We had a perfect Christmas celebration last night at Chris and Shelly's. The two of them served a dinner fit for Kings and Queens. Chris said Shelly's goal in decorating for the holidays was that no matter where anyone cast an eye, he/she would see a reminder of Christmas. The two of them achieved the result. Their house is beautiful. We have many photos to post as time permits.

Joe sent us an interesting e-mail about family history:


Thanks to your most appreciated efforts some of the family tree is gradually coming into focus.

Grandma Madden's brother Ezra aka Unk, Ez & Uncle Ezra spent some time with them. He was crippled during a tornado when he was a little boy. Seems like a chimney fell on top of him? He may have alternated staying with our Grandparents & one or more of his siblings. I am almost sure he spent a lot of time with Mom's Aunt Molly (his sister?)

I can remember when Uncle Ezra passed away. I think he is buried in Robberson Prairie Cemetery, just North of the Springfield-Branson National Airport & west of hwy 13. Mom's Granddad Stone, (the one who she was watching when he was delirous & raised up in bed & said something like "Shoot dem rebels, shoot dem rebels" must be the same Granddad Stone, shown in the blog picture. He is also buried in Robberson Prairie Cemetery. David & I looked up his grave several years back & it has a Civil War Veteran tombstone.

Mentioned some time in past emails were Kate & Gib Stone, the ones that brought a lot of garden vegetables to Mom, when she had the store in Marshfield. He has been dead less than 5 yrs. They are both buried near Granddad, Grandma & Aunt Mit's graves in the Fordland Cemetery along with some other relatives. Previously I also mentioned Sean
Madden had contacted the caretaker at Fordland Cemetery re one of Mom's siblings, who died in infancy & is buried in an unmarked grave in the old part of the cemetery.

Also within the last couple of years, a Civil War Veteran named Stone & buried in the Cass
Chapel Cemetery just North of Fordland had his tombstone replaced with a Union tombstone,
or at least switched the side he was on. He apparently had the wrong tombstone. It made
the local media.

My to do list calls for me to take pictures of these various tombstones & forward, preferably
via email.

Bro Joe

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We appreciate all input to family history. Joe reminds us that we want anyone connected with ANY ancestor to come to our family get-together in June. Chris and Shelly have volunteered to be primary hosts, but we will need tons of help from many to pull off this event. A feature that will make it really fine for all attending will be details, such as Joe provides, about our family history. We may simply end up printing off relevant posts from this Blog as our family history document. Perhaps one volunteer will step forth to do all gathering and editing of information?

Rose and I believe Aunt Virginia (Madden) has an old, old family Bible that has a lot of family history recorded in it.

More as we get clearer about details of the family celebration.