Boys and Girls

No, this isn't going to be a sex education blog and point out the obvious difference between little boys and girls.  It is the numbers that interest me.   The Petty Girls seem to not remember that there was a proliferation of little girls in some families and seem surprised when two in a row turn out to be boys.  Lets see, Rick had two daughters, Myrna had two daughters, Carol had two daughters and one boy,  Beck had three daughters, Janet had two daughters.  See, the world turns slowly and the numbers catch up.  Yes, I understand it is the contribution of the fathers that determine the sex of the child. 

This picture has absolutely nothing to do with the topic below. It is just a pretty bridge .

On our Road Scholar Trip, one of the presentations was about the people in and around Desert Mountain Island (MDI - home to Bar Harbor and Martha Stewart) as the Civil War erupted around them.  This is the 150th Anniversary of that terrible War and historians are looking for ways to tie it to modern times.  Right prior to the Civil War, the percentage of women on MDI was about 46%.  Even though they sent a large percentage of their men to war, and lost almost 25% of those that served, by the time of the next census, the percentage was again about the same.  One of the reasons MDI was populated with so many more men was that they had a lot of laborers to quarry the granite.  The Scots came to take out the big blocks and Italian men came to carve granite trim for buildings.  I'm pretty sure that a lot of them came as indentured servants and were not able to bring their families over to the New World until they moved to new places.  

Barb's great-great Grandfather came to America without his family.  It wasn't until he and his brother both were farming that they could bring their families over from Germany.  I talked to a  German School teacher and he indicated that in the 1870's a lot of Germans immigrated in that manner.  There had been a change in the way German land was owned and a lot of small farmers had to come to America to make a living.  


Oh well, miles to go and things to do.  Write if you get work.


MUD