) ( ) Good Morning Family! .-.,--^--. ( Come on in. . . \\|`----'| - The coffee pot's on. . . \| |// ...and we even have decaf, | |/ tea, and hot chocolate! \ / ------ Today's topics include: 1. Welcome to new cousins 2. Did you know?... 3. Ancestral valentines If you've been with the family for at least three weeks, you'll probably want to skip the following paragraph… TO OUR NEWEST COUSINS ~~ On behalf of the entire family, I'd like to extend a most hearty welcome to those cousins who came into the family fold this past week. We are very glad to have you with us and hope you'll stay and remain a part of our online family. As soon as you're comfortable with us and the list, please send in your Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur lines so we can all see how we're related to you. We do not have a fancy format for sending in records or queries to the list. Post as many as you wish! If the data has anything to do with Bower[s]/Bauer or Baur ancestors or any of the 81+ variant spellings we research that might help someone, please feel free to post it. Every scrap of information is appreciated. If you haven't visited the homesite of this list yet, you are encouraged to do so. Our home is Bower Community, located at <http://bowercommunity.com>. There, we currently have two sites: The Bower Family Homestead [a.k.a., the Homestead] is our primary homesite and the gathering place for much of our information. It waits to join us all in welcoming you into the family at <http://bowercommunity.com/homestead>. Smaller and just opened this year, our sister site, the Bower Cottage, houses most of our projects including an online GEDCOM fed by quite a few cousins from our lists. The Cottage is still small as far as material goes, however give us time and we'll have it filled really soon. The Cottage is at <http://bowercommunity.com/cottage>. DID YOU KNOW?... With love and romance in the air and Valentine's Day just two days away, I thought you might like to know the most accepted legend about the champion of true love and courtship... The Lupercian festival, a tribute to the God of fertility and a celebration of sensual pleasure was also a time a time to meet and court a prospective mate. Those rites, dating back to long before Christ's time, originally paid tribute to the Roman crop god, Faunus, whose festival of Lupercalia was on February 15. On Lupercalia Eve, Roman youths would draw virgins' names from an urn, then squire their chosen maiden for the fete. The main event was a ceremony in which the young women vied to be touched with sacred goatskin thongs called februa (February). Pope Gelasius outlawed the pagan celebration in 496 A.D., replacing it with a similar, morally suitable celebration. The martyred bishop, Valentine, was chosen as the "lovers" patron saint to replace the pagan deity, Lupercus. Valentine was a Roman priest about 269 A.D., during the time of Emperor Claudis. Claudius was having trouble getting men to serve in his army, sensing that many men would not volunteer to join because they did not want to leave their wives and families. He felt that if men were not married, they would be more temperamentally disposed toward soldiering. So, Claudius passed a new law prohibiting marriage. Most people felt the law was cruel, including Valentine. According to legend, after Emperor Claudius' new edict, Valentine performed secret marriages for soldiers and their sweethearts until he was discovered. He was thrown in jail and sentenced to death. Before execution, Valentine himself fell in love with his jailer's daughter. The two conducted a clandestine correspondence until the eve of his execution, when he wrote her a final letter pledging undying love and signed it "Love from your Valentine," a phrase that has lasted through the centuries. Valentine was beheaded February 14, 269 A.D. The pagan festival died out, but Pope Gelasius' hopes of people emulating the lives of saints died out as well. Instead, people celebrated the more romantic aspect of Saint Valentine's religious life. While not immediately as popular as the more passionate pagan festival, eventually the concept of celebrating true love became known as Valentine's Day. ANCESTRAL VALENTINES He was a widower of just four months with six young children to raise. He married her not for the sake of love, but to give his children a mother. Yet she saw something in him, for this 19 year old beauty married him on August 23rd, 1847 even with his large family, and gave him nine more children over their years together. They grew to love each other and grow old together. They were my great-great grandparents. He was 18 and a lumberjack living a camp life. She was 16, just 4'10" tall with blue eyes and long, golden hair full of ringlets. But she was feisty, strong-willed, and would stand up for herself and their children. They married July 4, 1884; he loved her furiously and she adored him. They were my great-grandparents. The age-old triangle ~ he loved her; she loved someone else. So, he took up with her sister. It wasn't long and they both felt the stirring embers of love take hold. He left for basic training during World War I and she wrote him everyday; he did the same to her. On December 26, 1917 he married her... just two days before departing for France, and the War. He returned to her in 1919 and they lived a love so strong that their grown children still talk about it today. They were my grandparents. He was wearing his Navy uniform, home on leave from boot camp. A young boy told the sailor that the lady across the room in the Navy dress wanted to meet him. Thus began a courtship that was to be interrupted by World War II. Two years of constant letter writing forged their love. He returned from sea duty in the Pacific in 1945 and married her just months later, that November 27th. They celebrated their 50th wedding anniversary in 1995. They were my parents. I have my own story of love. However, were it not for a tarot-reading friend, a party, a beer game, a broken engagement, and a New Year's Eve date there might not be a story. But there is a story that lead up to April 6, 1968 ~ and it will be told... to the grandchildren who ask the same questions I asked of the generations preceeding me. And so it goes... a story of love for each generation... stories that are the beginning of descendants who follow. You look at their pictures, old and faded; you look at their marriage certificates ~ wrinkled, torn, yellowed. Yet behind the faces in those pictures, behind that certificate is a story... one you won't find in the marriage records, nor recorded in a family Bible. They are stories of love, laughter and triumph, sorrow and despair... stories that "you had to be there" to fully appreciate or understand. The stories of love itself don't change; only the people and their times do. And, if those eyes in a photograph could come to life just for a minute, I'm sure there would be a faraway dreamy look within them as they told the story of how it came to be that you are, and I am. Family ~ appreciating the enrichment of our seniors' stories and realizing the ultimate treasure within each one... it's what we're all about. I really enjoyed this time with you. It was so nice. Thank you for sharing it with me. I hope your upcoming week is filled with health, fun, productivity, and above all, filled with love. ) ( ) _.-~~-. (@\'--'/. Colleen ('``.__.'`) `..____.'