Hello to our Bush River Quakers descendants and friends -- I wish you a happy and healthy New Year! BUSH RIVER HOMECOMING SET FOR NEWBERRY, SC, MAY 16 - 18 Your Homecoming Planning Committee (Ann Crowley, Judy Russell, Susan Webber) is getting ready to start the detailed planning for the Bush River Homecoming set for Friday through Sunday, May 16th - 18th, 2008. We'll be sending out email registration forms, probably, in February. Please let the committee know if you want to help or if you have ideas for us to consider. Several groups have written that have already made reservations at the Newberry Hampton Inn Opera House because it is downtown and convenient to the shops and restaurants, but there are several other options from which to chose. See the Newberry webpage at: http://hotel-guides.us/south-carolina/newberry-sc-hotels.html Besides a visit to the Cemetery and a good deal of time for information swapping and getting acquainted, we have tentative plans to visit the some nearby remnants of the Great Wagon Road on which many of our ancestors traveled from the North and East to Newberry. Some folks have mentioned making a visit to the Revolutionary Star Fort at Ninety Six, South Carolina (about 35 miles away) -- a wonderful and well maintained National Historic Site. See: http://www.nps.gov/nisi/ And there are others who never visit Newberry without also stopping at the world-famous Carter and Holmes Orchid Nursery, about a mile or so from the Cemetery: http://www.carterandholmes.com/map.html. The Nursery sits, I think, on land earlier held by some of our Quaker families. We will be planning for a group dinner on Saturday, May 17th, so please, locals and visitors, put that on your calendar, specifically. MAINTENANCE CONTINUES We continue to have the maintenance of the Bush River Quaker Cemetery done by Mr. James Folk and his Newberry Landscape Company. He has done a great job through the years and is always interested in feedback, so if you visit the Cemetery and see something that needs to be taken care of, please let me know. I live 100 miles away, so I need eyes "on the ground" whenever possible. GENTLE REMINDER Several of our group made long-term pledges for the support of our work asked me (really!) for a gentle reminder each January that it is time to send donations to: Quaker Cemetery Clean Up Fund c/o J. Russell 1051 Forrest Hills Drive Bogart, Georgia, 30622 For those of you who are new to our newsletter, I should say that, for the last 5 years our group has raised money through donations and through sales of our "Historic Bush River Quaker Cemetery" book, to keep the Cemetery in good shape so that it can be visited any day of the year. No more summer-time jungle of briars and saplings! We are just the latest of many groups which have taken on this project through the years, but now we have such great electronic communications that is possible to keep in touch and let everyone know what is going on and what needs to be done. We welcome donations, large or small. NORTH CAROLINA YEARLY MEETING DONATION Speaking of donations, I would like to gratefully acknowledge a generous gift to support our work from the Cemetery Committee of the North Carolina Yearly Meeting of Friends. Through the years this Committee has been very interested and supportive of our work. We are very thankful for their continued help! CEMETERY BOOKS: Our original printings are sold out, but I've made arrangements with a local printer to do "print on demand" copies of our "Historic Bush River Quaker Cemetery Book." Let me know if you would like to purchase a book for yourself or for a library and I can send you the details of purchase and also our list of Libraries which already have copies. Finally, PLEASE SEND this email to your friends who may not be subscribers. I hope you will encourage those who are not subscribers to join us. They should send an email to [email protected] with the word subscribe in both the subject line and in the body of the email. Best wishes, Judy Russell