OK, you're still not going to get any important surnames about your families with this story but, nonetheless, this time the story has a definite genealogical message. It has to do once again with my great-uncle Will Riley and my grandmother's sister, my great-aunt Annie (Essick). My apologies to Elaine who just now received the whole nine yards of this story. Regarding dear Uncle Will and Aunt Annie, I can vaguely recall the very few times that I visited them in West Chester when I was a little girl. They never had any children and when my sister and I would visit, we were well aware that we shouldn't touch ANYTHING! But oh what a joy it was when I was actually allowed to sit down at their player piano in their parlor and, with feet barely able to reach the pump pedals, make the music rolls go around and see the piano keys bouncing up and down. I was really playing a piano!!!! What beautiful music! How I would dearly love to know all the details of their lives but that would be totally impossible. Even with all sorts of historic records, they couldn't possibly give the slightest clue about them. You see, Annie was actually the first born of the family and she was illigitimate. Her father was a man by the name of STONER. Children may have been illigimate in those days but at least everyone knew who the father was--I've learned not to judge my grandmothers, grand-aunts, etc. a long time ago. Aunt Annie was a beautiful woman (although I never knew that) and it wasn't all that long ago that my aunt (her niece) handed over to me the HUGE stack of photographs she had from Aunt Annie. It's LOADED with pictures of Annie and it is quite obvious that she was a bit of a vain woman in that the pictures show her in all sorts of lovely poses. But to imagine her and Uncle Will--a carnival man from York Springs, Adams Co.--in the circle that they must have lived for a number of years (there are other pictures of people who must have also been carnival folks) and then to have been caretakers for very rich people in the West Chester area, takes more than a bit of imagination! My mother wrote down some of her memories and she wrote very vividly about her own experiences in visiting Uncle Will and Aunt Annie when they were caretakers. She remembered oh so fondly about her visits and the trips to Willow Grove Park to hear John Philip Sousa and Roger Pryor's bands play in ca 1910. Aunt Annie LOVED music! [Elaine:] If you would like, I could send off those memories to you. Oh, there's so much to tell and to write about Uncle Will and Aunt Annie! Isn't it a pity that there's never enough time to do the things we REALLY would like to do? And isn't it a pity that it takes over 50 years to realize that you had one heck of a great-aunt and great-uncle and never got to know them as real people? Oh, yes, the genealogical message: For heavens sake, if you still have a great-aunt or a great-uncle still alive, get to know them. They just might blow your mind with the tales of their lives! vee