I’ve chosen sunflowers again this week.
A beautiful field of sunflowers in mid-July and then gone.
Weekly Photo Challenge: Transient…
Weekly Photo Challenge: Focus…
The prompt this week is to share a photo that represents focus to us. I took this picture in the dark using a flashlight to focus on the middle of the sunflower.
https://dailypost.wordpress.com/photo-challenges/out-of-focus/
Weekly Photo Challenge: Order…
From glass bottles in Edison’s workshop in NJ, to copper pots in Newport, RI, to boats in the harbor at Plymouth, MA, to chairs in the Tabernacle on MV, to a display of peppers, to bikes in New York City, to grapes in a vineyard in Cape May, New Jersey. These are my choices for … order .
deb pic
i phone
Monday…
‘Nuff said
Weekly Photo Challenge: Friend…
Two friends at the beach…
Oak Bluffs ~ Martha’s Vineyard
Remembering My Great-Grandfather…
On this Memorial Day I am remembering my great grandfather, Joseph P Littlefield
The following is copied from post my daughter Deb wrote … I couldn’t have said it better.
“Remembering: JOSEPH P. LITTLEFIELD of Rome, Maine. 40-years-old and father of eight children, my great-great-grandfather joined the Union army in the summer of 1864, just as the Civil War was grinding to its bitter, violent end. He was in Company C of the 9th Maine Regt, and badly wounded in the battle of Cold Harbor, shot through his left hand into his lower back. He was sent back home to Maine where he died two months later on 30 Sep 1864. According to his 24-year-old doctor, he died of “Typhoidal Pneumonia induced by wounds received in the Battle of the Wilderness, VA … the deceased soldier came to this death by reason of disease induced by a wound through the hand, contusion in his back, and subsequent exposure and fatigue in the field of battle, causing fever or “Typhoidal Pneumonia” from which he never recovered.” The pain must have been horrible.
Worse, adding insult to grievous injury, within a month of Joseph’s death, his wife and three oldest children also died, presumably from Typhoid or some other contagious fever. This left my 10-year-old great-grandfather Charles Littlefield the oldest of the five remaining children. I know how desperate both sides of the Civil War were by 1864 for men, but the idea that a 40-year old father of eight would sign up is appalling. And the fact that he not only died—horrible, but not unexpected for a soldier–but that he took his wife and three of his children with him?”
On this Memorial Day, remembering all who gave their lives for our country.
Memorial Day 2017…
Memorial Day was borne out of the Civil War and a desire to honor our dead. It was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic. “The 30th of May, 1868, is designated for the purpose of strewing with flowers, or otherwise decorating the graves of comrades who died in defense of their country during the late rebellion, and whose bodies now lie in almost every city, village and hamlet churchyard in the land,” he proclaimed. The date of Decoration Day, as he called it, was chosen because it wasn’t the anniversary of any particular battle.In 1971, Congress established Memorial Day as the last Monday in May and as a federal holiday.
On my mother’s side of the family, my paternal great grandfather, Joseph Littlefield fought in the Civil War and died because of his wounds. He was wounded in the Battle of the Wilderness in 1864. He was sent home to Maine to die. He died of typhoidal pnemonia on Sep 30, 1864, he is buried in Rome, Maine. Unfortunately his wife and his 3 oldest children died of the same thing shortly thereafter, leaving my grandfather, Charles Littlefield at age 10 the oldest of the four remaining children.
Below is a photo of the veteran’s section in the Fairmont Cemetery in Newark, New Jersey, where, on my father’s side of the family my great great paternal grandfather, Stephen Freeman is buried. Stephen did not die in the Civil War but was wounded in the battle of Antietam in 1862. He was sent home, lived another 29 years and died on May 30, 1891, which ironically was Memorial Day.
Civil War monument in Fairmont Cemetery…
Civil War monument
Take a moment to remember the original reason for Memorial Day and the men and women who fought for, and gave their lives for our country.
