Duchess of Weaselskin

Bayfield, CO - June is gone and July is here! And 2012 is half full with another half to finish out the year! With the Summer monsoons coming early, Sadie and I (Duchess) have recently found a relaxing solitude in NW Okie's wooden swing before the afternoon rain clouds start forming.




The above video was taken with NW Okie's iPhone4. That is why the small vertical video screen. You have to really look closer to spot Robert rappeled from the top of the mountain. It is in two parts at our YouTube site - OkieLegacy. Here is the second part.

Are there any mountain rappellers out there? How do you feel about rappelling stone rockies of southwest Colorado? Whatever the case, our human buddy, Robert, has taken an inkling to learning to rappel the mountainside in our south yard here at Vallecito.

Stop the Obstructionism of the GOP Congress! Where are the Jobs, Boehner?

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100 Years Ago Today - 2 July 1912

America - The World, date 2 July 1912, Tuesday, out of New York had the following headlines one hundred years ago today, as written by Martin Green: Wilson The Nominee, Gov. Wilson, Democratic Nominee for President. It also was accompanied by photos of Gov. Wilson and his wife and three daughters.

New York's move to make the Nomination unanimous was first blocked, but then it was put through by the Missourians. Smith of New Jersey fights Wilson to end. There were wild scenes on the floor and in the galleries as other candidates were withdrawn.

At the convention Hall, in Baltimore, 2 July 1912, Woodrow Wilson of New Jersey was nominated for the presidency by acclamation at the close of the 46th ballot. The nomination was greeted with a riot of applause, in which former Clark men, former Underwood men, former Harmon men and former Marshall men joined. While more than half a hundred Clark delegates, including the 36 from Missouri, stuck to Clark until the close of the last roll call, there was every appearance of harmony in the demonstration that followed Chairman James's announcement of the result. It was generally admitted that the best campaigner had been nominated. Whatever bitterness had been engendered was hidden in the great jubilation in which 15,000 persons took part.

William Jennings Bryan held a reception in his place in the Nebraska delegation. He was swamped with congratulations and men who had been watching him for years never saw him so plainly happy. Bryan had landed his candidate without the ninety votes of New York. He had bossed the proceedings, effectively throughout, and he had the platform, largely written by himself, in his pocket.

Woodrow Wilson's nomination was settled by the withdrawal of oscar Underwood after the close of the 45th ballot.

It was Senator Bankhead, a fine old figure of Southern statesman with a top and rear head like Bryan and a face of the Indian type, made an effective withdrawal of the candidate of his State. He said Mr. Underwood entered the contest because he thought he could win. He had hoped to show that sectional feeling between the NOrth and South was dead and believed he had demonstrated that fact.

Senator Bankhead was quoted as saying, "Mr. Underwood is not in this fight to prevent the nomination of any other candidate. His purpose is to forward the interests of the Democratic party, and he will work for the election of the Democratic nominee of this convention. whoever he mar be."

Others voiced a query that the Underwood be vice-president. But the Bankhead said, "No, no, no. No friend of the Democratic party would dare suggest taking that man from his present post unless it would be to elevate him to the highest office in the land. Anybody can sit in the vice-president's chair. Mr. Underwood will stay where he is and continue his labors for the Democratic party and the people."

Senator STone of Missouri followed Senator Bankhead on the stand. In a brief speech expressing thanks for the support that had been given Clark he withdrew the Missouri candidate front he contest, announcing, however, that Missouri would vote for Clark to the last. The Clark movement was given a final cheer by the crowd and it was nothing but Wilson. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

NW Okie's Corner

Bayfield, CO - How does your garden grow? After laying a concrete paver floor on our little 6 ft. by 8 ft. greenhouse, our veggies, particularly our tomatoes, are free of the pesky ground squirrels picking our ripening tomatoes before we do. IF . . . those pesky rodents try burrowing in from outside now, they will get a gigantic headache as they come into contact with the concrete pavers.



Beginning with this radio campaign speech, we found this radio speech of Theodore Roosevelt's on "Social and Industrial Justice."

For more than a decade before the first commercial radio broadcast station was inaugurated in Pittsburgh in 1920, citizens had been listening to candidate speeches on the phonograph.

You want to read an interesting book about independent women, politics and history, then read more about this great woman in the hardback or on your Kindle: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience by Kirstin Downey.

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Highland, Virginia - Highland Pioneers & Sub-Pioneers

Highland County, VA - In Section II of the History of Highland County Virginia we learn about the classification of Highland families. They were classified as Pioneer and Sub-pioneer. The Pioneers were those who arrived prior to 1815. The sub-pioneers were those later families who came prior to 1865. Then there are those who came since 1865 and those surnames which had disappeared from the region.

In some cases of surnames you find local designations of some field, spring or other natural feature. And in some instances the name remained a long while, intermarried with families still in Highland County, Virginia. Though the name itself might be gone, there is quite sure to be some posterity in the female line. Back then the family surname was lost when the daughters married and had children, unless the family used the mother's maiden name as a middle name like some had done.

If you look deep enough in any long settled district to the threads of relationship that were spread out in all directions, you might find some persons of the seventh removed from the pioneer settler.

In varying degree, illegitimacy was everywhere to be found, and it includes some of the most worthy members of a community. These are the broken links in the chain of family descendants that complicate the work of historians.

The annals of Highland reach back a century or so with private family records, where they exist at all, are fragmentary. Until 1853, such public records as will be of help were the packages of marriage bonds that had not been lost, the generally incomplete mention afforded by wills, and the very casual shreds of information found in deed books and county order books. As to letters written during the first century of Highland, they are very rare.

It is true enough that a person is what they make themselves, yet it is also true that no one can in any real sense live to themselves. The person who proclaims that they have never bothered themselves about their ancestral connection and known almost nothing about it, is uttering a very unworthy sentiment. They put themselves where they cannot ask that the people who will take their place will care anything for the memory they leave behind them.

It has been very justly said by many that "not to know what others have been doing before us is to be always a child." As to the pioneers who braved the forest and the savage to bring Highland within the realm of civilization a debt of honor and gratitude is due, no less than to the soldiers of Highland who in various wars have fought for their convictions of right. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

1912 - Harriet Quimby & Passenger Killed In Fall From Plane

New York - It was 1912, July 2nd, Tuesday, in the New York Tribune, that we learn of the death of Harriet Quimby and a passenger killed in fall from a plane. The woman aviator, Harriet Quimby, and W.A.P. Willard plunge 1,000 fee into Boston Harbor when wind upsets machine.

The death of Miss Harriet Quimby constitutes the fifth aviation fatality to a woman since the inception of the new science. Miss Quimby, of New York, was the first woman to win an aviator's license in America and the first woman to cross the English Channel in an airplane. Miss Quimby was instantly killed with her passenger, W. A. P. Willard, manager of the Boston aviation meet, at Atlantic, when her Bleriot monoplane fell into Dorchester Bay from a height of one thousand feet.

The accident happened when Miss Quimby and Willard were returning from a trip over Boston Harbor to Boston Light and back a distance of twenty miles. The flight was made in twenty minutes. The Bleriot, one of the latest models of military monoplanes, circled the aviation field and soared over the Savin Hill Yacht club, just outside the aviation grounds.

heading back into the eight-mile gusty wind, Miss Quimby started a volplane. The angle was too sharp, and a gust caught the tail of the airplane, throwing the machine into a perpendicular position. For an instant it poised there. Then, sharply outlined against the setting sun, Willard's body was thrown clear of the chassis, followed almost instantly by Miss Quimby's body in her dark aviation suit.

They reported that the bodies hurtled over and over, downward, striking the water 20 feet from shore. They splashed out of sight a second before the monoplane plunged down, fifteen feet away.

It was low tide and the water was only five feet deep. Men front eh yacht club in motor boats were on the spot quickly, leaping overboard, hauled the two bodies out of the mud into which they had sunk deeply. Death was reported as instantaneous.

Both bodies were badly crushed. Several of Quimby's bones were broken and on her flesh were many late bruises. Willard, who wighted 190 pounds, struck the water face foremost, and over one eye there was a cash, from which the blood was flowing. Willard had several fractures and bruises. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

1912 - Sane 4th July Celebration

Washington DC - In The Washington Times, dated 02 July 1912, out of Washington, D.C., mentioned this little tidbit about a "Sane Celebration Will Again Mark Independence Day" with daylight fireworks and band concerts being the features of the day.

Following the custom established in 1908 by the District Commissioners, the Fourth of July in the District of columbia will be noiseless as far as fireworks of a dangerous character are concerned. But there in 1912 there would be noise, for promptly at 12 o'cock six-pound guns at Fort Myer, Washington Barracks, Fort Hunt and Fort Washington would boom, one explosion for every State in the Union.

Where the noise of the cracker was missed the patriotism would be expressed in other ways far more expressive than setting off of dangerous explosives that usually cause serious and fatal injuries. The day was ushered in when the Fifteenth Cavalry Band, before the sound of reveille at Fort Myer, would march over the parade grounds, playing "The Star-Spangled Banner."

The Districts first event in commemoration of the day upon which this country declared it independence was an airplane exhibition, provided some one of the aviators of the army school at College park, Md., who volunteered to fly over the city to Potomac Park, and there made short flights on the river front. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

The Great Commoner - Wm. J. Bryan

Alva, OK - Remembering back to William Jennings Bryan's visit to Alva, Oklahoma when Bryan drew a large crowd on the west Courthouse lawn, in downtown Alva, M (Woods) county, Oklahoma Territory when he stumped the state to urge the adoption of the proposed State Constitution.

William Jennings Bryan was also trying to gain support for the Democratic ticket of 1907. He praised the proposed Constitution by declaring it "One of the great documents of modern times." Bryan assured his audience that it was "The best Constitution today of any state in the Union."

William Jennings Bryan fused Populist rhetoric and policies with a new Democratic coalition as he became on of nebraska's and the nation's favorite sons. But he was not born in Nebraska. Bryan was born in Illinois in 1860. His father was a lawyer and local politician. Both of his parents were intensely religious, and young William shared their fervor. At the age of 12, he joined the fight for prohibition of alcohol by signing a temperance pledge for school. After high school, he attended law school in chicago and worked in the office of Lyman Trumbull, Abraham Lincoln's friend and a U. S. Senator. Shortly after Bryan began is own law practice, he married Mary Elizabeth Baird.

Just three years after coming to Nebraska, Bryan decided to run for Congress as a Democrat. He was a long shot. No Democrat had ever been elected to congress in the 20 years of statehood. But Bryan had realized that common people were in desperate financial times, and the Populist Party was probably at the height of its popularity. Bryan picked up some of the ideas as the populists. he won the election and became the first Nebraska Democratic Congressman. Bryan won a second term in Congress in 1892.

It was in 1894, that Bryan to run as a candidate for U. S. Senate. But the Republicans were back in control of the Nebraska State Legislature and they elected a railroad attorney for the Senate seat. This is when Bryan became editor of the Omaha World0Herald, a Democratic paper. His writings kept his name and ideas before the public as he traveled the Chautauqua lecture circuit.

In 1912, Bryan helped Woodrow Wilson win the presidency and Wilson named Bryan Secretary of State. He served for two years, negotiating peace treaties with 29 nations. He also helped Wilson push through a series of domestic reforms known as the "New Freedom" measures.

He turned his attention to other issues, saying that the three great reforms of the 1920s would be peace, prohibition and women's suffrage. His support was significant in passing the latter two causes. At the end of his life, he was more and more concerned with religious issues and he became even more famous for his prosecution of the Scopes monkey trial. He argued against the teaching of evolution. Five days after the trial ended, Bryan died in his sleep in Tennessee. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

Frances Perkins (1880-1965)

America - We found the following video on YouTube concerning the biography of Frances Perkins, and read by what seem to be school girls.

Frances Perkins (born Fannie Coralie Davies, (April 10, 1880[1] May 14, 1965) was the U.S. Secretary of Labor from 1933 to 1945, and the first woman appointed to the U.S. Cabinet. As a loyal supporter of her friend, Franklin D. Roosevelt, she helped pull the labor movement into the New Deal coalition. She and Interior Secretary Harold Ickes were the only original members of the Roosevelt cabinet who remained in offices for his entire presidency.



During Perkins term as Secretary of Labor, she championed many aspects of the New Deal, including the Civilian Conservation Corps (CCC), the Public Works Administration and its successor the Federal Works Agency, and the labor portion of the National Industrial Recovery Act.

With The Social Security Act Perkins established unemployment benefits, pensions for the many uncovered elderly Americans, and welfare for the poorest Americans. She pushed to reduce workplace accidents and helped craft laws against child labor. Through the Fair Labor Standards Act, she established the first minimum wage and overtime laws for American workers, and defined the standard 40-hour work week.

Frances Perkins formed governmental policy for working with labor unions and helped to alleviate strikes by way of the United States Conciliation Service, Perkins resisted having American women be drafted to serve the military in World War II so that they could enter the civilian workforce in greatly expanded numbers.

Read more about this great woman in the hardback or on your Kindle: The Woman Behind the New Deal: The Life of Frances Perkins, FDR's Secretary of Labor and His Moral Conscience by Kirstin Downey. View/Write Comments (count 0)   |   Receive updates (0 subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe