Happy Valentines Day

Most of all to my beautiful wife Janett, in whom, from the first moment I met her has shone grace and dignity and wisdom and charm. How lucky I was she saw something in me worth holding onto. What a tragedy it would have been if either of us had let that coincedental moment slip away instead of resolving at that moment to be together forever.

Also to the other wonderful women in my life, my daughters and sisters, who, if not always keeping me on the straight and narrow, have kept me from sliding down the slippery slopes on either side of the path. And to my mother, who on earth and in heaven has protected me from the consequences of my own silliness.

Stephie emailed me a brief account of my grandmother DKT's earliest years which I'll copy below, which reminds us of how many devoted courageous women have preceded us to bring us to where we are today:

This is the story of Dean Knowlton Traynors parents Cecelia Adelaide Knowlton and Bernard Pitcher Featherly

Bernard Pitcher Featherly, married at Belgiun N.Y. Cecelia Adelaide Knowlton on Nov. 4 1860. Cecelia was 17 when they married and Bernard was 38. Bernard took his young wife to Albion N.Y., where he left her with his sister, Eliza Bailey, and he went at the earrnest solicitation of his brother in law, James H Thorn, who married Catherine Feathers, to Owosso Michigan, where he built a log cabin.

When their first child, Eliza Emily, born in the home of Eliza Bailey was 2 months old, Cecelia Adelaide followed her husband to Owosso taking with her, besides her infant, one son of her husband, Henri (10 years old). The other children had been taken by Bernards relatives and relatives of their mother, Cynthia. Bernard and Cecelia lived in the small log cabin until the summer of 1864. It was there that Bertie and Frank were born.

Bernard walked 20 miles to try and enlist in the Civil War. He was refused because he had 2 handicaps/ When he was a boy he had chopped a toe which had drawn under while healing, and that, he was told would prevent him from going on long marches. Also, he had lost the first finger of his right hand (the trigger finger) in a sawmill.

The parents of Cecelia Adelaide had moved in 1861, to Milwaukee, and Cecelia Adelaide being very lonely , and much afraid of the Indians that roamed the woods around Owosso and longing to be near her parents, early in the summer of 1864 took three babies and crossed the state of Michigan, from Owosso to Grand Haven, and took a boat to Milwaukee. She was only 21 but said that the journey was not difficult because fellow passnagers were kind and had helped her with the children. Henri (or Heri) had remained in Michigan. Lydie (Eliza Emily), then almost 3 years old, had been ill with malaria and was too weak to walk. Bertie, 16 months old, was sickly and could not walk; Frank was 3 months old.

About this time the cousin of James Monroe Knowlton visited Milwaukee and persuaded Bernard that Illinos was a better farming country than Wisconsin. Cecelia Adelaidewith her 3 babies, remained with her parents, and there Bertie died. Bernard built a small house in Crystal Lake Il, or Nunda as it was called then, and sent for his family. In that house was born Lillie, Cora, Charley, and Dean. The family moved from there to a larger home on 20 acres near Paynes Corner, towards McHenry. Four children, Nettie, Bernie (Bernard), Ollie (Olive) and Addie were born in this home.

From there the family moved to Kansas. After 2 years on a government claim in Kansas, during one summer in which there had been in invasion of grasshoppers and the other year a drought, destroying the crops both years, with little Ollie and Addie laid to rest under the sod, and the little blue eyed baby, Daisy, in Cecelia Adelaides arms, a return journey to Crystal Lake was under taken, one team driven by Bernard and the other by his wife