My name is Ruth Adams Minter, daughter of Charlie Arthur Adams and Dovie Marie Massengale. I was born with the name of Mary Ruth, but have used Ruth Adams Minter since marriage. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee but have lived in Maryland since my ex-husband's last military transfer.

I started doing genealogy research in 1977 when we discovered that my husband knew more about the pedigree of the dog he bought than he did his own family. I slowed down with research for about 10 years but started up again after I retired.

Some of the surnames I am researching are: Adams, Massengale, Lusk, Flora, Dykes, Cooper, Powell, Carver, Birchfield, Yoder, Detter, Reep, Brimer, Sitton, Lockhart. I spend more time on some surnames than others.


"Those we love don't go away,
They walk beside us every day,
Unseen, unheard but always near,
Still loved, still missed and very dear.
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal,
Love leaves a memory no one can steal."
--From a headstone in Ireland

My Dad told me years ago that everyone should always put names on the backs of pictures......wish I had listened when I copied old photos from relatives.......so, please do that, but do it with an archival safe pen or a pencil. Please read the poem below.....it says what I mean about the photos.


I've seen several versions of this but found a note on the internet from the author, with 1 version listing "author unknown" but this is the version she copyrighted, according to the article I read.


STRANGERS IN THE BOX

Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like,
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be tossed away?

Make time to save your pictures
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box.

~author: Pam Harazim~

—————
"Dear Ancestor
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and the date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who cares
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you."
-Poem by Walter Butler Palmer

My name is Ruth Adams Minter, daughter of Charlie Arthur Adams and Dovie Marie Massengale. I was born with the name of Mary Ruth, but have used Ruth Adams Minter since marriage. I was born in Chattanooga, Tennessee but have lived in Maryland since my ex-husband's last military transfer.

I started doing genealogy research in 1977 when we discovered that my husband knew more about the pedigree of the dog he bought than he did his own family. I slowed down with research for about 10 years but started up again after I retired.

Some of the surnames I am researching are: Adams, Massengale, Lusk, Flora, Dykes, Cooper, Powell, Carver, Birchfield, Yoder, Detter, Reep, Brimer, Sitton, Lockhart. I spend more time on some surnames than others.


"Those we love don't go away,
They walk beside us every day,
Unseen, unheard but always near,
Still loved, still missed and very dear.
Death leaves a heartache no one can heal,
Love leaves a memory no one can steal."
--From a headstone in Ireland

My Dad told me years ago that everyone should always put names on the backs of pictures......wish I had listened when I copied old photos from relatives.......so, please do that, but do it with an archival safe pen or a pencil. Please read the poem below.....it says what I mean about the photos.


I've seen several versions of this but found a note on the internet from the author, with 1 version listing "author unknown" but this is the version she copyrighted, according to the article I read.


STRANGERS IN THE BOX

Come, look with me inside this drawer,
In this box I've often seen,
At the pictures, black and white,
Faces proud, still, serene.

I wish I knew the people,
These strangers in the box,
Their names and all their memories
Are lost among my socks.

I wonder what their lives were like,
How did they spend their days?
What about their special times?
I'll never know their ways.

If only someone had taken time
To tell who, what, where, when,
These faces of my heritage
Would come to life again.

Could this become the fate
Of the pictures we take today?
The faces and the memories
Someday to be tossed away?

Make time to save your pictures
Seize the opportunity when it knocks,
Or someday you and yours could be
The strangers in the box.

~author: Pam Harazim~

—————
"Dear Ancestor
Your tombstone stands among the rest;
Neglected and alone.
The name and the date are chiseled out
On polished, marbled stone.
It reaches out to all who cares
It is too late to mourn.
You did not know that I exist
You died and I was born.
Yet each of us are cells of you
In flesh, in blood, in bone.
Our blood contracts and beats a pulse
Entirely not our own.

Dear Ancestor, the place you filled
One hundred years ago
Spreads out among the ones you left
Who would have loved you so.
I wonder if you lived and loved,
I wonder if you knew
That someday I would find this spot,
And come to visit you."
-Poem by Walter Butler Palmer