HUNTing Witches!

Just yesterday as I was leaving a fast food place, after getting my morning sausage burrito, two ladies opened doors for me. As the second lady was opening the second door for me, she smiled and said, 'I'll bet its been a long time since two ladies opened two doors for you in the same day.' ... my response was 'never!' It was a neat experience.

I've just found out that a long - distance ancestor, and it is a stretch, probably only about a 1% chance of dna, was a part of this story. It would seem that this ancestor, when she was 8 or 9 yrs old, had a father who was constable in the town of Andover, MA. His brother Joseph's wife became ill, and showed many of the same signs the ladies in Salem, [only a few miles away] convicted of being witches showed. So Josephs brother John [my ancestors father] called the women who were pointing out witches in Salem to come to Andover. To make a long story short they began accusing people in Andover of witchcraft, and a number of people were hung there too. The similiarities of the illnesses is no coincidence for as we now know, the people in MA. who suffered these signs of illness truly were ill from a fungus that grew on the wheat, rye in the area. But when the weather cleared the illnesses stopped and so did the witch trials. So constable John's daughter Rebeccah grew up and married one of my ancestors. I've also learned that an equally distant ancestor was husband to Martha Moore, who wrote a diary; and it was made into a movie and book 'A Midwife's Tale,' and has been featured on PBS. I guess my motto is becoming 'if you can't be famous, keep searching till you find an ancestor that was;' what they are famous for doesn't matter! Oh the desperate webs we weave.

I just finished the book 'The Forgotten Garden' by Kate Morton. This past Monday while taking a break and walking thru Walmart I stopped at the book stands, and after reading the front/back cover just knew I had to purchase the book. It tells the story of three generations searching for a 'family secret.' In the end the granddaughter solves the mystery, but it's after a little over 500 pages. It is a really good novel about generations of a family being held hostage to a secret that was never suppose to be discovered. I planned to read a few chapters that night, and continue reading in the days ahead. HOwever I got so involved in the novel, after two failed attempts to lay the book down and go to sleep, I just stayed up - read until 1:15pm and finished it! Every time I thought I had solved the mystery the author took another direction and I had added another red herring to my collection.
Morton, Kate. 'The Forgotten Garden' WAshington Square Press, Simon & Schuster,
ISBN: 9781416559556
ENJOY