13. my FB page today

Earlier today, you posted some photos of your wintery backyard and beyond on Facebook, something you have not done before. The photos and your commentary belong on this blog for their authenticity and because you had no prior thought on publishing them here. – Ms. Havisham

2048. I don't really see that what I publish on my Facebook page has any relevance to this blog. This blog is between you, Ms. H., and Grandma Earth, and the focus on this on the pre-publication of a book based on "Grandma's Stories" in The Merlyn's Mind series. 2051. The Facebook piece was not thought out in advance. It was a pretty winter day, and the snow looks refreshingly seasonable.

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Richard H. Orndorff

 

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From Sunroom in Winter / Orange Township / Delaware Co. / Westerville, Ohio - just southeast of Alum Creek Dam and east of Africa Road and I-71. 

This area was the Underground Railroad. The freed slaves stayed right here on this farmland to travel further north. This is still sacred territory as far as I am concerned. Here is why. 

I met a man who had been born and raised a slave who lived on West Walnut in Westerville. I don't remember my thoughts at the meeting other than I was with my grandfather, Clell Orndorff, who resided at Knox and Walnut. I was standing three doors west on an old side porch, and Mr. Press Reynolds was standing on the porch with the screen door open. The house paint of the small one-story house was blue. With kind old eyes, Mr. Reynolds was like one of those granite stones that lined west to east across the street at Otterbein Cemetery. Mr. Reynolds told me he took the name of Press because, at twelve, he worked a tobacco press at the Reynolds Plantation in Virginia. He took the last name of Reynolds as he was friends with one of the owners' sons. The son and his wife still came up once a year and took Mr. Reynolds and his wife out to Sunday dinner. I was five, but I thought that was a wonderful thing to do, and so did my grandfather in the summer of 1947.

 

From the Sunroom

  

 

From the Living Room

 

From the Master Bedroom - just beyond the trees is the old Underground Railroad/ Africa Road with Alum Creek Dam less than half a mile beyond it. The black and white cat is Jadah (she has green eyes and is full of cleverness and wit.)

Selected and edited from my Facebook Page, December 1, 2020. 

 

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This is worth the showing. Good night. – Ms. H. 

 

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