Dear Group, I've been hesitating posting this because I know that it isn't going to tell you one single thing about your family or the history of Niagara County. However, I wrote a little story late last night about a genealogical incident that happened right here in the Town of Porter, Niagara County. It happened earlier in the evening and it happened in my house. I hope none of you mind. Note: the ancestors that I mention are totally from the Pennsylvania-Dutch area of southeastern PA. vee from youngstown The Chick on the Wall June 28, 2000 This evening I heard my kitchen door open and heard someone call out, "Auntie Vee?" I wasn't startled because I recognized that it was the voice of one of my grandnieces. Sure enough the gang of four at the kitchen door consisted of my two grandnieces, one girlfriend and one boyfriend. They had shown up at the command of their mother (my niece) to help me move a bit of stuff around in the cellar. It took them only a few minutes and they tromped back up the cellar stairs ready to move on to McDonalds for a hamburger or whatever. When my grandniece Amanda reached the top of the stairs and looked up on the wall in my kitchen entry way, she spotted a picture that I have hanging there of one of our ancestors. Now, Amanda has just turned 15 and you know how kids are at that age. At any rate, she looked up at the picture and said, "I recognize that picture. Who is that chick?" As usual I gave her a disapproving frown regarding her "modern" vocabulary when I knew full well that she knows that the "chick" in the picture is one of her ancestors. Well, since she asked the question, I answered it. I told her that she was Catherine Eshelman who married Edward Bryan; their son Daniel married Mary Catherine Schroll; their daughter Katie Bryan married John Housman. At that point Amanda interrupted, "Oh, I know him, that's Uncle John!" No, I told her, THAT John Housman was your great-great-grandfather. "Uncle John" is your great-uncle (my brother). I went on to tell her that Katie Bryan and John Housman's son, Charles Housman married Verna DeWees and their daughter Norma Housman married Donald Holland and their daughter was Debra Holland, Amanda's mother [my niece]. Well, Amanda paid attention to what I was telling her-even though I knew that she certainly wasn't taking any notes-and then off they went to McDonalds. What prompted me to write down this story is the realization of the meaning of the simple incident. There I was, Amanda's great-aunt, reciting our family ancestry back to the "chick" on the wall, the picture of her gr-gr-gr-gr-grandmother, Catherine Eshelman, wearing her little white Mennonite cap on her head and with such a stern look on her face (born 1831, died 1903). Later it pleased me to think that Catherine had looked back at Amanda with a warm look in her eyes and wondered who that "little chick" was who was so interested in knowing who she was.