Another full day in Jamestown, filled with such fun gifts from God, I've been smiling all day.
I wish I would have taken a picture of our breakfast, here at the Oaks B&B. The coffee was perfect, the french toast was delightful. Raspberries, blueberries, strawberries and a yogurt parfait. Try this...plain yogurt, topped with chopped nuts, covered with a drizzle of honey. Mmm. But that was only the beginning.

I wanted to see the house on Tower Street where my mom and her parents lived until she was six. We found it with no problem, I had the address and a description of where it was from my mom's baby book. According to these sources, they lived in the basement. When we got to the house I knocked on the door of the main floor and no one answered. I went around back and up the stairs to the upstairs apartment. A note on the door said, "OPEN THIS DOOR AND KNOCK ON THE INSIDE DOOR", so I did. A young woman, about 20-25 answered. She never looked me in the eyes. She was still chewing on whatever she had been eating, and it was clear she had probably never been to the dentist. I told her my business and she seemed happy for me and said her dad would probably know more, so between her and her mother--her mom said something to the dad like "It's not about that, she just wants to know about her mother who used to live here..."--the man finally came out. He was sixty five-ish. Maybe younger, but looked to have been through the wringer. He wore a "wife-beater" t-shirt and had no teeth. I notice teeth. I asked him about the place and he was very short, defensive and evasive. I asked if I could look in the basement and he said ok, but told his daughter to go with me. We went down, it was spooky and cold down there so I called for Andy to come down with me, he was still on the street, taking pictures. By that time the man called down with second thoughts about me going into the basement, said he needed to call the landlord and get permission, but couldn't do it now cuz the landlord worked nights and slept all day. So while he was huffing and puffing about why we couldn't go down there (he was talking from the upstairs landing) I snuck into the basement and had a look around anyway. Sorry but I'm only going to be here, at this moment in time on Tower Street with the basement door to my mother's house open for me, once. This was my moment. I carefully crept down the narrow, wooden stairs and took a quick peek. The ceiling was low, the walls were concrete block, and the windows were boarded up. It was way more primitive than I had imagined. My heart felt sad for my little girl mom. This is the house...

After that we walked to the hospital because I wanted to walk the path that my mother did after school every day, once she moved up to the main floor of this house with her first "foster family" and went to visit her own mother who moved to the nurses housing at the WCA hospital. The neighborhood is very run down. We saw several, more than five, condemned houses on our 1 mile walk to the hospital. But the next part is the best part of the day. An unexpected pearl that I will never forget. I have never been so surprised in my life.

We stopped at the WCA hospital to use the bathroom and let Andy see it, (the hospital, not the bathroom) as he hadn't been there with me the day before. I had walked right by the chapel in the main hall the day before, so I stopped to peek in. I took this picture...

I took notice that the bible was open to Psalm 100, then wondered what version of the bible they used, so I turned to look at the front cover and found this...

That's my grandmother. I am completely overwhelmed. Dizzy with the blessings that the Lord has given me on this trip. I wasn't really even going to go back to the hospital today, but I needed to use the bathroom.

Can I stop right now and Give God some glory? I'm full with praise and thanks! I feel like He has been holding my hand and leading me around all day.

Thank you Lord. I feel so loved. I feel like my mom and her mom are sitting at the feet of Jesus saying, "Show her this, then this, and can she see this too? I want her to see my house, my grave, my sidewalk, and show her the bible so she knows we're all thinking about her." I'm not really serious about that, I don't think, but I know my Father is taking me on an adventure of a lifetime!

After that we went to the Fenton History Museum and they looked up in the old phone books and found my mom and dad's first house when they were married. There are several apartments in this big house and they lived in one...

We went looking for my grandfather's cemetery and talked to the overseer of the records. He gave me the location of his grave site, but there wasn't a gravestone. His second wife Elsie had one, but his plot was unmarked. It makes his absence in our lives all the more real.

I did find the house he lived in when he died though. It was named in his obituary, which the cemetery man copied for me, and ironically, it was down the street from the house he last lived in with my mom and grandmother.  I could stand across the street from the Tower street house and see his house...

We walked and had a nice dinner at a restaurant down the street and walked home, looked over the bridge, tried not to trip on the old bumpity sidewalks, and I couldn't stop smiling, remembering the day.

Off to Chautauqua Lake tomorrow to start the writers' conference. I'm first on the docket to have my writing reviewed.

Thanks for caring enough to read through my tired meandering. I just had to write it down. Maybe I'll be a writer.