Lift Up Your Hearts!

Previous posts: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4, Part 5

Previous posts: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3, Part 4

Previous posts: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2, Part 3

Previous posts: Introduction, Part 1, Part 2

Previous posts: Introduction, Part 1

Previous posts: Introduction

Hezekiah Scovil Porter was the youngest of Wallace and Florence Gesner (Wells) Porter's seven children, born into the tiny town of Higganum, Connecticut on June 4, 1896. He attended The Choate School in Wallingford, Connecticut.  It is now known as the school that "has educated generations of the upper-class New England establishment and the American political elite," but at the time it was only as old as Hezekiah himself. Twenty years later, John F. Kennedy would graduate from Choate, having been chosen by his class as the person "most likely to succeed." About Hezekiah, the Headmaster wrote:

Hezzie was always a man of deeds rather than of words.  And his influence either on the field, or in the classroom, or about School in general, was of the kind that very definitely made us a better School for his being part of it. In his Sixth Form year Hezzie was President of his class, and in the vote which was taken toward the close of the year, he was almost unanimously chosen as the member of his Form who had "done most for Choate." He was also voted—and there were no near competitors— the "most popular," as well as the man in his class "most to be admired."

But Hez never had his chance to become President.  As with many of his generation, his service ended on the battlefields of France. After graduating from Choate, Hezekiah attended Yale University. But he left during the fall of his sophomore year to join the Army. After four months he was at the front, and five months later he was killed in action near Chatêau-Thierry.

The following quote, and the one above, are taken from Yale in the World War, by George Henry Nettleton (Yale University Press, New Haven, 1925).  You can read a somewhat fuzzy but still legible copy of the article on Hezekiah Scovil Porter by clicking on the images in the middle of my Memorial Day, 2009 post.

On the morning of July 22, 1918, in the course of an American attack on Epieds, north of Château-Thierry, Hezekiah Scovil Porter, Private in the 101st Machine Gun Battalion, was killed in action. His diary closes abruptly with an entry recorded the night before while his company was awaiting the dawn which was to bring the expected advance. Next morning in the midst of the attack he met instant death in the open field as he was hurrying forward with ammunition for a machine gun.

Hezekiah Scovil Porter is my husband's granduncle.  That diary the article mentions?  Porter has it.  That is the reason for this post and the ones that will follow.  I will now step aside and let Porter take over.

One of my "95 by 65" goals is to transcribe Hezekiah's WW I diary.  I knew he had died on July 22, 1918 - but I didn't remember when he had started the diary.  Then I couldn't find the diary.  I had moved it to a "safe place" after I had last looked at it.  Finally, today, I found it again.  It turns out he started the diary October 9th, 1917 - so I am four months late starting a "100 years ago today" transcription.  Since that is the case I plan to have Linda put up two days of transcription each day, one for 100 years ago and one starting from October 9th and moving forward.  I think this will work out such that the missed entries will be finished before July 22 comes.  I hope this is of interest to all of you, and especially to my grandson Noah, who has Hezekiah's name as his middle name and also owns Hezekiah's schoolboy desk.

Thanks to Linda for "volunteering" to put this up on her blog.

Porter (Dad-o) Wightman, February 9, 2018.

A National Public Radio story reports that the 2020 U. S. Census will ask more detailed questions about race and ethnicity, as shown to the left on one of the possible new forms. (Click image to enlarge.)

I can appreciate not being labelled simply as "white" as if some races have further identities but white is simply white. However, it sure complicates filling out the form, and I have my doubts about how much useful information it will generate. I know more about my ancestry than most Americans, and I can't answer this question.

There simply is no room in those boxes to enter "English-German-Welsh-Irish-Scottish-French-Dutch." And if I manage to confirm the (currently quite speculative) Swiss branch, is that really Swiss, given that the family came to Switzerland from Germany? Is my French really French, given that it is actually Norman French, and the Normans were largely invading Vikings from Scandinavia? There's a good chance much of my English is also orignally Scandinavian—DNA testing suggests this as well—and my Scottish may have been originally Irish and vice versa.

Given that my most recent immigrant ancestors came to this country in the 1700's, I think I'll fill in the blank with "American" and let the chips fall where they may. But I've only learned this information recently, after years of research.  That kind of research is even more difficult for African-Americans, thanks to slavery and the "1870's wall," but at least the census offers "African American" as a choice—which just happens to fit exactly into the boxes allowed. I suppose I could try "European American"—but that won't fit.

How many Americans know their ancestry further back than their grandparents, anyway?

There's going to be a lot of guesswork going on.

TODAY, Februay 7, you can get the first two Green Ember books in Kindle format for FREE.   Enjoy!

When we visited Switzerland for Christmas, I thought our biggest gift was the Hot Wheels Ultimate Garage, which barely qualified as half of our checked baggage allowance.

That gift did indeed make quite an impression on our young grandchildren, but I'm beginning to wonder if we didn't also bring a gift of more widespread impact: Florida weather.

While we were there, Switzerland enjoyed its warmest January on record.

Meanwhile, Florida was experiencing weather that looked more Alpine: snow in Tallahassee, freezes in Central Florida. There were days when it was significantly warmer in Lucerne than in Orlando.

And that's not all. On January 3, a storm, named Burglind, brought Florida-style hurricane-force winds to Switzerland, wreaking havoc across the country and blowing away previous records. Winds of over 120 miles per hour were measured on Lucerne's Mount Pilatus. That's a high Category 3 hurricane if you live in Florida.

Now that we're home, the weather appears to have stablilized in both places.

The conclusion is obvious: It is we, not George Bush or Donald Trump, who are causing climate change.

Is anyone interested in providing us an all-expenses-paid vacation to somewhere up north? Buffalo, New York? Minneapolis, Minnesota? Hillsboro, New Hampshire?

Everywhere I go, I leave part of my heart behind. Every place I've lived is dear to me, every place our children have lived, many places I have visited. I live in Florida, but there's a bit of "home" scattered all over the world.

The High Peak Region of New York's Adirondack Mountains holds one of the deepest and dearest places in my heart, though I never lived there and have no family near there anymore. Early memories are strong.

Hiking in the Adirondacks was one of my father's favorite pasttimes when he worked for the General Electric Company in Schenectady, New York. He often went with his colleagues from work—Ted Dietze, Howard Kasch, and Gabe Kron come to mind—and once marriage and children entered the picture, we were swirled into the mix. Some of my best memories have the Adirondack Mountains stamped indelibly upon them.

Hence my excitement when a Facebook friend posted this trailer about an upcoming film, Heaven on Earth: The Adirondacks. Following the link led me to realize that the film is being made by renowned nature photographer Joe LeFevre, one of whose Adirondack photographs graces our wall, thanks to a mutual friend.

Well, grrrr. The two ways I know to embed a video in my blog have failed me. What works for YouTube should also work for Vimeo, but I can't make it do so and am out of time at the moment.  But the links work.

Heaven on Earth: The Adirondacks (official trailer).

The trailer itself is beautiful; the whole film will be stunning, I'm sure.

What I'm not so sure about is how great an idea it is to give the Adirondacks more publicity. Even 50 years ago the mountains were having a hard time dealing with the tramp of so many tourist feet, and I understand that hikers are no longer able to enjoy what I consider to be one of the best parts of hiking there, second only to the views. We always brought canteens of water with us, but once we were up on the mountain took the earliest opportunity to dump the contents and fill up with water from the mountain streams—the very best water I've ever tasted. Maybe I miss that even more than the scenery, since photography can capture something of the latter.

Well, even though you can't taste the water, be sure to take three minutes and taste LeFevre's artwork.