Vale Road and River Bluff

MY BOOKS AT LULU

Over the years I've published some family history at Lulu.com  Here are some of the covers. My goodness I forgot how many until this moment.

MADAM DE VALCOURT

Quite by accident I received an e-mail from a gentleman in France referring me to some records on Steve's ancestor, Madam DeValcourt.  We've had a picture of her for years, but it turn out that there is yet another by a famous artist known as Carmontelle.  The new "find" inspired me to gather all the information on Madam and publish a book.  It's at Lulu.com.  I became fascinated with the life of Madam when I realized that her husband, his father and grandfather all served in the courts of Louis IV to VI and that the couple probably visited Versailles and certainly lived in Paris during the French Revolution.  The book includes all the facts from my database and to put some meat on the bones I wrote a narrative.  What fun.

Now I have the prize of all prizes sent to me by Gene Lockwood son of Martha Lockwood.  Here are the pictures of Sieur Jean DeValcourt as well as Alexandre the couple's son.  You can learn all about them by visiting my web page at
margotwoodrough.com

Here is Alexandre

 Here is Sieur Jean Baptiste DeValcourt who was enobled by Louis XVI for good and faithful service.

ON A ROLL

In the past 24 hours I've managed to resuscitate my blog, tweak Steve's and give Don Floyd a hand. Good weekends work. It's now 4:30 and I'm expecting a call from Shannon who lives in Japan. Since she's on my mind I feature a work of art she created.

Dresses through the years

It's hard to believe that I've sewed for the kidlets for almost eleven years.  Here are some samples. These were reversible front to back and inside out.  Fun to see they wore a couple to China.

THE CAPTAIN AND THOMASINE

Grew up a girl, became a soldier, dressed as a woman,defended herself in stunning Jamestown court case. Cross-dressing was not all that uncommon in the 17th Century, not among the English and not among the Native Americans of Virginia. But the Thomas/Thomasine Hall case of 1629 was not about cross-dressing as we think of it today. It was about choice-dressing – it was about America’s first known intersexual, her struggle for identity in a male-female world and her choice to dress as a woman despite efforts of settlers in Jamestown to force her to dress as a man. Thomasine Hall testified during a March 25, 1629, session of the Council and General Court of Colonial Virginia that she was christened as a girl in Newcastle upon Tyne, named Thomasine and was raised as a girl. She considered herself a girl in childhood and a woman in adulthood. It was her wish to be called a woman, to be called Thomasine, which was her birth name.I designed the cover and did the interior formatting including using IMFell font which was designed during the dearly 17th century.

Book is available for download or in hard copy at Lulu.com
Here is the link to Don Floyd's Blog

http://captainandthomasine.blogspot.com/2010/10/captain-thomasine_19.html

MEMORY DOLLS

These dolls have been a secret till this very moment. Only two of my best friends, Margaret Fuselier and husband Steve have seen them. They are carefully tucked away as gifts for the "kidlets" when they are older. Each doll is dressed in something special from the past and each wears jewelry from ancestors. I've assigned one to each of the girls and they come complete with a full description. I must design something for Stephen.

You will note that there are seven female "kidlets" and yet you only see six dolls. This project was completed before Anna Margaret was born - but once we knew she was on the way, I scrambled to do a doll for her, but that was after the photo session.