Have you heard of this?

[nbcatlover]

When trying to do research on people from Lizzie's era, it is sometimes hard to track people because so many have "family names" and their middle initials seem to change.

Some just explained to me that it depended if the person's father were alive.

Example:

Michael L. Smith, son of William D. Smith, has as his older brother Charles H. Smith. When his son is born, he is named William (for his grandfather) C. (for Charles, Michael's older brother) Smith. When Michael dies, however, his son becomes William M. (for Michael) Smith.

This practice became less common after the Civil War. Thank goodness! And some families seemed to have been alot more creative with those initials...

I was also reading some back issues of the Luther Family Newsletter at the library. There was an article about Israel Brayton's store from the book SCRABBLETOWN. It was talking about Israel's experiences as a traveling salesman for his store and how he hired retail agents to go to other states to sell his goods. It was hard work to be a retail dealer--the sales were tough to make; they were away from home for long periods, always traveling; and mostly, they missed their local foods and home-cooking. As one retail dealer put it--he was getting "skinny as a hatchet."

That's an expression I never heard before, though I plan to adopt if my dieting continues to go well.

[Kat]

Thanks Cynthia. Scrabbletown is a good book. Stefani has that and I borrowed it.
Good luck on your diet. I gave mine a year and lost 15 lbs.