Jill, and Carol are working out the activities for the reunion starting in a little over 2 weeks, and need your input!  The activities that need the most coordination are:

1. The Wednesday night Dinner Buffet
    (Will you, your family be in attendance? How many of you?)

2. The 2 hour boat trip
    (See Carol's comments below)

3. The Friday Night Lobster Dinner - How many lobsters do you want ($12 for a one lobster meal; a second lobster with the meal is an additional $8).  How many want macaroni and cheese instead of lobster?

Please let them know via either direct email, or by responding on the blog, what you are interested in.

And because it would be a shame not to include a photo or 2 on the blog, here are some more.  If you have looked through the photos on the Photo Album, you may have noted a rather consistent connection to the ocean in several photos.  Perhaps this photo of Ward and Linda and some of their children at one of their leisure pastimes will give an indication as to why Stone relatives seem so drawn to the water...  (Check out even more beach photos on the Snapshots page.)

There is the family joke about how Gregory Stone came to the colonies on the good ship “Increase” and how “they have been increasing ever since.”  Ward and Linda had 7 children and those 7 children, our parents and aunts and uncle, had 26 children.  No, I am not going to get into who begets whom.  I am considering myself very fortunate that in less than a month, I will get to see several of those cousins.  We don’t have a specific count yet of who will be here for the reunion, but there will be at least 8 of us first cousins (Linda Jo, Doug, Michael, Larry, Bonnie, Jeffrey, Jill, Carol for starters) plus several of the next generation and the next.  Sadly, there are 3 cousins who will not be in attendance but will be with us in spirit.  Hardly a day goes by that I don’t think of my sister, Gail, and I am sure that is true for Sharon and Christopher, too.  Three of our 26 cousins have died much too young.  Christopher was on a cross-country bicycle trip in 1979, Gail succumbed to cancer after a brief but valiant battle in 1989, and Sharon most recently died after a many year struggle to overcome cancer also.  I know we hold them in our hearts and in that way they will be with us as we gather on Cousins Day.

Sincerely,

Jill Martel

Webmaster's Note:  You can find photos of Gail and Christopher on the Photo Album.  I have included the photo of Sharon and her family here, since I do not have complete information on them or on Sharon's siblings yet.  When I do, I will move her over to the Photo Album with all of them.

James and I will be making a trip out to southern California for Comic Con International (yep, we're nerds) and will drive up to Maine immediately afterwards to be at the reunion.  Due to this I will not likely be making posts after the 13th, since I'll either be wending my way through 150,000 comic and pop-culture fans trying to catch a glimpse of the Walking Dead cast, or on the road.  I will be posting multiple blog posts, and updates throughout the next 2 weeks.  Please check back at least once a week, to see what has been updated.  Unfortunately, Weebly has not made a phone App that will allow me to edit the site from there, or I could do it on the road.  Anyway, below is the first of a series of blog posts from Jill.  I'll be posting the others later this week, and will have more photo posts to add as well.

- Katy

***************************************

Thank you, Jennifer, for all of the great pictures of your family that you sent.  Katy has added some of them to the website (check The Photo Album and Snapshots) and will be adding more as she can.  Jennifer came up with a neat way of sending copies of the photos.  She just took a photo of the photo with her phone, and then emailed it to me.  No muss, no fuss.  The photo that came through loses some quality of course, but it makes the task very easy and quick.  So follow suit, my cousins, and send photos pronto. 

As Katy said in the previous blog, July 24 isn’t very far off.  And I am some excited.  A couple of weeks ago, I spoke with Colleen and know that she and Jeffrey plan to load their Harleys and begin their journey east on July 12.  Wish them dry skies and clear roads.

Just this past week I spoke with Jane, the manager of the Bay Leaf Cottages and Motel, where a number of us are staying.  Our cottages and rooms are all set.  Jane asked if we could have our lobster dinner on Friday evening instead of Thursday evening as originally planned as she has a Maine Seafood appetizer class scheduled for Thursday evening.  I thought Friday would be all right for everyone so I said okay.  If it absolutely is not, please let me know immediately.  A week before the dinner, we have to let her know how many people are having lobster, how many lobsters for each person, how many people want macaroni and cheese instead, and whether we want baked potato, potato salad, or steak fries as the potato side dish.  I think everyone gets the same, so I guess we will decide by majority vote.  To get more information about the Bay Leaf’s lobster supper, look at their website at www.bayleafcottages.com.  Oh, and Jane said they would set up games such as ping-pong in the garage for people to play while visiting.

Jane told me about the cooking class on Thursday evening.  For $20 for each participant, the class makes and eats a number of dishes including spring roll with lobster tail, pan grilled shrimp, mussels marinara with linguine, a soup with another kind of seafood – much more than appetizers from the sounds of it! 

We have reservations for Saturday night’s meal in the hall of the Rockland Congregational Church.  Carol, Linda Jo, and I had quite a discussion via speaker phone one evening when we decided to keep our last supper of the reunion in casual mode, getting together in a hall where we will have the place to ourselves.  If all goes well, we may have some family photos on display as well as a surprise from Carol.  There is a piano in the hall, so if you can play, please limber up your fingers and we will sing some songs.  Better yet, let Carol and Bill know ([email protected]) you will be bringing an instrument to add to their fiddle and – which instrument is Bill bringing?  Maybe Sue will be able to bring her ukulele.  Here is an interesting aside:  one of the old, old photos that I haven’t scanned yet is of a group of young people, all holding their ukuleles.  One of the students in the photo is Aunt Hazel and the average age of the children is 10 years old or so.  Things do go in cycles.  I just read an article about the increasing popularity of the instrument these days.  So the uke was popular in the 1920s and is becoming popular almost 100 years later.  But I digress.

To get back to the topic of our Saturday supper for a minute, I will just say that the menu is still open.  In keeping with the goal of keeping the evening as relaxed as possible, we will be sticking with a menu of simple comfort and easy food.  It may not be an evening for foodies but we will have a good time visiting, talking, toasting Aunt Mary, and celebrating some birthdays.

We have some ideas of where to have a picnic near the water but really haven’t settled on one place yet.  Marshall Point seems like a good possibility.  There is a lighthouse there, a little museum, and maybe a spot to fish for mackerel.  There are a couple of sandwich shops on the way where the fixings for a picnic could be easily obtained.  However, if I remember correctly, there is no beach or access to the water.  Lucia beach, or Birch Point State Park as it is now known, has a nice beach and gentle water for swimming if one can stand the cold water, but the picnic tables are few and hard to get to as they are up on the rocks along the side of the cove.  I do hope we can go swimming there at least once during our stay as that is Aunt Mary’s favorite place to swim in the ocean.  If we want to picnic near fresh water with some swimming, Megunticook and Chickiewaukee are both possibilities.


- Jill

I've gotten a bit behind in updates as we get closer an closer to the reunion.  Can you believe, we're only about a month away?  Anyway, I've got lots of updates for the Photo Album, Snapshots, and Lineage Page.  Jill send multiple batches of photos of both the original Stone siblings, as well as children and grandchildren.  I have started entering Shirley Stone's family pictures and Lineage, and will move on to Nancy next.

This time I'm going to feature multi-generational photos in the blog.  We actually have a number of them, and more will be available on the Snapshots page as I add them throughout the week, so please check back soon.  The picture below is a photo of my immediate family, grandmother (Nana), and Uncle Tony.  (I'm the one in the garish yellow shirt.)  If you have any multi generation  photos, please send them to me or Jill to post on the Snapshots page

From another offshoot of the Stone family, we have 3 generations of daughters.  Shirley (Stone) MacNeil, Jennifer (MacNeil) Swain, and her first 2 daughters Kristen and Courtney.

On a side note, I should mention that I do my best to retouch old photos to look as good as they can on a computer screen. I am not a professional retoucher though, so I must apologize that not all photos will turn out perfectly.
- Katy

Lots of photos came in after my last post.  We've now got pictures of the Martels, Connors and the Kramp family on the Photo Album page.  I'll be uploading even more photos on the snapshots page a little bit later as well.  We're still missing any photos, and a lot of info particularly of the Canadian cousins.  Please get that information in so I can fill in the gaps.

Bill and Carol Kramp have also sent in a Midi file for "Stone's Rag" and the words for 'Mary is a Grand Old Name' in honor of Aunt Mary.  They are learning to play them both for the reunion.  You can hear part of Mary's a Grand Old Name on the movie Yankee Doodle Dandy from 1942, although it was actually written in the 1890s.  If anyone knows any other Mary songs, please sent them in, so we can all learn them.

Lastly we've added another link to Ward and Linda's children.  Jill found some photos of Edgar Stone, his wife, Doris, and their children.  You can see Edgar and Doris on the Photo Album, and the children will be posted in Snapshots later.   In addition some photos of Edgar and Ward together were found as well.  These photos lend such a sense of time and history for me.  The portrait of Ward on the home page looks to be of him in his late teens to early 20s, right about the time he was crossing the threshold from boy to man.  In the photo below, he is a grown man and father, with his son at 15, starting to cross that threshold himself. 

Oh, if you were wondering who the 3 girls were in the last post, this is yet another photo of multiple generations, although you might not have guessed it.  From left to right, Nancy Stone, Mary Stone, and last is their niece, a very young Linda Eaton.  It was taken at some point between 1948 and 1952.

That's it for now.  Please check back over the week, to see the family photos that are added to the Snapshots page.

- Katy

I got a lot of family photos to put over the last week, and a one Picture of the Week for family to try and identify who's in it. You can see it above.  In addition, Jill send in a really fantastic old recipe for Macaroni and Cheese that can be found in The Stone Cookbook.  Make sure to check it out, along with the story that goes with it.

There are also more mid century photos of the Stone daughters, Hazel and Pauline, and their husbands, as well as a baby photo of Linda from 1915.  Check them out on the Snapshots and Photo Album Pages.

We're still in need of photos and info from a lot of our cousins.  The majority of the photos of earlier generations so far have come from Jill.  In addition to old photos, we need photos of the younger generations as well.  (... says the Webmaster who actually hasn't gotten a photo of herself, or her husband up yet either. :-/)  I know that photos can be something that not everyone is keen to show off (including me) but then I look at this wonderful collection of our parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents and more, and I realize that if they thought the way I did, we wouldn't have these memories to share with each other. Our children wouldn't be able to relate to the family members they've never met, and that makes me sad.  So look through the old scrap books, go process that film that's been sitting in the freezer for ages, or even break out your smart (or not so smart) phone and capture some memories.  Doesn't matter if it's a serious portrait, or a funny candid photo, please send it along.

- Kathryn (Katy) Dodd

What great news, Katy:  58 individual hits on the website in one day.  We are up and running! 

Ah, yes, the old sayings and superstitions.  (See blog entry below) I miss the old sayings.  There may be some truth to them.  I try to eat an apple a day, and so far it has worked for me.  All of the sayings Carol mentioned are ones I grew up with, too, including catching flies with honey instead of vinegar.  How true that is!  Another superstition to add to the list is don’t put your hat on the bed or you will have bad luck.

On Tuesday I will be traveling to Rockland to look at the function room of the Rockland Congregational Church and to meet with the owner of the Brown Bag to see about catering for Saturday night.  If there is time, I hope to look at a couple of restaurants that are possibilities or catch up with one or two other caterers.  Aunt Mary and Uncle Emery have invited me to lunch, so my motivation may evaporate if the day is as lovely as today was.  We are having a true and rare spring here, and sitting on their deck, enjoying the warmth of the sun, watching the pines and oaks, and chatting with them may prove to be too relaxing.

Today’s photo is of our cousins in England.  I had the privilege of meeting them when I was only 12.  We were on our way home from Ankara, Turkey, and stopped in England for a 2 week visit as my mother (Pauline) knew it was a once in a lifetime opportunity for the family to see London, the countryside, and the relatives still in Bournemouth.  This photo was taken by Uncle Bill when he and Aunt Linda visited England in April of 1973.  I don’t know much about the women in the photo except Renee rode her bicycle to her work every day and they had a beautiful cottage garden filled with flowers.  I don’t know their last names, how they were related to Grammie (Linda Slack Stone) or each other, or if there are any other relatives still living, but these women are (left to right):  Phyllis, Renee, Marjorie, and Aunt Aimee.  The one on the right is (Aunt) Linda Eaton.  I hope to ask Aunt Mary if she has any information.  Perhaps Linda Jo has?

All the best,

Jill Martel

Stone Family Sayings and Suspicions

It would be fun to share family sayings that have been passed down.  Our family had some sayings that are pretty common.  My mother (Linda Eaton) often told us, "An apple a day keeps the doctor away."  My husband's family had one: "You attract more flies with honey than with vinegar." 

Ma enjoyed funny little suspicions which I assume were passed down to her.  One was, if you spilled the salt you had to throw a pinch over your left shoulder (to keep the devil away).  I had left for school one day and realized I had forgotten something.  I ran back in the house, got the item and was about to leave when Ma said, "Sit down first!"  It was bad luck to go into a house and then leave without sitting down! 

Any others out there!

Carol Kramp

Hi, everyone,

I am beginning to look at menus and such for our dinners.  Do you have any food allergies or intolerences that I should know about?  What are they?  Do you know of any allergies among the folks who aren't getting this message?

As a side note, there will be vegetarian choices available.

Love to all,
Jill
PS:  Photo of the day:  Can you identify who these youngsters are?  (Hint:  three of them are sisters and the fourth is their older cousin who, along with her 2 brothers, lived with them after their mother died).

Check out this wonderful photo that Jill found and sent in!!  She wrote the following about her discovery.

"Today let’s take a stroll down memory lane for Linda and Bill’s family.  Here is a picture that was evidently sent from Aunt Linda to my mother Pauline of the Eaton family celebrating Uncle Bill’s birthday.  Aunt Linda wrote on the back of the photo, “Bill’s birthday, without Bill.  He’s the official photographer.  Next time I’ll have some pictures of him- by hook or by crook.”  Seated around the table are Linda Jo, Tony, Aunt Linda, Carol, and Doug."

A bit of chatting with the kids in the photo came up with even more information.  This photo can be dated to 1957 and was taken after the Eatons had moved to Cranford.  Linda on the lefthand side, would have been in 9th grade, and Carol, the youngest, is 4.  On the far right is Ruth Stone, aka Grammie Eaton, who was called The Mater by Linda and Bill.

Another photo we didn't have previously is this VERY old photo of Mater Litchfield/Barringer, Linda (Slack) Stone's Grandmother. She is not technically a part of the Stone family, but she is part of our family history.  Per Jill,

"The story goes:  Linda's mother died young of tuberculosis, when both Linda and her brother were quite young.  Her grandmother raised her and her brother because their father was unavailable.  Linda's grandmother was both a Litchfield and a Barringer.  Aunt Mary thought she may have married twice.  Litchfield relatives of hers lived in America.  Twice, she and Linda sailed to America to visit the Litchfields, which is why I have photos of Litchfields.  On the second trip, Linda did not return to England with her grandmother as she had fallen in love with Ward and would remain in America to marry him.  Nice story, huh?  I don't have great-great-grammie's first name yet but hope to get it.  She did sign the card "Mater" which of course was a formal term for mother in England."

These photos are a treasure trove of family history and memories.  Please send in clean, uncompressed scans to post on the website with stories we can share about them.

In other page updates, there are more photos on the Photo Album page, and I've added a Snapshot page, where this and other group photos will go.  The Lineage page continues to be updated as additional family members, corrections, and additions are made.  Please feel free to email Jill or myself, or reply to this blog with your updates.

- Kathryn (Katy) Dodd