As promised, I am closing this blog with the picture of family of Sarah and Thomas Hall Maxfield with 10 of their 14 children-Grant Maxfield is not in the picture and three were yet to be born. Compare it to the digital images from my trip. Only one chimney was still there, but it looked as if two other chimneys had been covered with metal plates. Thank you for coming along with me as I travelled to find my ancestors, it has been quite an adventure! [View Full Entry]

---

---

This morning the song of "Bob White, Bob White, Bob White," was back again. There is a huge wind chime outside my window that bongs rather than trills. It is so quite here-even quiter than back home in Auburn. The breeze is up and my curtains are billowing: I simply cannot believe that I am going back home today. Once I start trying to stuff all of my Illinois-dirty laundry into my suitcases, it becomes apparent that I must. I'm out of clean clothes, my electric toothbrush needs recharging, I'm in serious need of exfoliating, and I'm desperate to take [View Full Entry]

---

---

Yes, it truly was the worst coffee I have ever had! It was the color of weak tea and when you are travelling alone in an unknown part of the country with absolutely no sense of direction-well, coffee is very important. This was followed by a 30 minute check out disaster and then directions from the hotel that sent me in exactly the OPPOSITE direction from where I needed to be. By now you know that I have a very underdeveloped sense of direction and an unreliable GPS, which culminated in a 100 mile detour to get back to Toulon. [View Full Entry]

---

---

There are some days that just don't work out at all like they were planned. Today was one of them. [View Full Entry]

---

---

This morning I left Toulon for an Abraham Lincoln side trip. Culture shock! The drive in was beautiful-2 lane highways that wind through small towns and corn fields, and corn fields, and corn fields! Along the way I stopped at the New Salem historical park. It is a living history park and they have done a good job of recreating the feel of a small frontier town-only a lot cleaner and with lots more things to buy. It was also filled with an obnoxious tour group of teen-agers, many summer day care groups, and lots of hot, sweaty families with [View Full Entry]

---

---

I picked Cay up and we headed out to Kewanee because I had spotted a Java Hut: oh, the luxury of a lattee!. It was an interesting place: the girl at the counter asked if wanted to tan, to get a haircut, or???? How ingenious to have a day spa, tanning, hair, piercing,and tattoo salon with a coffee bar: and the receptionist was wearing a pirate eye patch..... Oh, if only I would have had more time, energy, and money! ( I am not making fun of a disability-she had poked herself in the eye, or something about her contact [View Full Entry]

---

---

Okay, now I know about humidity. We had thunder, lightning, and downpours today. It cleared mid-morning and I went to the graveyard to take pictures and just have some time to spend alone. By the time I walked from my car to the row of Maxfield tombstones, I was totally drenched, I would say in my own sweat, but I think that women are supposed to "glow." Anyway, despite the fact that I felt that I was carrrying around my own personal sauna, the overcast sky created good light for pictures. I would get the picture all set and then, [View Full Entry]

---

---

We travelled out to the land where the Maxfield School had once been. The master of genealogy, Don Schmidt, told me that under all the overgrowth there was a slanted top rail on the fence. He would walk to school-by this time his family had purchased the school as their home-trying to balance on that top rail. The field is now planted in soy beans. Don's mother, Dorothy, joined us for lunch and told us stories that she remembered about my family. It turns out that my Great Uncle Ulysses Grant Maxfield was the first grade teacher of Don's dad. [View Full Entry]

---

---

Did you know that Bobwhite Quail actually say "Bob White, Bob White, Bob White"? And did you know that they start saying "Bob White" at about 6 AM? It is actually a surprisingly wonderful way to wake up-even though my body thinks that it is 4 AM. It was also hard to sleep much longer when I realized that today would probably be the most important genealogy day of my trip. Today, I was going out to the old house on the Maxfield land-now owned by someone else- to see if we could identify it against the picture that my [View Full Entry]

---

---

Peoria to Indian Creek Vineyard and the Chateau I made it to Peoria and my luggage even arrived in the general time frame that I did. I had to wait around for it a bit, so the ticket counter lady gave me a couple of food vouchers: every time I turn around, someone at Delta is giving me a food voucher. Shortly thereafter, sitting in The Hangar (I believe it was called) restaurant and surveying the fine list of deep fat fried or red meat selections, I realized that I am going to be starting a serious diet when I [View Full Entry]

---

---