10 years

Today marks the 10 year anniversary of my Dad's death.

I wrote an account of the last night a year later; what happened with the family around him and his passing. I've shared it with my siblings but it is still too raw to post here.

That was the first time I had seen a person die, unfortunately though not the last.

Next Friday, April 1st would have been his 99th birthday. He shared the same birthday as my oldest niece.

To think that he would be almost a hundred is amazing. I remember him much younger, I guess just like when I look in the mirror I see a much younger me than the age on the driver's license.

MIA no longer

I wrote about my great great uncle, William Burgess Fulford a while back. He was born in 1843 and served in the CSA during the Civil War. He enlisted in the 2nd North Carolina Infantry on June 3, 1861 was wounded at the Battle of Chancellorsville in 1863. He was captured and held as a POW at Point Lookout Maryland for two years. My wife and I visited Point Lookout last year while on vacation. It is amazing William Fulford survived two years there.

He later ended up in Hillsborough County Florida where I found him on the 1910 census. I have never been able to find anything about him from the end of the Civil War until he showed up on that 1910 census, listed as a sewing machine machinist. The census said he was a widower but I don't know if he ever had any children.

I lost him after that 1910 census and now only by accident have found out what happened to him.

A member of the Sons of Confederate Veterans from Jacksonville, FL wrote me recently about the memorial I put online for his brother Stephen Fulford. They wanted me to add his military service record which I did. They are documenting the place of final rest for as many CSA vets as they can find.

Looking at the Jacksonville SCV web page I noticed a grave listing for William Burgest Fulford. My great uncle's name had been misspelled with a T at the end of some military records so I looked further at the information they had and discovered it was the same person. Burgess is a family name, he signed his civil war pension with it and so I know it is the correct way to spell his middle name.

I also located a December 25, 1924 death certificate for W.B. Fulford in Duval County Florida records showing his last residence was the Old Confederate Soldiers Home. It had his correct identification, place of birth and date of death.

I then found him on the 1920 census in Jacksonville, although the name was spelled Folfore.

The Old Confederate Soldiers Home was a seven room house that cared for about 10-12 aging veterans. It closed in 1938 with the death of the last CW vet. I am trying to determine if the patient records were saved when it closed.

I would like to find additional information about William Burgess Fulford to clear up what happened during all those missing years. He was buried in the Old City Cemetery in Jacksonville, Florida but they again got his name wrong on the marker.

Almanacs

In the few papers and things kept from my Grandpa Green's stuff were four copies of annual Almanacs.

He had the 1947 and 1963 editions of The Ladies Birthday Almanac along with the 1958 and 1973 edition of the Grier's Almanac.

I can remember him having the Almanac hanging from the living room wall. Each of these have remnants of string that he had tied around a nail.

He had a large garden and used the Almanac to choose the best days for doing things with different crops. I'm not sure why he kept these particular issues, other than the last one which was the year he died.

The older ones are so brittle the pages fall apart if you turn them.

I found a couple notes he made in them. The 1947 book has a note on an AD for "Black Drought" a laxative for the whole family! He wrote "M.F. Keep - Laxative."

On the cover of the 1973 Almanac he had three notes; highlighting page 33 which listed the predicted Dog Days of summer, page 24 which had the best days for planting crops and page 19 which just says "Sex."

It was an AD for the Illustrated Encyclopedia of Sex. Not bad for a 93 year old man!

My platform

I received this old political flyer from my cousin Hubert Horne about 10 years ago.

His mother saved it since it was for her brother (my great uncle) Arthur Sylvester Green. He ran for the Taylor County Florida School Superintendent's job sometime around 1925-30 but was not elected.

Sylvester ended up moving to Gainesville, Florida and became a History and Political Science professor at the University of Florida.

I suspect this is the only copy left of his platform.