Wordless Wednesday - 09 November 2011

It's my great grandmother's house (Cornelia Elizabeth AKINS MIX SIMPSON). Taken on a cold winter's day in Valois, NY, probably some time in the 1950s based on the photograph type.

That Old Grey Mare...

My aunt kindly lent me letters to scan that she received from her grandmother (Cornelia AKINS MIX SIMPSON).

There were 13 letters in total and they spanned the years from 1959 to 1974.

My great-grandmother was born in 1887 so that would have her age at the first letter 72, and 87 for the last one. Sadly, even after all these years of figuring out ages, I still, STILL have to use a calculator for that kind of stuff! I'm hopeless!

Anyway, I am a great fan of language, I love knowing the history of words, how slang has evolved, stuff like that. So I especially enjoyed looking at the language in the letters to see what were natural phrases for my great-grandmother to use.

So, when looking at Cornelia's language, I have to keep in mind that she would have been in school in the late 1890s, but no college. However, she did have amateur nursing experience due to a job. She grew up and lived in the Finger Lake region of New York state, mainly in the surrounding areas of these towns: Ithaca, Valois, Burdett and Sodus Point. Her relatives were mainly in agricultural pursuits (farmers, blacksmiths, etc.).

One thing I noticed in many of her letters was that when closing her letters she often wrote something like:

Well, I'm going to ring off now.

This actually 'sounds' British to me but seems to be an outdated American phrase as well for hanging up the phone. I did find this out there on the interwebs:

http://en.wiktionary.org/wiki/ring_off

Another phrase I noticed is that when mocking her age at one point, she referred to the fact that:

I guess the old grey mare hain't what she used to be

The "hain't" is exactly as she wrote it and apparently was used by some as an interchangeable word for "ain't".

See this entry: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/hain%27t

Finally, I thought you might like to hear the song that the phrase came from. When I went to listen to it, I realized I knew the melody quite well because it was used in many of the old cartoons that I grew up watching - seems to me it was more likely to turn up in the cartoons from the 30s.

Enjoy!

A Little Dash of Crazy Never Hurt Anybody

I'd like you all to take a look at this picture:


This is my Great-Grandmother Cornelia Elizabeth Akins Mix Simpson. She was born an Akins in Lockwood, Tioga County, New York, and married a Mix (my great-grandfather), then married a Simpson.

She's standing here with her half-brother, George F. Akins. They shared the same father, John Francis Akins.

I'm guessing from her dress that this picture was taken in the 1940s. It's likely on his or her farm up in the Finger Lakes region of New York, probably Tioga or Tompkins county, or somewhere near there.

I don't know this for sure because the Akin's are IMPOSSIBLE to find ANY information on other than the bare minimum. I think they must have hid from the census taker's and never got any marriage license's because according to the records, they DON'T EXIST. I say this after a day spent poring through censuses (census's? censi?) and NOT finding them. I figured after waiting a decade or so after doing a first look that something would have come up, but NO!!

Part of the problem is that Akins can also be Akin, Aken, Akens, Aiken, Aikens, Aikin, Aikins, and probably more I haven't figure out yet, thus the lack of finding ANYTHING!

But as usual, I digress.

Taking another look at the picture, you will notice that they are holding the skin of a timber wolf (at least that's according to what's written on the back of the photograph). Yes, wolves used to be all over the place, even New York state, before we (Americans) nearly killed them all off, so I'm assuming that this is a proud farmer showing off the skin of a wolf he killed. What can I say, times were different.

But now, if you still haven't noticed it, take another look, there's something else.

Something to do with George.

Something to do with George's hat.


See it? There is a.......chicken.....on Great-Great-Uncle George's hat.

Oh so many questions...

• Did he always wear a chicken on his hat?
• Is this chicken special in some way?
• Does the chicken lay eggs up there?
• Does he have different chickens for different days, like a sunday-best chicken?
• Did he save the chicken-on-the-hat just for special occasions, like when you are showing off your timber wolf skin with your half-sister?

At least now I know which branch of the family the crazy came from, that's some progress.