the march of progress

Since so many people have discovered my blog, it seemed sort of silly to have the link to it hidden behind a picture on the MY CARD page, which was already a link from the main page (got that?). Over 3000 separate warm bodies peeked at this blog at some point last month! Wow. You can't all be friends of my sister, can you?

With ease of navigation in mind (never mind the confusion that all this causes), I changed the MY CARD link on the main page to a MY BLOG link to this page. And if you look in the yellow box to the right, you'll see a new link to: "All the news that's fit to print, and some that isn't." That's where you'll find the page that (hopefully) changes weekly, and includes things like pictures for my mother to look at and things I wasn't sure belonged where, like the long-legged snipe logo and the picture of Mrs. Cooley of which I'm rather fond.

I'm so fond of that Mrs. Cooley photo, I've added it to this entry in living color. I have a larger copy framed and hanging over my desk. Emma Cooley, as you should know, was the mother of Paul and George Cooley, and the wife of Frank M. Cooley. The Cooley family is mentioned in On the Way Home.

Emma Cooley had a sister, Clara Newell, who lived in Kingsbury County, and remained there long after the Cooleys moved to Missouri. Clara taught in the De Smet school in 1900. Frank Cooley's mother homesteaded in Kingsbury County (down near the Bouchie School), and Frank's sister Mary was also a teacher in Kingsbury County.

George Cooley's son once told me a story about his grandmother. She was living with his family and he was driving her somewhere. He put on brakes suddenly and Mrs. Cooley was so tiny (and this was in the days before seat belts) that she slid off the front seat and her whole body ended up fitting on the floorboard on the passenger side. When he looked over, he didn't even see her because she was out of sight in the space beneath the glove compartment!
- posted by pioneergirl at 1:59 AM