In Memoriam

Robert Goulet

26 Nov 1933 - 30 Oct 2007

It's like losing a member of the family.

Uncle Bob?

Visiting Graveyards

On Saturday, before Hurricane Noel hit (?) I went out to take pictures of family gravestones. Some of you may find it odd, but I find it quite comforting to "visit" with the folks and walk around looking for ancestors. Earlier in the day I had been to the Old Town Library and found a great book that is an inventory of the Forest Hill Cemetery and I was able to check it out and bring it with me which helped in my search of that cemetery. I've put most of the pictures I took on the new family site at Myfamily.com (If you haven't received an invitation from me to join and would like to, let me know) but I've put a couple here to give you an idea of what I'm talking about.

As I was wondering around I found that taking pictures made me take note of some maintenance issues that I hadn't noticed before. You can see that some work needs to be done to this stone.

It's in pretty good shape except that it is going to fall over one of these days. This is where our great grandfather Ludger Sirois is buried. I assume that his wife, Mary des Anges Pelletier is also buried here, but she is not listed on the stone. I'm hoping a look at funeral home records will verify that she is here and perhaps her name can be added to the stone. I believe that my sister Cathy is also buried here - at least that is what my mother told me. Wayne and I have talked about adding a marker for her as well. The immediate need though is to straighten the stone. Some of the flat markers are sinking and being covered over with grass and moss.

What I'm hoping is that sometime, perhaps in the spring, some of us can get together to spend a day doing clean up and maintenance of our family gravesites. If you are interested, let me know.

Bottom of the Ninth

Sox leading 4-3 and I can't sleep but I can't watch either, so I'll post something or at least start a post. Paul is working - They'll be having a bonfire if the Sox manage to hold on and win (2 out now) which means he won't be home for a few hours. We'll all be bleary eyed at work tomorrow as will most of the patrons, I expect. It's been a good week-end sports wise with the Black Bears winning both hockey and football at Northeastern, and the Patriots winning easily -and now the Red Sox have just won the world series. I guess I'm glad that the Rockies made it a little exciting in the end, but I'm also glad I won't have to stay up late again tomorrow night. Guess I'll go watch the celebration a little bit and then get to sleep. Before I know it, the alarm will be beeping at me and insisting I get up.

Some pictures look better when they are small

But still not great...
I tried to post these photos to the Myfamily.com site and they were just too blurry. I love the top photo. It is of Grammy and Papa in the back and Mary and her husband Joe White in the front. I don't know where the original is - these are from the Dubay reunion book - but I'll keep trying to get a better image. This is the picture that made me think that Billy looks like our grandfather, but it's hard to tell from this.
This bottom one is of the Dubay family at the 50th wedding anniversary party of Charles and Sophie. They are:
Back: Jim, Bill, George, Gene and Leo
Middle: Chick and Jeannette
Front: Lil, Sophie, Charles, Hilda
This would have been in 1939 and Grammy would have been about 40, and Aunt Jeannette about 27.

I guess I will still post some things to this blog, but I'm putting other things at the Myfamily.com site. Toby said he didn't get the first invitation that I sent, so I've resent them to everyone that I haven't heard from. Hope you get a chance to check it out soon and let me know if you need help with it.

Here's a pic of me with my sorority friends that I saw last weekend, just to add something new and colorful to this post. It was great to see them and interesting to see how the personality traits that were just developing in college have flourished since then - good and bad.

Well, I guess that's it for now. The rainy day predicted turned out to be pretty nice and I think I might take advantage of it to spend some time out on the deck.

Hope to hear from you all soon.

Love, Betsy

Miscellaneous Stuff

Hi all.
What a beautiful fall weekend it was. I love this time of year and am glad that it is finally getting cooler and I can wear sweaters and turtlenecks and make soup. I like (and I know this is a bit weird) it when it gets dark early and the air is crisp and smells of wood smoke. From now until Christmas is my favorite time of year.

Of course, fall also means football and tailgating and homecoming activities at dear old Maine. In past years, I haven't really attended any official activities at UMaine Homecoming, usually just attending the game and/or the craft fair and visiting sorority sisters either at the chapter room or in the tailgate area. This year, a couple of friends that I haven't seen in about 25 years decided to come up for our class's 30th anniversary. We took part in several class gatherings and had a great time catching up. We even visited the Sig Ep house where we all lived in 76-77. The young men living there were very nice to us old ladies, asking questions and showing us around. Great fun.

I've pretty much decided to move to MyFamily.com for our family blog. It will allow any of you to add photos or stories and has many features that I think will be fun to use. I sent out some invitations today, to those I have good e-mail addresses for and I set it to allow any of you to invite other family members to sign in. It's a free website, so there is some advertising, but I haven't noticed it being really annoying. The other drawback is that everyone has to have an e-mail account and be invited to get into the site, so someone with internet access but no e-mail wouldn't be able to participate. The other side of that is that it makes it more secure and not just open to anyone browsing through blogspot or searching the name. If you didn't get an invite from me and would like one, send me an e-mail (betsyp55@yahoo.org) and I'll get one right out to you.

I went to visit Aunt Jeannette last weekend (and boy did I catch it for having been away for so long) and she mentioned that she had gotten a call from cousin Mary White Gadd - Joe White's daughter, and that she had mentioned that she hadn't heard from me for awhile. I finally sent an e-mail off to her today and I hope she will check out this blog to see some of the pictures on here. I promised her that there were Dubay family pictures and I found a few more on my computer that I hadn't posted before, so here they are:

This is great-grandfather Charles as a young man - well, at least before he was white haired. This is one of those photos that I took a photo of so it's a little blurry.

Here he is as an older man, sitting on the front step of the house on Hayes Street with his nephew Fred.
Here is one of Grammy and her brothers Jim and Bill at their first communion.

And finally, Uncle George in uniform. I have a great photo of him with his motorcycle, but haven't been able to get a clear enough photo of it to add. I'll have to bring it to my friends and scan it, I guess. Mary's brother Paul is interested in more information about Uncle George and I haven't had a chance to pull anything together. Sounds like a good project for the new family site.

Hope you are all well and enjoying this time of year as much as I am.
Betsy

Catching Up

Well, after a brief hiatus, I'm going to get myself motivated to make some new posts and add more pictures. We've been busy with lots of other activities this last month and I just haven't taken the time to work on this. But let me explain.

A few weekends ago, we brought our pop-up camper up to the Seboomok Dam campsite (on the west branch of the Penobscot) to set it up for Paul and his friend Dave's annual fly-fishing trip. It rained all the way up there and while we were setting up, but just as we finished, the sun peeked out and we enjoyed a cold, but pleasant evening and morning before Dave and his wife arrived just after noon. I hadn't been too excited about the trip, but found I really had a good time and was glad I went. Here is a picture of the dam and one of the view from the dam.

The next weekend, while Paul was still fishing, I attended the annual conference of the Maine Genealogical Society. I had a fun day talking to genealogists, (several of my library patrons were there) buying things for the library, learning some new things and generally getting inspired.

Last weekend was Riverfest here in town, and I spent some time working the museum booth and visiting with old friends, several of whom I hadn't seen for years. It was a beautiful blustery day and it was great to see the park so busy with activity and people. Nobody has called me yet, so I'm guessing my little rubber ducky didn't win the duck race. Darn! I thought sure it would.

Paul's brother Emile and girlfriend Debra were visiting from Georgia that weekend, so we spent some time with them on Sunday at the lake.

This weekend is a long one, (thank you, C.C.) and we headed to Ellsworth on Saturday for a 60th birthday party for Paul's sister Lynne and her husband Bruce. It was great to see niece Katie and nephew Todd and his family. Here are great nieces Paige and Natalie.

So you can see it's just been one thing after another.

And now I'm too exhausted from explaining to do anything else but share some of the pictures that Dana took of the family gathering. Enjoy!

The Party's Over...

Well, the dishes have all been washed, the trash has been bagged up, the borrowed chairs returned, the cooler cleaned, and the house seems quiet and empty. The pictures and slides are still out, because I thought I might organize them while I had them all out. Of course, it didn't take me long to jam up the projector, so I'll have to work that out before I can proceed with that project. It's too hot to deal with right now.

It was great having everyone to the house and having a chance to catch up. Thank you all for coming and for bringing such yummy food to eat. Like my mother, I love to have my house full of family and friends. It would have been even better if all the cousins could have been there, but I'm not sure where we would have put everyone. I'm sure our deck has never had so many people on it. I didn't find too much time for picture taking, but I did send Toby out with the camera once and I managed to snap a couple more so I can share something with those who weren't able to make it.



Working your way down these pictures you will see Aimee talking to John, and Debbie looking at pictures. Aimee's boyfriend - whose name I just can't remember, gosh darn it (sorry) - is sitting next to her. Next is Franny talking to Aunt Verle, then Bucky Merrill and Uncle Frank with the torsos (torsi?) of Duffy and Verle in the background. The next one has some of the same people, but Franny's husband, Dave and Heidi are in this one, too, and in the final one, that's Jennifer's son Wyatt sitting with his grandfather and Heidi's husband Dennis on the left.
Someone set up chairs on the front lawn, and that's where Uncle Ed and Uncle Frank sat for quite a while. Here, Dana has joined them and is showing Frank some of the photos he brought.

There were about 45 people in attendence - though not all at the same time. I'm sorry I didn't take more photos, but I know that Debbie and Sheila were both taking some so hopefully we can find a way to share some of those, as well. The day was very hot and a bit uncomfortable at times, but the rain held off until just as the last folks were leaving, thank goodness.
The last photo is of my kitchen helper, that domestic goddess, Sheila. Here she is chopping some fresh parsley and basil for a salad. Thanks Sheila, you really were a big help.

Just like the old reunions, the good cooks in the family stepped up with great dishes and there were even a few mini finger rolls on the table, just for old times sake. Peter manned the grill expertly, and Paul and Toby helped out with pre-party preparations - even though hubby thought I was a little nuts when I suggested that we should invite the whole family over for a party. I'm really glad we did, and I hope you all had a good time. For those of you who weren't there, we were thinking of you - especially when we were laughing at pictures of you when you were little and goofy looking :-)

Love you all.

Betsy