Spring is coming soon.

I took this picture in 2001, while working part-time as the Ag Section reporter for the local newspaper, the News Virginian. I learnt Photoshop and scanning from film negatives there. Also had a helluva good time getting to know all the local farmers and families. The standing joke was what kind of animal shit I would have on my boots when I came in to write my pieces. At least I could get away with wearing jeans and boots, long as I wore a tie. I later worked courts and police beats. Also very interesting, but I had to dress nicer.

Lucretia Guthrie Day

This is a photograph of my great-great-great-grandmother, Lucretia Guthrie Day.

Lucretia lost a son, Alexander, in the war. He was the baby of the family, and everybody'd always made over him.

At age 18 he died, as a soldier in the Confederacy, during the siege of Richmond. Lucretia never recovered from her grief.

Her older sons, Henry and Douglas, had both learned to be doctors at the University of Virginia. I've seen where their rooms were on campus. My dad showed me, some 35 or 50 years ago.

Henry was an officer's surgeon for the Army of Virginia.

My great-great-grandfather Douglas held the same commission, but for the Ohio 22nd, of the Union Army.

That part hurt Lucretia, too.