Hey, everybody. Peace and blessings to you and all the family. We’re still doing fine, and are just checking in to let folks know what we have been up to since our last posting.
The weather is getting a little bit warmer, but on a couple mornings you could see your breath. Anyway, spring is here so, we’ll deal with that part of it.
Things have been pretty low-key over the last week. The biggest event in town was the St. Patrick’s Day festivities (we wrote about the preparations last time). Well, people started showing up Friday from near and far to join in; at least 200,000 people were reported to be there. The Historic District had already been roped off, and police from as far away as Valdosta and several surrounding counties along with State Troopers were dispatched to augment the local force. According to the newspaper reports, people “went off” on the green beer and Guinness Stout. By Friday night, the city had to replace a lot of the port-a-pottys because they were already full. From what we could understand, the whole weekend was rowdy, but with only a few arrests. One wonders what would have happened if those had been mainly Black folk partying. The big parade was on Tuesday, and some people were still acting up. We watched some of the parade on TV.
A few weeks ago, one of our friends in Springfield, “JR,” sent us a link to his family history site and it excited us. So the next day we googled genealogy web sites and by chance found a site called Geni. We started entering our names and those of our kids, parents and siblings, and sent them emails inviting them to enter their family info. Before we knew it the tree started growing exponentially. We probably have over 100 names listed on the tree by now. You can also add pictures to the site. So now we can see our distant cousins and their children. It’s really interesting (and a little addictive). The best thing is that it’s free – at least at the start. If you might be interested in doing your family tree, email us because we have some pointers to help you get started.
Thursday the 18th was the kick-off for the Savannah Music Festival, and we’re definitely ready for that. The first week we arrived in Savannah, we signed up to volunteer as ushers at their events (there will be over 100 performances within the 2 week festival period). So we should be able to hear some real good music. Last night, we went to a Diane Reeves concert. She was wonderful. We’ll fill you in later on the shows we “work.”
For the past couple of weeks, Jo has taken an office temp job for the Georgia Historical Society. While doing internet searches at their web site, she found out that there’s a whole lot of material about African American history in Savannah (but if we think about it, the same can be said about any place our people have settled). The interesting thing is that there seems to have been an effort to at least acknowledge the presence of our people in Georgia history. There is a actually a staff member at the Historical Society who is responsible for surveying (and placing) historical markers throughout the state. If you would like to check out where the African American plaques, go the Georgia Historical Society’s site. Of course, if you want to know more about the society and its holdings, just go to their home page.
One interesting place we found out about is right around the corner from where we are living. There are the remnants of Nicholsonboro, a fishing and farming community which was established by freed slaves in 1868. There are some folks still living there that we assume are the descendants of the original folks. In 1850, they established the Nicholsonboro Baptist Church which is still operating. The church is on a little compound. We plan on visiting there soon to worship with then and to find out more about the buildings and the congregation. We’ll send you pictures after our visit.
So, there’s a lot to see and learn here, and we’re doing our best to figure out what is going on. In the meanwhile, we should all be on the case in researching ourselves wherever we are, and to pass it on.
Peace and blessings to you and all. And by the way, please email us or call us (912-925-3074). We miss y’all.
JoAnn and Jesse
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