the War of 1812, his military career ending at the Battle of New Orleans, in January 8, 1815.

The Creek War
After uniting the tribes of Ohio in an effort to keep American settlers out of Native American lands there, Shawnee leader Tecumseh came to Tukabatchee, Alabama to encourage the Creek the join his movement. The Great Comet of 1811 (visible from March through the end of the year) and the New Madrid (Missouri) earthquakes between December 1811 and February 1812 were taken by some as signs of the need to seize the moment.

The War began as a civil war between different Native American factions, but the U.S. became involved on August 30, 1813, when a force of about 700 Creeks armed by British in Pensacola (Florida) destroyed Fort Mims (Alabama), killing 250 defenders and taking 100 captives. The attack spread panic throughout the Southeastern frontier.

Tennessee Governor Willie Blount called out a force of 2,500 West Tennessee men under Colonel Andrew Jackson to "repel an approaching invasion ... and to afford aid and relief to ... Mississippi Territory." 200 Cherokee would fight alongside them.

According to the Encylopedia of Alabama, on November 3, Coffee's regiment--with an "overwhelming" advantage in numbers "attacked the Creek town of Tallushatchee, resulting in its complete destruction and the death of 186 Creeks, including women and children." Davy Crockett participated in this battle. On November 9, another decisive victory for Jackson's troops followed at Talladega.

General Coffee returned to Tennessee for remounts and wrote Jackson in December that his cavalry had deserted. When 900 raw recruits arrived  in January 1814, "Jackson was down to a cadre of 103 and Coffee, who had been 'abandoned by his men.'"  Jackson's men were "inexperienced, undisciplined, and insubordinate." Ultimately, Jackson ended the Red Stick Creek resistance after a decisive victory by this troops at the Battle of Horseshoe Bend on March 27, 1814.

As a result, the Creeks surrendered half of Alabama and part of southern Georgia to the U.S. government, even though many Creeks had fought alongside Jackson against the Red Stick Creeks.

Jackson then invaded Spanish Florida (without authorization from President Madison) and drove the British forces that had helped arm the Red Stick Creeks out of Pensacola on November 7-9, 1814. His troops defeated the British again at the Battle of New Orleans on January 8, 1815.

William 

After these Wars, William and Jaily  moved to Smith County, Tennessee (county seat: Carthage; 60 miles east of Nashville). In 1834, William was ordained a Baptist Minister, and in 1839, he moved from Tennessee to Williamson County and settled near Sarahsville (see map above). His 2 oldest sons Wilfred and Hezekiah came to Williamson County in 1835 and 1836. According to the History of the Baptists in Illinois, "The church to which [William's] sons belonged was divided, and they and fifteen others were excluded because they refused their consent to disfellowship those who favored missions. The Ferrells thereupon sent to Salem, Tennessee Association for a 'presbytery' to examine them and see if they were not 'in order' and adhering to the original practice of the churches. Three pastors were sent, of whom William Ferrell was one. They recognized the seventeen as a church, now known as Davis Prairie [see map above]. The elder Ferrell decided to make [Illinois] his home, and for twenty years he was one of [the state's] most efficient ministers."

In 1860, William was a 71-year-old farmer and miner (see the "Stone Coal Mine" in the map above), living alone with Jaily in Williamson County.  In the summer of 1865, he helped organize the Marion Baptist Church, which he served as an elder. He died two years later, in 1867, when his grandson N.G. was 7 years old.

Hezekiah

William's father, Hezekiah, wrote his last will and testament when he was in a "low state of health" on January 4, 1812 in Wake County (county seat: Raleigh), North Carolina. Seven children are mentioned in the will: James, Polly, Zephaniah, William, Lydia, John A., and Dent.

William inherited "one horse bridle and saddle, one Cow and calf, one sow and pigs, two head of sheep, one Feather bed bedstead and furniture, one pewter basin, one Dish, and six spoons and one hoe," an inheritance similar to that received by his siblings.

Day Three: St. Louis

Day Two: From Miami to St. Louis

At the George Washington Carver National Historic Site in Diamond, Missouri.

Emilio gave 2 thumbs up to the Polymath Educational Cafe in Marshfield, Missouri. He had edamame, avocado on toast, and toast with jelly.

At the City Museum in St. Louis.

2019 Summer Vacay: It Begins--Ada to Miami

In Prague.

Earlier this spring, Emi enjoyed reading a biography of Thorpe (see below) and told us some of what he remembered. The plaque beside this mural reads: "Birthplace of Jim Thorpe. James Francis Thorpe, Sac and Fox Indian name Wo-Tho-Huck Bright Path. Born May 22 1887, south of present day Prague. Attended Haskell Indian School, Kansas and Carlisle Institute, Pennsylvania, where he excelled in football and track. At 1912 Olympics, Thorpe won decathlon and pentathlon events. Played Major League baseball 1913-1919 and professional football 1915-1929. First president of the National Football League and inducted into professional football Hall of Fame. Voted world's greatest male athlete in the first half of the 20th century by Associated Press. D. 1953. Oklahoma Historical Society 225 1995."

Season 14, Game Last

Ada Equality
Front row, from left to right: Emilio, Luke, Gage, Chance, Saul, Jose, Asher, Augie
Back row, from left to right: Dexter, Sam, Colton, Corbin, Carl, Josiah

We lost this one to the South Lakes Mutiny, 6-3.

Saturday, May 9, 2019 10:00
Ada Equality 2-5 South Lakes Mutiny

Sunday, March 31, 2019  2:00
Ada Equality 0-15 Clinton Chivas

Sunday, April 07, 2019 5:00
North OKC  Lightning Dragons 6-2 Ada Equality

Saturday, April 27, 2019
10:00 AM Ada Equality 6-2 SLSC Killer Bees
3:00 PM SLSC Killer Bees 5-3 Ada Equality

Sunday, April 28, 2019 3:00 PM
Yukon / El Reno Outlaws 3-0 Ada Equality

Sunday, May 05, 2019 2:30
Ada Equality 3-0 CNP Avalanche

Saturday, May 11, 2019 1:00
South Lakes Mutiny 6-3 Ada Equality

Record: 2-6 GF: 19; GA: 42.