Family - Methodist Orphanage

Entrance to the Orphanage - c1953

Van Bldg - School & Admin -c1953

Cottages - "Homes" - c1953

Classmates - c1955

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So, I said I had three extended families and I have to admit they are much different than most. My Mother and Father divorced when I was about seven years old. Unfortunately, my Father’s family also “divorced” us so without a job and limited resources, my Mother couldn’t raise seven kids; the youngest was only two and the eldest about twelve. Hence, the four middle kids ended up in Methodist Orphanage in Raleigh, NC.

This posting is going to be more about my “Orphanage Family” than about the Home itself (the Methodist Orphanage name changed around 1954 to Methodist Home for Children). Although, there are a lot of good things I can say about the Home (maybe will later), I want to concentrate on the Family.

The Family, as I use it today, refers mostly to the kids that I grew up with, but it also refers to many of the wonderful dedicated staff who took kids without a place to live and molded them, in most cases, to very happy, productive and successful citizens.

In the last posting, I talked about my Mother and Grandmother being two of the most important influences on my life. Well, having spent ten years at the Orphanage, many of the staff must get credit for the man that I am today: Muh Brown, Coach Smith, Coach Brown, Rev. Barrett and Rev. Hedden just to mention a few. There are many more so I have included a picture above of the 1955 Staff.

Now the most important part of this Family: the kids in the Home. We were like most families, except maybe there were a lot more of us: somewhere around two hundred, which included kids from about four to seventeen years old. One of the fondest memories of my stay at the Home was the “Annual Easter Home Coming”, which brought back the “big boys” whom we all looked up to when they were at the Home. This was such an important part of our life that today we still have an Annual Reunion every Easter that draws over two hundred.

Family - Hong Kong

Jenny's Mom & Dad - c1960

Jenny & her Sisters - 1988

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I’m one lucky individual to have the support and love of what I called three different extended families. I have already posted on my blog one and today I would like to tell you about my family in Hong Kong.

It is difficult to put into words what I feel about my “Hong Kong” family; suffice it to say that I feel that I am as much a part of the family as my wife is who, of course, is related by blood. My wife always jokingly says that the family loves me more! In any case I know that I am loved and accepted as a member of this extended family.

Anyone who knows anything about Chinese Culture knows about the importance that is place on the family; a great deal of emphasis is placed on family values and maintaining close family links. I think this is one reason why the ethnic Chinese is so successful in not only their country, but also in other countries. I know in Hong Kong it is far easier than in the States to maintain close family links because Hong Kong is so small, but still there is a significant difference in the closeness in most Chinese families compared to western families.

Anyway I think you understand my love, devotion, and respect for my Hong Kong family. I know that they will always be there for me.

I have included in this posting a picture of my wife’s Mother and Father and a picture of my wife and her two sisters. I have included in previous posting, most if not all, of this extended family.

Family

Mother - c1954

Grandmother - c1947

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I have been thinking a lot about our family getting together in June, so I thought I would write something about how we got started having annual family reunions.

First, about our family: We are basically a southern family with roots in North Carolina that date back to mid 18th century, when one Mr. Jacob Braswell (actually his name was spelled “Brassel” in the 1790 Census and in many other documents until early 19th century when it changed to the current spelling) migrated south from Isle of Wight County, Virginia. Today the family is scattered over many states: Florida, South Carolina, New Hampshire, New York, California, Georgia, Virginia, Nebraska, Kansas, Texas, Louisiana, and of course North Carolina where several members of our family still live within several miles of the original Braswell Family Farm purchased in 1778.

As early as I can remember, our family always got together at Thanksgiving to not only celebrates Thanksgiving but Mother’s Birthday, which happened to be on November 28th. However, when Mother passed away in 1997, we decided we had to change the date and we picked the first week-end in June 1998 and have had our reunions every year on that weekend or the second weekend. For several years we kept the reunions in Johnston County North Carolina (our home county) until in 2006 our sister Joan invited us to Pawleys Island, South Carolina. This year our reunion will be in New Bern, NC on June 5-7th.

Our extended family now totals about fifty-five and growing, but slower! We normally have about thirty to forty at our reunions; last year in Richmond, VA we had forty-four.

In my life I can count on one hand the people who have had the most influence on my life and pictured above are my mother and grandmother who rank at the very top.

Mohonk Mountain House, New Paltz, New York

I have been writing about exotic places around the world: Hong Kong, Guangzhou, China, several places in South America, and England. Now is the time to tell you about a great place to visit in the Catskill Mountains in New York.

The Mohonk Mountain House is in New Paltz, New York, about 100 miles north of Manhattan with easy access from I-87. It is surrounded by thousands of acres of beautiful forest and lakes. The Mountain House is a seven-story castle. It has been designated a National Historic Landmark and is a great place for family recreation.

We were there in early March 2007 and found plenty of winter activity available to all: cross-country skiing, ice skating, hiking, indoor swimming pool and of course just curling up in front of a fire place and reading a book. I’m sure that the list of summer activities is endless.

When I sent my son the picture shown above, he thought it was a picture of one of the places we have visited in Europe. It is that beautiful.

Stonehenge, England – September 2006

Pictures taken by Jenny

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Since I have posted our visits to ruins of Manchu Picchu in Peru and Khmer Temples in Cambodia, I thought I would add another World Heritage Site: Stonehenge, England.

We visited Stonehenge as part of our fall 2006 Ireland trip with my sister Frances and her husband Dr. Jan Creech. Jenny & I continued on to Scotland and England while Frances and Jan returned to the States. After a beautiful trip to Scotland and a stopover in the historic town of York, we then continued on to London where we made a trip down to Salisbury and Stonehenge.

Much is known about the Manchu Picchu and the temples the Khmer Rulers built, but there is a great deal of disagreement as to exactly how the Stonehenge site was built, who built it, why it was built and exactly when it was built, although most archaeologists place the date of the current ruins around 2500BC. However, some work using wood was probably constructed a couple thousand years earlier.

But the amazing aspects of this is how did they get these huge stones, weighing upwards to 6-8000 pounds and which could have come as far away as 150 miles, to the site and then erected them. And of course, what we saw and the pictures I’m posting today is just a small part of the original site. As beautiful as it is today, think of what it looked like a thousand or so years ago!

This is a wonderful, historical place and well worth visiting.

Zola Ruth

All of the above pictures were taken in 2008, except the black and white; it was taken in August 2007
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Well I warned all of you! I said from time to time I would be posting information on our granddaughter, so here goes.

This posting will be short on words but long on pictures since, as they say, “a picture is worth a thousand words”.

Our granddaughter lives about four hours from us and although certainly not as close as we would like, it is close enough for us to go as often as we can without wearing out our welcome!

All of these pictures were taken by our daughter, Peggy Wong; you can visit her web site at bluepoolroad.com where you can see just how talented she really is.

Iguaçu Falls - February 2006

The Pictures really need no explanations! Just spectacular!

The bottom picture was taken from our hotel room.

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When Jenny & I started planning our trip to South America there were always two major requirements: we must find a way to visit Iguaçu Falls and Manchu Picchu. So when we found a cruise that sailed out of Buenos Aires down to Falkland Island and around Cape Horn and ended up in Lima Peru; we said this is it!

We were able to add a pre-cruise trip to Iguaçu Falls and a post-cruise trip to Manchu Picchu. This was just perfect. I have already, in a previous posting, talked about Manchu Picchu and now I would like to post our trip to Iguaçu Falls.

We arrive in Buenos Airs around noon, checked into the Sheraton Park Tower Hotel and then Jenny and I hit streets. This is what we do in most places; we love to walk around the city; it is a great way to get to know the place. Riding a bus on a tour just doesn’t get. More on Buenos Aires perhaps in another posting!

The next morning we were up early for a flight that took about an hour and a half to Iguaçu Falls. When we arrived it was so hot and muggy, since it is about 13 degrees north of the Equator. I didn’t tell you but this is February 2006? And as you know it was summer in South America.

Iguaçu Falls, one of the world’s most awesome series of jumps, cascade or waterfalls (whatever you want to call them) is located in the Iguaçu National Park on the border between Brazil and Argentina. The Falls are over two miles wide with 275 jumps, and a total height of 180 feet. This falls is the widest in the World, although the water that runs over the falls is not near as much as that of Niagara. This site was declared a World Heritage Area by UNESCO in 1984.

We had a great time here! All we did basically was hike around the trails to see as many of the cascades as we could. What a spectacular place! We really enjoyed this trip. We stayed at the Sheraton Hotel overlooking the falls, very much like the Sheraton overlooking Niagara Falls, however, not as close to falls as that one; we could still see one of the falls from our hotel window. Beautiful view!