Nearly a Day of Rest

We took it easy today.  We’ve been going at such a frantic pace that we all wanted to sleep in a little and not go too far from our hotel.  Kaleb really wants to meet some of his teachers from Johns Hopkins, but we weren’t able to connect up with any of them, so that spared us an hour’s drive down to Baltimore today.  I wanted to do some family research here in Rockville where we are staying, so Kory and Kaleb came along with me and just sat in the library for a few hours while I visited the Historical Society library down the street.

My dad’s grandma’s (father’s mother) name was Katie Kitchen (Katherine).  She died just weeks before I was born and my middle name came from her.  She was born in Missouri, but moved in the 1940s with her family to Seattle.  Her father, Charles Kitchen, was a soldier in the Civil War and he died in Missouri in 1907.  I did research for years, trying to find out who his parents were.  When I found out from his Civil War records that he was born in Rockville, Maryland, I flew back here about ten years ago and found out Charles’ father’s name was Caleb Kitchen, which was a little freaky, since my Kaleb had already been born and named.  I have the name of one grandma, and my kid ends up with the name of her grandpa.

I found out today that Caleb fought in the War of 1812, so I need to request his records from the National Archives (which we just walked by yesterday!).  Caleb was born just across the river in Fairfax County, Virginia.  His father Daniel Kitchen fought in the Revolutionary War.  I could become a member of the DAR (Daughter’s of the American Revolution) if I wanted, but they are such an uppity and previously very prejudice society, that I could never be part of them.

I’m still on the quest to find out Caleb’s wife’s maiden name.  I know her name is Sarah, and that she was born in America in 1800, and her parents came from Ireland, but that’s all I know.  She died near Leavenworth, Kansas, so I may need to go there to get further information on her.  I was hoping to find her marriage record, or the birth record of Charles, but they apparently don’t exist.  Either do cemetery records from 1835 when Caleb died, so I have no chance of visiting his grave.

After a few hours with the old lady volunteers at the Historical Society, I met up with Kory and Kaleb at the library so we could go to lunch.  I had an old property tax map from the days Caleb lived in Rockville.  There were only about 200 people in town at the time so it wasn’t a big place, but there are still a few original buildings standing today, from that time frame two hundred years ago.  Caleb owned three different lots in town and one of them is partially under the new library.  A new “Town Square” has been built (see photo above) on that entire block, so we ate lunch at the nearest place to our “roots” that we could. It was kinda fun spending time in an ancestor’s stomping grounds.

We stopped off again at the Historical Society after lunch and took a tour of one of the original old houses from the time period Caleb lived in Rockville.  The guide told us some history of the town and how things were back then.  I was hoping to give Kaleb an opportunity to touch some of his real American roots, since he knows so much about the Norwegian side, but he couldn’t have been less interested.  Oh well.  I tried.

“The Help,” a recently released movie, is playing at a theatre about a mile from our hotel, so I thought that might be a good one for Kaleb to see to help him understand the topic of prejudice, which is one of the subjects we’ve covered on this “social studies” trip.  So we drove on over there this afternoon, walked around the neighborhood a little and went to see the movie.  Kaleb was bored with it at first, but then he got into it a little more as the story line got kinda funny, so we had a good discussion afterwards about the whole topic of prejudice.  He still can’t understand why anyone would be treated differently because of the color of their skin.  It truly baffles him.

We ate dinner on a sidewalk café in a cute little part of town, then headed back to the hotel so Kaleb and Kory could go swimming.  I needed time to write another column for the LaConner paper, so I cherished the quiet hotel room.  My deadline is tomorrow and I’m still not done.  Ugh.

It was good to take a little break today from the hustle because tomorrow’s agenda is pretty full.  I can’t believe all we’ve been able to see and do since we got here.  What a treat.