Time Goes By

I've not had too much time to devote to my internet research at FindMyPast.co.uk , BUT I did have the great pleasure to host my cousins from Wales in April.  We found each other through the internet in 2000 after I posted the names found in the bible of my grandfather.  It showed the family of Elias Rees of Merthry Tydfil, Glamorgan, Wales.  His granddaughter, Jane, came to America in 1881 and married her intended shortly after her arrival in Des Moines, Iowa, where their son, my grandfather, Leonard PearceL was born.  Other descendants of Elias Rees contacted me after seeing the names on Rootsweb, and we all got together a couple times in Wales and England.  One cousin, Judith, and her teenage triplets visited me a couple years ago and it was such fun.  Recently, Jan and Russ, were finally able to make it to my home in Hawaii and see how their American cousin lives.  I kept them very busy seeing all the sights and doing all sorts of fun things.  We recalled the days we had spent driving around Wales visiting the sites where Elias Rees was  born and lived.  We spent time in the Carmarthenshire archives and held family reunions.  At one reunion I managed to sing the Welsh National Anthem with them, in Welsh.  I hope I can return to the beautiful country of Wales and learn more about my family and the history of the places they lived so many years ago.  In the meantime I am going to work harder to get more answers from my online genealogy subscriptions.

Find My Past – I’m Tryin’

I’m finally making the big move – the one where I pay for a subscription to www.FindMyPast.co.uk .  It is an expensive proposition to search on this site, that is, to view the transcriptions and images of genealogical records.  I’m especially interested in the British Parish Records.  In 2007 I opted for the 6.95 pound limited search (like 10 records), but that didn’t last long, so this time I want the 69.95 pound subscription for six months.  Woo is me though, I’m all fired up to start my Hague, Rees, Pearce, Barker, Walters, Williams research, but my charge on Visa didn’t go through.  It had to go through the Visa Verification process, something new for me, which asked me for a User Name and Password.  Where would I have gotten that????  It wasn’t the one for FindMyPast.  So I wrote an email to the FMP customer service, but they don’t work on the weekends.  Isn’t it always night when you want to contact businesses and they are closed?  Living in Hawaii and trying to contact England is a time zone nightmare (so to speak).

   In the morning I received an automated telephone call from Visa Verification asking if I’d tried to make a purchase.  I punched in the key for Yes on the phone, answered a few more questions, and it said I was cleared to make the purchase and to contact the vendor.    Well, by that time it was Friday night in England… so now I’ll have to wait until next week to jump into Find My Past… .I emailed them again to question if I should attempt another subscription purchase, or would the first try still work.  I think I’ll try telephoning them with Skype late Sunday night, my time.  So confusing, for something simple.  I never seem to have much luck making purchases online to England.

   I tried to make a credit card purchase for a record at the Tameside area records (Lancashire, England) but, at least a year ago, they weren’t set up for credit cards, and that office was the only ones that had the particular Hague birth records I was wanting.   They only accept Sterling cheques or International Reply Coupons through obtained through the post office, and it is ridiculously expensive.  Civil Registration in England and Wales began on July 1^st, 1837, and I’m looking for birth records of Ann, Elizabeth, Edward and John Hague – all born around Dukinfield, Cheshire between 1831 and 1837.   Luckily I have a Rees cousin near Manchester who has volunteered to go to the Tameside office and get the records if found, so I plan to do that when I get myself organized.

It's a lot easier for the children born after Civil Registration started as those are available from the GRO website and they take credit card payments online. This (above) is one I received for Mary Ann Hague who was born 8 Sep 1844.

Trip to Jordan

Last December I traveled to Amman, Jordan for another volunteer medical mission with Operation Smile to repair cleft lips and cleft palates in children.  My first trip to the Middle East, I was a bit apprehensive, but found the Jordanian people most hospitable and friendly.  It seems Jordan is somewhat a sea of tranquility surrounded by areas which might be "iffy" for a traveler (Iraq, Saudi Arabia, Syria, Israel).    The local Amman Operation Smile people were very organized for this great endeavor and we handled days of patient screening over 500 people with relative ease.  The surgical days were long, but the hospital operating room was air conditioned and modern.  We even operated on some Palestinian children refugees.  I think we operated on about 140 kids.

    At the hotel for the 50 operation smile volunteers (mostly Jordanian)  there were many guys that made me think I wouldn't want to be on the wrong side of a rifle with them.  It turned out these many guys were Libyan rebel fighters who were in Jordan for medical care from injuries suffered during their revolution against Gadhafi which ended 20 Oct 2011, just six weeks before I saw them.  The guys were constantly viewing war scenes on their laptops in the lobby.  I got up the nerve to try to talk to them, and the smiles flashed and despite limited English we spent an hour each evening talking.  I never know what or who I'm going to discover on my trips.  They asked me to tell people to come to beautiful Libya for a vacation, but wait a few months so it could be fixed up.

Donna with the Libyans

After the operations I stayed several extra days to see the country.  The most amazing place to see is Petra, several hours to the south of Amman.  I hiked all over the ancient land of gigantic "buildings" carved out of the limestone walls of the surrounding mountains.  This is where Harrison Ford found the "holy grail" in the movie "Indiana Jones - The Last Crusade"  Not Pharoah's treasury, it was probably a 3rd century BC  royal Nebatian tomb.

Donna and friends at the "Treasury" in Petra, Jordan

One day I stayed in Amman and visited a big Mosque, a Roman ruins on a hill and a big amphitheater.  I braved the experience of getting a taxi -- with one taxi I had to grab the "Tourist Police" to complain about the high fare he wanted to charge me. 

a small portion of the Roman ruins at Jerash

I went to the far north to the Syrian border to see the Roman ruins of Umm Qais, and the valleys through the olive orchards to Crusader defense castles of Saladin, the Kurdish warrior of the 1100's.  Most surprising was the Roman city of Jerash, which has so many ruins I think it outshines those of Rome.   Interesting to be so close to Israel, Syria and even could see a snow capped mountain of Lebanon in the distance. 

   At Umm Qais - Israel on the left, Syria (Golan Heights) on the right and Lebanon beyond the Sea of Galilee

 One day I went with friends to the Jordan River where Jesus was baptised, then south to get out into the Dead Sea and float in the sun.  We had a good time, and the water was clean looking, but very, very salty. 

On other days I contracted with a driver and visited the "Desert Castles" of eastern Jordan.  Travelers' inns possibly dating from the 8th century.  I visited the dry oasis of Azraq, site of  the fort or castle where T.E. Lawrence of "Lawrence of Arabia" stayed during the Arab Revolution at the time of WWI.

And finally one of my most interesting acquaintances was Hakim, a Bedouin, who offers tea to travelers at his Bedouin tent next to one of the Desert Castles at Qusayr 'Amra.  I almost went off with him on a camel to see the ancient olive trees at the dry river bed!

Hakim and Donna

Venezuela -Operation Smile

I’ve returned from another Operation Smile Medical Mission – this time to Maturin, Venezuela. Four days was all the time I had to prepare for this trip, as I was asked to fill in for an Operating Room Nurse who had signed on with this mission, but had to cancel at the last minute.   I flew down there from Honolulu, via LAX and Houston, to Caracas, then had to wait 11 hours in the Caracas domestic terminal to get a flight south to Maturin.  We operated on 159 kids to repair their cleft lips and cleft palates at the local hospital.  Some days I worked up to 14 hours to get the cases done.  But it was all very much worth it to know what a change had happened in their lives.  The people were very kind and happy to have us there.  One day we were treated to an outing to see people of an outlying village doing their folk dances and songs.  We also visited a “people-run” tomato ketchup processing plant.  It was once owned by the Heinz company I’m told.  The governor of the state hosted our farewell party.

Screening the children before the days of surgery

At the tomato ketchup processing plant

In the Operating Room

  

  After the completion of the mission, I stayed a few days with four others and we traveled to the Orinoco River Delta to experience a bit of the swamp.  There was a pet capybara at the camp, I think it’s about the largest rodent there is.  At any rate, it was a baby, and cute, about the size of a medium dog.   We ventured out for a walk in the swamp (with guide), that is, until both of my feet got stuck deep in the muck and I needed help to get out.  Kind of eerie as the swamp water poured into my knee-high boots.    I wouldn’t like to be a long-term swamp dweller, but it was interesting for two days.  We stayed above the swampy ground on wooden planks in rooms with mosquito nets around the beds.  We paddled around the river and saw the piranha others had caught nearby.  Not a good place for swimming, or falling overboard from the dugout canoe.  

Our lodge for the night in the Orinoco Swamp

Local natives in dugout canoe

Pouring out swamp water from my boot

From the Orinoco we traveled more hours by boat and car to the airport at Ciudad Bolivar to get an 8-seat plane to Canaima National Park, a UNESCO World Heritage Site. There was a beautiful lagoon at the base of several small wide waterfalls.  The first thing we did is walk underneath, or behind, a long pounding waterfall, kind of like a small Niagara Falls (in my mind).  It was very wet and at one point a big scary.  Once we made it across, we had to return the same way.      

The falls at Canaima

Heading under the Canaima falls

Donna looking and feeling like a drowned rat!

The next day we made our way four hours by motorized dugout canoe up the river, through rapids to a camp near the base of Angel Falls.  It was a wet ride through the rapids and a bit scary at times, but the scenery was amazing as the clouds lifted to be able to see the high flat mountains.  The highest around is from where Angel Falls drops 3,300 feet. Supposed to be the highest free falling waterfall in the world.   This is the region that the creators of the animated movie “Up” visited to get an idea as the background for the movie.

At our base camp

We walked over an hour and a half to get a real view of the whole falls.  There some of the group decided to swim in the cold pool at the bottom.  Since it was getting late and a mist was falling, I started walking back to the river.  I had been very careful not to get my sneakers very wet because I was to wear them on the plane going home the next couple days.  But on the way down it started raining harder and harder.  The sun set and it was getting darker and darker.  I threw all caution to the wind and was grabbing every tree and hanging vine to steady myself as I high-tailed it down the rocky, root crossed trail.  I was splashing through deep pools of standing water on the trail and not even thinking about snakes and spiders and other jungle animals.  At the river our little group had to wait for the guide because we were already unsure of our route.  Eventually everyone made it down and we took the boat downriver to our camp.  It was Halloween night and we sat around the fire and told ghost stories!  Our native guide told us a few of his ancestor stories.  We retired to a set of hammocks strung under a roof.  I slept with a mosquito-net hat on, and it wasn’t too bad, but the comfort of a hammock is highly overrated, as far as I’m concerned. 

CARACAS, VENEZUELA

   We made it back to the airport the next day and flew back to the city then by car another four hours to Maturin. The next day I flew to Caracas and got an afternoon tour of the city.  The city has a reputation for crime, and there were places the driver wouldn’t go, but there was an impressive view from the top of a gondola ride to the see the panorama of Caracas.  It was a long flight back home, but I was very happy to have had the opportunity to see such an interesting country, and meet the hospitable people in Venezuela.

Veteran's Day Salute - My Hague Family

I wanted to list all my relations that have been in the US Military for this Veteran's Day, but alas, there are so many.  I'll just show the photos of a few of my family with the Hague surname.  Perhaps more next year.   My great-great grandfather, James Hague, came to the USA in 1848 from England.  His son, Joseph H. Hague was the first of our Hagues to be in the US military.
     

 Joseph H. Hague b. 1841 in Dukinfield, Lancashire, England, was in the Union Army in the Civil War in 1864. Co. F. 47th Infantry Reg. Iowa.  He was active in GAR activies for the rest of his life.   He died at Des Moines, Iowa in 1922.

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  My dad's uncle, William Henry Hague, Jr. was born in 1880 in Delaware Township, Polk Co., Iowa, on the family farm.  He was in World War I. Unfortunately he was gassed or "shell shocked" and was never the same when he returned, but he had quite a knack getting the plow horses to behave, and he loved to walk everywhere, rather than ride a car.  His brother (My dad's father, Alfred George Hague) was designated his guardian.  "Uncle Billy" died in 1960 in Knoxville, Iowa.
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 My dad's brother, Wallace Eugene Hague, was born in 1913 in Des Moines, Polk co., Iowa.  He came to California with his family when he was young.  He joined the Army Air Corps at the start of WWII.  He remained in the Air Force for 30 years and was stationed in the Pacific and was a part of the Berlin Air Lift in WWII.  He died in Oregon in 1983 after retiring to Gold Beach, OR.

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  My dad, Alfred Vincent Hague, was born in 1909 in Des Moines, Iowa.  He was not in the regular Air Force.  His occupation with the telephone company was deemed critical to the war effort and so he joined the Civil Air Patrol out of Los Angeles, California.  He was a private pilot and participated in Civil Air Patrol search and rescues, and later ham radio emergency relay activities in Hemet, California where he died in 1993
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My brother, Richard Vincent Hague was born in Los Angeles in 1941.  He volunteered for the Air Force during the Vietnam War and served in Vietnam and Thailand.  He was in the Air Police.  After his military service he settled in Nevada where he was a criminoloist with the Las Vegas Metropolitan Police Department (CSI).  He died there in 2006.
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I'll add myself, Donna Marilyn Hague.  I was born in 1945 in Los Angeles, on August 7th, between the bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.   I spent 26 active duty years in the Army Nurse Corps specializing in Operating Room Nursing.  For four years I was stationed at Landstuhl Army Regional Medical Center, in Germany.   The years I served in the Army were between the Vietnam War and the Iraq War.  I retired to Hawaii, one of my last duty stations (Tripler Army Medical Center).

Nine Eleven

On this tenth anniversary of the Nine Eleven 2001, I've watched all the TV specials and remember that day while in Hartford, CT - doing genealogy research - watching the news in horror and disbelief.  Two months later (Nov 14, 2001) I took a train from Boston into New York City and took some photos of ground zero.  I've also visited the site at Shanksville, Pennsylvania.  The lingering pain is too much for words.
   But below are some of the photos I took ten years ago:

My place in Honolulu today 9/11/11