Knitivity

 This is the nativity that I knit this year. It is from the book Knitivity by Fiona Goble. It was a fun, but time consuming
project!

 The donkey was one of my favorite pieces (and the hardest one to make...)He doesn't show up very well in this picture.

 

 A better picture of the donkey...

This picture shows the angel a little better.

Carpenter Bee (not an ancestor)...

This is a female Carpenter Bee. She is about the size of a thumb. Carpenter bees are non-aggressive, live by themselves in burrows that they make in old wood. She gathers pollen and rolls it into balls that she sticks inside her burrow. She lays her eggs in the pollen balls. This cactus flowers at night and wilts when the sun gets warm. I took this picture about 6 am.

Royce Allen

Royce Allen was my great grandfather, (father of Sarah Allen Cornwell and married to Sarah Elizabeth Wilson). He was born 16 Jun 1817 in Camden, Oneida New York and died 15 Feb 1880 in Munson, Henry, Illinois. He was a farmer who raised champion Durham cattle. One of his bulls gored him and died as a result of this accident.

 He had a long and very "flowery" obituary. I tried to add it here...but it didn't work!

Miss C. P. Allen (listed before Royce Allen) is his sister, Chloe Permelia Allen.

Back row: Sarah Elizabeth Wilson (Mrs. Royce Allen); Julia Abigail Wilson (Mrs. James Wickwire); Mr. Truman O. Jones; Susan Margaret Bell (Mrs. David Candee Wilson); Mr. David Candee Wilson; Nancy M. Orton (Mrs. Levi P. Wilson; Hulda Jane Wilson (Mrs. Truman O. Jones.
Front Row:
Eli Pomeroy Wilson; James Wickwire; Levi P. Wilson; Mary M. Grant (Mrs. Eli P. Wilson). 

These are the children of Eli Wilson and Julia Candee Wilson. (I don't have photos of Julia Candee or Eli Wilson.) The Wilsons and Wickwires (James and Julia Abigail Wilson Wickwire) were abolitionists (they worked to outlaw African slavery and free the slaves). Both the Wickwire and the Wilson homes were safe houses on the Underground Railroad. Eli Wilson is my great great grandfather and Julia Wilson Wickwire is my great grand aunt. (You can calculate your own relationship:)

(The Underground Railroad was a network of secret routes and safe houses used by 19th-century black slaves in the United States to escape to free states and Canada with the aid of abolitionists and allies who were sympathetic to their cause....Wikipedia)

I found the following on the Internet...regarding Eli and Julia Candee Wilson and the Wickwires...
Mr. and Mrs. Wickwire, were the first couple ever married in this township, and the ceremony that made them one was performed Mary 17, 1837, in the home in which they now live., by the Rev. George Sill. Mrs. Wickwire’s maiden name was Julia Wilson, and her father was Eli Wilson, a native of Harrington, Conn. Her grandfather, also bearing that name, was a farmer of English extraction, born in that old New England State of a prominent family. The father (Eli Wilson) was educated in Yale College and in 1818, settled in the wilds of Oneida County, N.Y., where he cleared a farm, and also engaged in teaching in the schools besides being a teacher of vocal music and a leader of the choir. In 1834, he came to this county with his family at the same time that our subject (James Wickwire) came, arriving in Farmington in a prairie schooner, June 4. He became wealthy and the owner of several hundred acres of land. He was connected with the educational interests of the township and was a Whig in politics and a Congregationalist in religion. During the latter part of his life he lived retired until his death at the age of eighty-five in 1875. His wife was named Julia Candee and she was born in Connecticut, a daughter of David Candee, a large and wealthy land-owner of that State. She died in 1881, at the age of ninety-three years. Mrs. Wickwire (Julia Wilson) was one of eight children and was born September 22, 1817, in Connecticut. She was well educated and was a teacher by profession and taught the first school ever taught in Farmington, which was conducted in the rudest of school-houses.

Sarah Elizabeth Allen & Children

Sarah Elizabeth Wilson Allen is my great grandmother. Sarah Allen Cornwell is my grandmother (mother of Alice Cornwell Kofoid, my mother). 

My Aunt Beth told me the following when she visited us in Albany Oregon in the 1980s.

Aunt Beth Carlson said that S.E.W. Allen was genteel, sedate
and tolerated no slang such as "gracious"! She was a moralist. Aunt Beth
remembers her saying "Pretty is as pretty does" when Aunt Beth, age 6, was
looking in a mirror. She said that she was "probably opinionated, like Aunt
Ettie". (Aunt Ettie was Charles Cornwell's sister. I met her once...stern and scary!)

 She and Aunt Helen collected bottles on the beach which they played with a lot.
 S.E.W.Allen threw them down the toilet. (That's before toilets flushed!)

She can remember when she was age 5, she was made to take a nap when she visited her grandmother. There was an earthquake and she rolled off the couch and her doll fell
on the floor and was broken.

 Family tradition: Sarah E Wilson Allen's family was related to President Wilson (probably not!)

 S.E.W.Allen moved to Santa Cruz Calif. and was cremated there.
Ashes spread in California. (according to Aunt Beth)

 

 

Back row: Sarah Allen Cornwell, Royce Allen

Middle Row: Carrie Allen Busenbark, Sarah Elizabeth Wilson Allen, Maria Allen Gifford

Front Row: Julia Allen Topping, Margaret Allen Lay





Grandmother, Sarah Elizabeth Allen; Daughter, Julia Allen Topping;
Mother, Fannie Allen Eckler; Daughter Elizabeth Ray Eckler (born: Feb 4, 1905, died June 10, 1905)

Sarah Elizabeth Allen
December 25, 1904
80 years old