At 09:51 PM 4/7/99 +0100, Cecilia Jensen wrote: >Re: Ransom Ellis' book. He is in the process of publishing an updated >book. Don't know exactly when. I could probanly ask him. I'm going to be sending him another batch of pictures and birth/death certs and writings when I get a list of what he needs from the Jaques branch. I didn't want to appear to press him, but I can always mention that I need to know because then I can either hurry my search or take it easier. he is truly a delightful fellow and VERY intelligent. For a lawyer. :) Now before any attorneys out there get fluffed, I cut my teeth on lawbooks, learned to read in my grandmother's boss' office. Elsie Stivers was a legal secretary for forty plus years and I got my first bloody nose for calling a neighbor kid 'non compos mentis' when we were both five years old. Hence the smile after that last comment. I actually *like* lawyers. But I can't resist taking a nip now and again. >I have about 400 pages of his book which I copied at the Cassville MO >library. I'll try to get a ppublishing date. I still have info to send to >him. His grgrandfather and mine (Jeremiah Ellis) were brothers. He sounded very enthusiastic in the last email to me. I think he's revving up again! :) Send the stuff off to him fairly soon. I'll encourage him, again, to join this list. I sent him the addy, but as yet he hasn't nibbled. I sat down and counted back from myself to Edward Ellis in VA. Whoof! TWELVE generations! I feel giddy thinking about it. Anyone else here descended from Sarah (Sis) Ellis Jaques or Benjamin Abbott Ellis in Barry county MO? Sarah (ellis) Jaques taught Elsie to read by pasting the 'funny papers' from the St. Louis Post Dispatch on her pantry walls and then she and Elsie would crawl around the pantry with a candle reading the comics until they had them memorized. Then, as if by magic, a new set would show up (courtesy of Oscar Jaques, who religiously bought and brought home the paper). The house Sarah lived in was near the "riptracks" or sidings where cars were repaired or stripped down. The "knights of the road" (hoboes, that is) would quietly creep into the house and carefully clean out the larder of any leftovers. They never stole anything or harmed Sarah or Elsie, but they all knew that Sarah was a "soft touch" for a meal. When grandmother and granddaughter got up in the morning, the plates would be neatly laid on the sideboard. Now and then a nickel would be left, but more often not. Sarah's house was very probably marked in some way that hoboes knew she was harmless and generous. Those days are gone. She took in washing to make a meager living but always had enough money to have a peppermint on the pantry shelf for Elsie and now and then a pint of ice cream. I'll do the lookups some have asked for tomorrow. Be Seeing You Sylvia