~Foreword ~
During the process of compiling and editing the first volume of AMERICA: The Grand Illusion ~ Book I: Orphans of the Storm, I had occasion to work with my twelve year old granddaughter, Taylor (whose name fittingly works its way into this tale) on a history project for school, dealing with the War Between the States (which we have covered extensively on this site, but will eventually move into a category of its own). Needless to say, her teacher has been compromised in her education, and is subsequently passing her ignorance of American history onto the next generation of ill-informed children.
I searched our families’ boxes of historical archives to gather information on an ancestor, who had fought in that un-civil action, and found a family genealogy, which had been compiled by my great-grandparents in 1926, and later updated in 1959 by a family cousin. Whether it has been updated since remains to be seen, but that, which I am about to share with you has led to great discoveries on the internet about the subject matter of this chapter. For the purposes of brevity however, I will share with you directly from the family records, which are not unlike hundreds of thousands of similar ancestral stories, which can be told of this grand experiment we call, ‘America.’ Continue reading
It is hereby certified that the records of this department indicate that: