1921 Pine Castle Directory

In the ongoing effort to transcribe all the Pine Castle records on file in this little corner of heaven, I am pleased to report the completion of the 1921 directory:



CLICK HERE to access the new page.



Note, this was actually excerpted from the much larger directory compiled for Orlando.



It is not perfectly alphabetical. Apparently, the original compiler(s) didn't have access to one of those handy-dandy "SORT" tabs that we have on our modern spreadsheets!

Pine Castle voter registration index, 1919-21

Picking up on the Pine Castle records transcription project, I have posted an index to the local voter registration book covering the period from 1919 to 1921.

This is an important time frame, because it was the first time that women were allowed to register to vote in federal elections.

To check out the index, click on this link:

1919-21 Pine Castle Voter Registration Index

Pine Castle history hike

Thanks to intrepid local historian and hiking enthusiast Steve Rajtar for combining those passions as he led this morning's tour of historic Pine Castle!

If not for the frustrating inability of the new iPad2 to accommodate Flash, yours truly would post some of the great shots snapped with said new toy.

In their absence, ye socks shall be left to your own imaginations!

2 more articles posted

Keeping up with the posting of articles from the 1974 edition of the Pine Castle Pioneer Days magazine. First one is on the Council Oak, which will serve as the iconic image of the 2012 festival. (Plays well into the theme of "roots."). Second one is on the Holden Heights area.

Like most of the articles in the magazine, neither of these gives the author. I can only assume they were penned by the late Ruth Barber Linton . . .

The growing index of the 1974 articles may be found here:

Pioneer Days Magazine Articles

New magazine article posted

Picking up on the Pine Castle digirecords project in this little corner of heaven, I have posted an article about the Conway neighborhood written by Mrs. Eulene Mizell Smith that was originally published in the 1974 edition of the Pioneer Days magazine:

http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~oldpinecastle/pdmags/1974-early-conway.html

More to come, as time permits!

Pioneer Days Annual Board Meeting

The executive committee of Pine Castle Pioneer Days, Inc., held it's annual meeting in Orlando this afternoon.

Mostly, this involved the typical year-end "housekeeping," like reviewing/amending bylaws.

But, we also voted in a slate of new board members to help direct the 2012 festival. The new members will be formally installed later this month.

In the mean time, we are still looking for folks who are interested in serving (or chairing) one of the several committees who help to make this important community event happen.

Marriage records added

Slowly going thru all the Pine Castle records as part of the project mentioned in yesterday's post. Slowly. I did get the Marriage Records portion up and running. Still need to do some additions, corrections, etc. But, the bulk of the material is there, if ye socks are interested in checking it out: http://freepages.genealogy.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~oldpinecastle/marriages/index.html

New digirecords project

No doubt inspired by the latest techno gadget in this little corner of heaven, yours truly has embarked on a project that has been "in the works" for longer than anyone cares to remember.

That is, I plan to digitize all the old records I have on file related to the ancestral stomping grounds in Pine Castle.

Just getting started, so bear with me.

So far, all I've completed is page one from the 1935 state census enumeration:
click here to travel back in time

More to come later, so stay tuned!

The Land of Painted Caves

That's the title of the latest offering by Jean M. Auel, one of my favorite writers.

Ye socks who may not recognize her name may be peripherally aware of the series of books she began some three decades ago with The Clan of the Cave Bear.

I had planned to buy the book last week when I first heard it was hitting the major book outlets, but held off til the latest gadget arrived from our friends at Apple.

After downloading it late last night from iBooks, I'm pleased to report that I've made it thru 8 chapters already. Some of these were done lakeside from the comfort of a folding chair I posted beneath a cypress tree full of jays and mockingbirds. The occasional breeze actually made it a little chilly in the shade, but I wasn't complaining . . . especially since the heat and humidity of the Florida summer is just around the corner.

Hoping ye socks are enjoying an equally blissful weekend!

New Toy

Yours truly is pleased to report the arrival of a new gadget in this little corner of heaven: an iPad 2.

The plan is to get acquainted with Apple's latest attempt to improve the quality of life for the masses.

Said plan got a little off track today when it was determined that a new wireless router would be needed in the humble abode.

Would ye socks believe it if I told you that entering the phrase "wireless router" in a google search, that the top result is a link to WalMart?

Seriously.

I'm sure that revelation may spark conspiracy theories. So be it. The bottom line, though, was that the dastardly box store did in fact have the most competitive prices and convinced me to make the rare trek to the nearest gateway to Dante's inferno.

Long story longer, I got everything up and running with a minimum of foul language and am actually tossing this post in the dryer via aforementioned iPad2.

But, I'm sure ye socks were able to tell the difference without me pointing out the obvious. . .

Missing any socks?

Apologies to ye socks who were accustomed to daily posts in the dryer over the last few years.

Several pressing things in this neck o' the woods kept yours truly from keeping up with regular blog entries.

Mostly, any spare time that I might otherwise have been able to devote to improvement of the blogosphere was consumed by the massive planning and staging of the 2011 Pine Castle Pioneer Days festival.

For more info on that, check out the event site at http://www.pinecastlepioneerdays.org or join or Facebook group. (LOTS of great new photos are posted on the latter.)

At any rate, I took another month to recover from Pioneer Days before making the commitment to getting back to The Sock in the Dryer.