From Our Readers: Love for Little Libraries
October's letters to the editor
Little Free Libraries Across N.C.
Our August article (“Little Free Libraries,” August 2016, pages 14 and 15) highlighted some of the more than 500 free, community book boxes in North Carolina. We’ve enjoyed hearing back from readers about the story on carolinacountry.com, some of whom maintain LFLs of their own:
- Love this article! I have an LFL in progress. Thank you for doing such a lovely job! – Melanie Collins (retired librarian, of course)
- Thanks for this great article. So proud to be a part of this wonderful movement. We appreciate your article and the attention you are bringing to the cause. – Ouida
- My wife and I have a LFL in Avon on Hatteras Island. Lots of activity, and it doubles as a geocache location (LFL 21578 Avon OBX NC). (See photo, left) – Neil Swartz
A Cold-Month Project
Thank you and Renee Gannon for the “Exploring the Roots of Your Family Tree” article in the September issue [September 2016, pages 12–13]. This past summer I gathered up every photograph I’ve ever taken, plus ones I procured from my mother when I visited her last spring, and organized them into scrapbooks.
Along the way I came upon a small mountain of genealogical info I’d gathered over the years, as well as a family Bible in my mother’s possession. I was planning to take the colder months this winter to join ancestry.com and organize it all, as well as make it available to whichever family members were interested. I’ll let others delve deeper, once they have the info I can provide.
This article clarified many ways of searching for more information, and pointed me at services that will come in handy during this project.
Family Fact-Checking
Thanks for the article by Renee Gannon [“Exploring the Roots of Your Family Tree”] about climbing the family tree. She offered a fascinating story about her search for “Uncle Daniel” as well as hints for other researchers. I would reiterate her caution about not believing everything you find online!
One of the websites, which can be quite helpful and fascinating, can also be the source of major errors: Findagrave.com. Perhaps because it is free and is maintained by hundreds or thousands of volunteers — some of whom don’t fact-check information (especially dates & names) before posting them — it can be excruciatingly frustrating.
Editor’s Note: Linda shared more of her story with us about an inaccurate middle name for one of her ancestors that had been maintained online by a far-away volunteer. As Renee quoted in her article, “You can’t rely on any online family tree site to be 100 percent accurate ... You must pay particular attention to dates, and verify as best you can.”
Jarring Question
The July and August issues of Carolina Country had articles about canning. This brought a question to mind.
When I was growing up, my mama canned a lot of stuff. She used glass jars, but we called them cans. After all, she was canning in them!
Anyway, when I got married, my wife told me they were not cans, they were jars.
If we are canning in them, why not call them cans? If we call them jars, why not call it jarring?
Hope you understand the question!
Editor’s Note: We share your confusion, Jimmy. There’s also the age-old question of why one would drive on a parkway and park in a driveway…
Who You Gonna Call?
We had lights that would go dim and then real bright on their own. The fans would speed up and slow down. We had someone come out and check our breaker box — it checked out just fine. We someone come out and check our AC unit — it checked out great. This went on for about two weeks. We could not figure it out. So there was only one other thing that we could think of: We had a ghost.
That is when we called Ghostbusters (Union Power). They came out and checked all our wiring outside. Bingo! It was 35+ years old. It fixed our lights, so thank you Ghostbusters (Union Power)!
Editor’s Note: Union Power lineworkers replaced old connections in the weatherhead, where the overhead service wire connects with the house.
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