Thankful November

This has been a month with lots to be thankful for.  We feel the Lord helping us everyday as we work. We are getting a little more proficient in our work, especially with the spread-sheets that Jerrol keeps all our information on.  There is a lot to keep track of and I really appreciate his expertise.  

I like to keep track of the largest and smallest of things.

I really thought we had done our biggest book, but wouldn't you know it - there was another big one.

 The Chandler Family was printed in 1883.  It had a grand total of 1339 pages!  That beats the other one by 704 pages!  It was a tight fit, but we scanned it with no problems.

But little did we know what awaited:

The Chandlee Family From 1598. (Printed in 1952)

 Now that's a big book!

 You can see we were faced with a bit of a problem.

 It was too thick for the lid to come down and lock.  So we had to hold it down as far as it would go and then over ride the "lid not down" notice for each scan.

 As you can see, all but about 30 pages were all printed on just one side.  That means we only got to count half the pages, but we do just as much work as if we counted both sides. So, officially this book had 921 pages.  But that means the real total was over 1800 pages!  I don't think we will do a larger book.  It would be too fat for the scanner!

 Just for comparison here's what the book looks like next to one that has 507 pages.

The library has set up other scanners for another in-house project in the back part of the place we are working.  I went over to see what they were doing.  A young lady was using a book scanner much different from ours.  The book is held in partially open position and is scanned from above on an angle using mirrors.  I watched her finish the book she was scanning, then she showed it to me and let me hold it.  It was a little leather bound book with a hand-stitched binding that was printed in 1746!  Amazing!  I wish I would have taken a picture.

I got rather homesick around Thanksgiving.  Coming to our rescue was my sweet niece Aubrey who invited us to their home in Mechanicsburg, PA.  It is near Harrisburg about 2 hours from here.

This is the view we had of Harrisburg:

Aubrey's family has a wonderful home.

It was a wonderful day!  When we got there, a couple of Sister Missionaries were there helping prepare the food.  In-laws and friends soon arrived.  A family who came from Istanbul, Turkey was there.  It was great visiting with everyone.  Aubrey's two little boys were as much fun as they were cute.  Rylan, age 4 and I got along great.  Playing games is a big part of Thanksgiving for me and Rylan and I had a rousing game of Chutes and Ladders!

We got involved in visiting and playing and I didn't get any pictures.  It was a great day and we really appreciate Aubrey for inviting us.

We were only 35 minutes away from Gettysburg, so we decided to spend Friday and Saturday there.

This is the visitor center.

When you see the visitor center from the other side you can see that it was built after the pattern of a big red barn that was so common at the time of the war.  Many of the wounded were cared for in those barns.

Before entering the center we have to pay our respects to Mr. Lincoln.

This is called the Cylorama. It is a 360 degree painting showing the battlefields.

They play a recording and light up various areas as the story is told.

It was painted in 1884 by Philippoteaux.  It went through a $13 million restoration in 2003.  It is 377 feet long, 42 feet high, and weighs 12.5 tons.  Here are a few pictures.

It's a rather extensive museum.

It's interesting to see actual relics from the war.

I couldn't get pictures of all the things that impressed me,and I'm only putting in a few of the pictures that I took.

This makes it a little more personal to me, to actually see the worn boots of an actual soldier.

So many died.  Seeing some of their faces makes me feel so sad.

This is an actual plaster cast of Lincoln's head.

The night before the Gettysburg address, Lincoln stayed in this red building in the room on the second floor, second window from the left.

There are memorials, monuments, cannons, and statues all over the area.  100's of them.  6 were erected by states.  All the rest were put there by veterans.

These next 2 are state erected monuments.

This is the Pennsylvania Monument

We took a bus tour and our guide was amazing!  I don't think there is anything about Gettysburg he doesn't know.

This is the view from Little Round Top, the hill where the North was holding their line.

This is a monument on that hill.

It was cold (32) and windy, so we didn't spend much time outside.  But we could still feel the importance of what happened there.  

This is the house where General Meade had his headquarters.

There were so many monuments, I couldn't tell you about any specific one. We saw them from the bus.

There were lots of cannons.  All the the cannon barrels are original from the war.  The bases and wheels had to be restored.

This is what I wanted to see most of all.

This is all on Cemetery Hill.  It is a National Cemetery.  Where Jerrol is looking is the area that is for other wars.  Only Civil War veterans are buried on the top of the hill.  No one is buried here anymore unless they are a spouse of someone already buried here.

Here on the top of the hill are the graves of those from the Gettysburg battle.

Here is the monument at the place of the Gettysburg Address.

On Saturday we visited the Eisenhower Farm.  They bought this farm after WWII where Ike hoped to retire.  After he became President, this became his retreat and also a place where he brought some very influential men to visit.
This large building is a barn.

Next to it is the main house.  It isn't as large as you would think a presidential retreat would be.  When they bought the farm, it was a real fixer-upper and they had to remodel the house and make a lot of improvements on the farm.  Ike was told he paid too much for the place - $40,000.

As you can see, the house is very cozy and comfortable.  After we got home, we told Paige Talbot, the director of the Historical Society about our visit here. She told us that she was the one who was given the task of verifying and documenting all the furnishings in the house.  Mamie lived there for a number of years after Eisenhower died, and they wanted to restore it to be as much like as was when he was there as they could.  She had to document thousands of items.  

There was a circular sofa like this in the White House that Mamie loved, so her friends had one made and gave it to her for this house.

This fireplace used to be in the White House.  It was removed and put in storage, friends bought it and gave it to the Eisenhowers.

This is the more casual area for entertaining.

Can you imagine have dinner here with Field Marshall Montgomery or Nehru?

Mamie's favorite color was pink.

As you can also see here.

Boy, does this bring back memories.

The guest room.

Another memory spark.

It was a modest house compared to what I expected.  I liked Ike.  I like his home.

This was an old one-car garage that they turned into a guest house.

We couldn't go inside, so I had to take pictures through the window.

Now we head home.  Pennsylvania has lovely rolling hills and it's a pleasant drive.

Of course to pass the time, I take pictures.  And I love sunsets.

Here the clouds got a little strange.

 It still feels weird to come home to the big city.

 But I really like our neighborhood.

November is the month for being thankful, and there is so much to be thankful for.
I am thankful for all of you who are family and friends.  We feel your support and love.
I am thankful for the knowledge I have of God's love and the desire He has for the happiness and success of all of us.
I am thankful for good examples of Christ-like love from so many around me.
We love you all so much.  We are very blessed.