It was a week overflowing with extraordinary memories.  I spent an afternoon lost in old files and pictures. A trip in March 2010 consumed me. (It is now July, 2014)

I couldn’t retreat from my typed notes from a 2010 trip to Vermont or Ben’s plethora of pictures.

Rodney, Ben, Tina and I traveled to Boston on March 19, 2010. We were headed for Montpelier, VT for a book-signing event of A Pioneer Love Story, the Letters of Minnie Hobart at the Kellogg Hubbard Library in Montpelier.

Our time in Montpelier centered on the book signing, and a fun conversation with the audience on who had lived in what house when in the 1800s.

Staying in the Montpelier Inn put us within walking distance of most of downtown. Driving out to Berlin Corners to worship at the First Congregational Church awakened memories of my mother going there as a child. In the 1940s my grandmother still thought of it as her church…though she moved to Texas in 1888.

Established in 1798 the church is next door to the Berlin Corner Cemetery. We counted about thirty-five family ancestors as we made new connections of who belonged to whom, when.

We visited with Norbert Rhinerson, president of the Berlin Historical Society and he filled in more details of those early days.

A step back in time accompanied our visit to both my grandmother and grandfather’s houses as we walked through the houses and talked with the current owners. Awesome to drive by and photograph the home of Thomas Waterman Wood, the artist who painted the 1860s painting I have of Montpelier. The painting includes his house so it was fun seeing recognizing it now.

Other stops during the week included:

• several more cemeteries looking for ancestors…found a couple
• a night at the 1720 Butternut Farm B&B in Glastonbury, CT with a superb omelet for breakfast (eggs came straight from the hens to the skillet to our table, wow!)
• Mattepoiset (on the MA southern coast) to spend an evening with our friend Sheldon Hill (Betty was out of town)
• Plymouth to visit the pilgrim’s landing spot and drive down Brewster Street thinking about our friend Sam Brewster here in Prairie Village
• Hingham, MA where my family first landed and Peter Hobart pastored the first congregation of Old Ship Church.

What a trip this week … thanks for all the pictures, Ben.