Wacky Wednesday Giggle

As a woman who has given birth three times and her bladder has never been the same, I can relate to this saying. (I cross my legs every time I sneeze.)  I saw this on Pinterest and it made me laugh, and cross my legs while doing so. 

Enjoy!!!

Old German Mill Adventure

This afternoon Dave and I took the kids on a hike on the rail trail out by Glen Morris to find the Old German Mill.  It is an old woollen mill that was built in the late 1800's just outside of Glen Morris, at one point it was a hotel but Canadian Pacific Railway forced the person who owned it out of business when they decided to put a railway past his place and cut his access to the only road in and out of his home.  He later sold his property to the Township and it has been abandoned since about 1945.   History research I have managed to find states there was a murder here in 1941 when it was a hotel, and the murderer and motive have never been found.   

The ruins, are fascinating and we spent a fair bit of time exploring. And here are a number of images I managed to captured today.  

Daniel, Laura, and Amanda entering the building, at least what is left of it.

Inside what is left of the mill.   So serene yet eery.  I loved it.

What looks like plaster that kids have taken a B.B. gun to and what appears to be brickwork from a chimney.

Love the trees growing out of the foundation of the old mill.  Mother nature is quick to reclaim what was taken.

Dave and Dalwhinnie taking it all in.  For Dalwhinnie, the best part was a chipmunk running past.  Oh the joys of being a dog.  LOL

Playing around with some of my photo editing software from Picasa

The river just outside the mill.  This would have been where the rapids were to power the mill.

I know we will definitely come back here again, probably after all the leaves have fallen off the trees.

Jenkins Family Road Trip Day 14, July 14

Our final day of vacation. We checked out of our hotel and they allowed us to leave our car there until 4 p.m. so we could finish off some things we wanted to see and do before heading off to Montreal for a stopover. Such as the tour of the crypt. But first we wanted to check out some stores on a street just around the corner from our hotel that we hadn't had a chance to explore yet. I saw this window display, and well we didn't get to far from here. We ended up spending a couple of hours in this store known as Boutique Medievale (bear with me I don't know how to use the accents on my computer).

They had clothes, hats, scarves, jewellery, daggers, swords, chalices, chessboards, tapestries etc. Everything for the medieval enthusiast. I was in heaven!!! We all ended up with something and for Daniel's birthday we ended buying Troy Chess pieces with a sweet chess board made to look like a castle wall with turrets on each corner. He has been dying for a really nice chess set and we found numerous ones here. Took him awhile to pick the pieces and chessboard, and later that night in our hotel room he beat his dad's butt in chess.

I ended up getting some rune pendants for me, Marissa and Denise (my besties). The girls ended up getting some jewellery as well. Dave didn't really want anything for himself, I think he was hoping Daniel would share the cool new chess set. LOL

We had to go back to the hotel and deposit our purchases in the van, and grabbed some lunch (did I mention we lost track of time, whoops) and headed back to Notre Dame Basilica.

The guide I spoke to the evening before was busy, but a young lady was more than helpful and took us through a secret door at the back of one of the side altars, down a spiral staircase into the crypt. I was allowed to take pictures, but not allowed to use a flash so some of the picture are of poor quality due to a low shutter speed and no tripod to keep the camera steady.

First off we have the memorial plaques to Champlain and some of the first Governor Generals of New France. In the crypt, if the cross is white, they do not have the person's remains, but if the cross is black, they have the remains and they are place behind the plaque in the crypt. They do not have Champlain's remains, but they have been looking for years in hopes of finding them. They believe his remains would have been treated very much like Bishop Laval's (which they do have), and it is very possible they would have been buried near or in the basilica.

The main part of the crypt is where the bishops, archbishops, cardinals are buried. You can tell what their rank in the church is based on the number of tassels on their plaque. A number of bishops have a spot in the crypt, but are buried in France as they never even came to New France during their term as Bishop of the Parish.

View of the clergy catacombs in the crypt.

Here we have a shrine to a number of Jesuit priests that were killed by Native Americans in the early years of European settlement. They are considered martyrs and the basilica has relics of four the Jesuit priests.

And now we are getting ready to go into the crypt where the civilian remains are. But first we had to pass through this ornately carved wooden door. The carvings represents various stages of Bishop Laval's life.

The crypt itself is very very dark, with two extremely large ossuaries containing the remains of over 900 people. They also have Bishop Lava's casket on display. They accidentally found his casket while doing renovations under one of the choirs in 1877. And with this discovery and subsequent reburial, there were quite a few celebrations and ceremonies throughout Quebec City. You can read a bit more about what had gone on with the discovery of Laval's casket here. And also read about Bishop Laval and his importance in Quebec history here.

Here is a picture of site just outside the crypt that that they are excavating looking for more remains. The original cathedral was not as large as it is now, there was a cemetery on either side of the cathedral and also within the cathedral itself, very much like in Europe. A number of families had their own pews and underneath these pews you would also find the family burial plot. If someone in the family died, they would remove the family pew, lift up some of the stones underneath, bury the person, put everything back for the next mass. With the reconstruction of the Basilica in 1923 after an other devastating fire, they moved the remains from the cemetery and in the Basilica to this crypt. Our guide explained that to this day residents and workers in Old Quebec still find human remains during renovations, gardening etc. and bring them to the basilica and the remains are placed in one of the ossuaries.

This is one of the best pictures of one of the ossuaries I could find. We then managed to see the register and with a list of names provided by Dave's sister Mary, our genealogist, and his mom. we went through the whole list a few times and managed to match some names and sent them off to the family. Mary was going to try and see if they match based on the info she has managed to find so far of their ancestors. One thing I know, there were a lot of Maries and Jacques in both lists. Whew. And our guide was so kind and patient waiting for us to finish our research.

Afterwards we went to Montmorency Parc in Old Quebec to get some pictures of the statues of Louis and Marie Hebert. Along the way we found a Statue of Bishop Laval.

The statue is a grouping of three, Louis is the centre statue, rather high up. I had to go across the street to get pictures.

On one side is a statue of their son in law Guillame Couillard.

And on the other side is Marie Rollet. Here is a picture of Dave, Laura, Amanda, and Daniel with their great-great-great- etc grandmother.

By this time it was getting close to 4:00. We rushed back to the hotel to claim our van before being charged extra and headed to Montreal for dinner and an overnight stop. The next day we headed for home sweet home and ended our two week road trip.

In looking back on our trip, I would love to go back to any of the places we visited but the two that would top my list would be Salem and Quebec City.

Jenkins Family Road Trip Day 13, July 13

This was a very full day for us. It was a family history day, lots was seen, and hundreds of pictures were taken. Dave's family roots on his mom's dad's side (try to stay with me here) are from Quebec, going back to the first settlement of Quebec. In fact Dave, our children and his family are direct descendants of Louis Hebert and Marie Rollet, Louis is considered the first Canadian Apothecary and first European to farm in Canada. Marie is famous in her own right, she taught a number of Native American children to read and write and was well loved by them. Dave and his family are also connected with numerous other names in the list of the founding families of New France (Quebec). But I will try and not bore you to much.

It was a gorgeous day and we were able to see the stunning view from our room in daylight.

The majority of family research we would be doing today would be in Levis, across the river from Quebec City. The quickest and most efficient way to get there is by ferry. And it also gave the kids something to do as well instead of just sitting in the van AGAIN.

One of the first things we found was this plaque, in honor of the Samson family. Another important name in the history of Levis and Quebec City, and Dave is a direct descendant of this family line, my mother in law's maiden name is Samson.

The plaque is on the property of this house, we are not sure of the connection, possibly the land of one of the early Samson families during colonial times?

Throughout Levis are various streets named after Dave's ancestors. We managed to find a few of them.

And this is the family homestead, Dave's great grandparents lived here until they moved to Mt. Clemens, just outside of Detroit in the early 1900's.

Every time any one of Dave's family is in Levis and Quebec City we have to take a picture in front of the homestead. I am sure the people living in the area are starting to wonder why these crazy English speaking people want their picture taken in front of a regular house, across the street from a hamburger stand. LOL

Our next stop was to the cemetery where the family plot is. A distant relative by the name of Colonel Robataille, had the remains of a number of ancestors transferred to his plot since they were moving a number of graves from another cemetery, to a mass grave in this cemetery. We aren't sure who exactly he had buried here. I love the marker Colonel Robataille chose, different than any other grave marker in the cemetery; which also made it very easy for us to find.

Here is the statue marking where the mass grave is. The number of bodies moved is astounding, 15,000 were exhumed. That must have been a huge undertaking.

Our final stop in Levis was the old A.C. Davie shipyard, where Dave's great great grandfather was a carpenter. It is now in ruins but they are working on restoring the site to what it once was and there is a museum across the street in one of the old outbuildings and the house where the Davie family lived. The Davie shipyard was an important piece of the history of Levis and maritime history of the St. Lawrence River.

These pictures show what is left of the shipyard where they would repair and build hundreds of wooden ships every year.

Once inside the museum we were fortunate to see a scale model of how the shipyard would have looked like when in use. The patent slip was a unique technology invented by the Davie family to help in the process of ship repairs. It use to be that to repair ships they would have to wait for low tide, do the repairs quickly before the tide came back in, and then would have to wait until low tide again to finish what they started, which would sometimes take weeks to complete. With this unique patent slip they would bring the ship up to the underwater rail system and lay a cradle underneath the ship when the water was high enough, and when the low tide started they would place special wooden bolsters underneath, once the tide was low enough the ship would be resting on the cradle and bolsters and using a crane would be hauled up to one of several areas to be worked on. This allowed the shipyard to work on numerous ships at any one time during anytime of the tide cycle.

Tools of the carpenter.

Afterwards Daniel had to put on the diving mask replica they have. And of course Laura had to make faces behind him. Joys of siblings. LOL

After the museum we explored the Davie family home. There were various artifacts from the Davie family throughout the home and upstairs they were still renovating. I loved being able to see the different layers of linoleum, a time capsule of flooring styles through the years.

Afterwards we went back to Quebec City had dinner at the hotel and decided to wander around Quebec City before heading to the waterfront to watch the the 3d presentation "The Image Mill"

I loved the old European feel of the streets, I could have spent days wandering the streets of old Quebec City.

Unfortunately a rain storm came in and we made a mad rush for the Notre Dame Basilica to take shelter from the rain, along with a number of other tourists. The details of the architecture were stunning. At one point Dave had to take Daniel back to the hotel to go washroom, and there were no public washrooms in the Basilica. Amanda decided to go with them and we would meet up at the waterfront later when the weather cleared. So it was just Laura and I left.

We sat for a bit and just enjoyed the peace and quiet that came over the building as people started to leave. I started to wander around, looking at the shrine to Bishop Laval etc. At the back was a small display about the history of the Basilica back to the days of Champlain. Near the end of the display they talked about a crypt under the church with hundreds of Quebec's founding members remains. Which made me wonder if there might be some of Dave's ancestors underneath the Basilica. At this point they were announcing that the Basilica was closing, so I walked up to a couple of young men who appeared to be working at the Basilica and started to ask questions about the crypt. One of the young men was originally from Maine so he was my designated guide for the discussion of what is under the basilica. Turns out he was a direct descendant of one the Champlain's ship engineers but we determined it was a ship that came after Dave's ancestors Louis and Marie. Too make a long story short, he told me to come back the next day and we could have a tour of the crypt and access to the register listing the names of all the people down there. So basically Dave leaves me unattended for a period of time, I start to talk to strangers and end up with a tour in the bowels of the Notre Dame Basilica in old Quebec City. Not a bad start to our evening I believe. LOL

After being released from the Basilica, we were literally locked in, Laura and I wandered to the waterfront and met up with Dave and crew along the way. We were given our free 3D glasses and found a good spot where all of us would be able to see the show.

The show is a presentation of Quebec's history in 3d images projected on the silos. It started with prehistoric times and ended with today, and was about an hour long. Well worth it and best of all it was free.

Playing scrabble on my iPhone waiting for the show to begin.

We wandered back to our hotel room for the next day would get our tour of the crypt beneath the Notre Dame Basilica.