In Memoriam: Andrew J. Green Jr.

My brother Andrew was my biggest supporter on my writing endeavors and now he is gone. Affectionately known as "Butch" in his youth, we are pictured here in our 20s during happy times. Andrew called me frequently with article ideas and I mailed him all my travel columns as well as quite a few of these blog posts. God bless you Andrew. We will miss you.

Andrew J. Green, Jr.
September 24, 1948 - January 19, 2013

Andrew was a free spirit, a fun-loving guy with a great wit and sharp mind who loved his family and friends, veteran of two tours in Vietnam. Died in his sleep at our mother's home in Venice, Florida, after a 2 ½ year battle with respiratory illness.

Christmas Morning Traditional (for us) Breakfast

 

Christmas morning 2013 - Here we are about to eat our traditional country ham gravy over toast breakfast with fruit. Pictured left to right are my daughter Anne, myself, daughter Susan and her boyfriend Chris.

Thanksgiving in Key West

 

 

Here's the view from my lounge chair on Thanksgiving Day in Key West. Daughter Anne and I sailed out of Miami last Monday, shopped at the famous Straw Market in Nassau on Tuesday, then took a taxi to Cabbage Beach on beautiful Paradise Island for the afternoon. We had a nice day at sea and woke up Thursday in Key West.

Anne and I shopped the quaint stores in Old Town and had lunch on a second floor balcony in the thick of things, then went to a state park where I shot this picture with my cell phone. A bright green critter wandered by my lounge chair and stalked some sea gulls (see below).

We both came home with good tans from our four days in the sun. There was no rain all week though the wind made for high waves (6-9 feet with 11-foot swells) - got my sea legs! The temps were in the 70s, it hit 80 two days.

Oh, about Thanksgiving, there were 59 nationalities aboard and only 1 celebrates Thanksgiving but the main dining room included turkey on its menu so of course as Americans we ordered that with our five-course meal afer we watched the sunset from the deck of the ship pictured below.

 

Was not expecting this visit....

 

 

Sunset from the deck of Royal Caribbean's Majesty of the Seas.

Sisters-in-Love at Baptism

There is something really special about baptisms - new life to celebrate for sure but also strengthened family ties. When my niece Laura Winston Gallanosa and hubby Christian baptised their beautiful baby Victoria Taryn last month, it gave me a chance to reunite with my sister-in-law Janet Winston. Wait ... our husbands (brothers) are ex's ... what does that make us? Soul sisters? OUR bond never broke -- in fact it became stronger. Plus our children are first cousins forever. How about sisters-in-love? That's it! It's love that brought the baby into life and to the alter and us back together ....

OCHS High School Reunion

The Orange County High School (OCHS) Classes of 1970-71 Reunion was held last night. Pictured here is me with my old high school chum Ann Fitzhugh Schwind ahead of the main event. We saw friends we had not seen in decades! It was a great party - lots of food, fun and fellowship. Wow, the catching up we did! People looked great for the most part. The oldies tunes were hand-picked for the event and had people dancing! There was a tour of the old high school and an afternoon social before the reunion party which made for a wonderful day.

Weekend at Virginia Beach

Susan and Anne are seen eating crabs on our balcony at Virginia Beach. We went down for a three-day weekend earlier this month. The girls and I strolled down Atlantic Avenue to an ice cream shop the first night. Susan's boyfriend Chris joined us the next day and the four of us walked along the boardwalk to the pier where we had dinner. Susan played in a soccer tournament Saturday and Sunday while Anne and I were beach bums! We had great weather and a good time.

A grand hotel in a railroad town

Second floor veranda overlooking the railroad tracks

Gordonsville was a railroad town on the junction of two lines, the Virginia Central Railroad and the Alexandria Railroad, when a grand hotel was constructed there in 1859.

My great-aunt frequented the elegant hotel during the heyday of passenger trains in the early 1900s on her way home to Culpeper from boarding school in Richmond.

Lucy Green Duncan, who was born in 1893, said passengers would get off the train and climb the outdoor staircase to the second floor veranda. She relayed that it was quite a social event there on the shady porches overlooking town as they waited for their connecting trains.

In the day, ladies and gentlemen traveled wearing their finest, and the hotel was a fitting setting. Inside the Georgian building, there is a central hall flanked by parlors with high ceilings. Dinners would go into the English basement for food and drink, and of course people who had longer waits or were on holiday could spend the night in the rooms on the upper floors.

It was in 1978 that I took my Aunt Lucy there. She was delighted that the building was still standing and in good shape, especially the verandas as she fondly recalled her times there. Historic Gordonsville, Inc. had acquired and began restoring the property in 1971. The Exchange Hotel was recognized and placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973.

The hotel opened in 1860 and it wasn’t long before it became the Gordonsville Receiving Hospital. Tens of thousands of casualties, both Confederate and Union, were treated there. The grand hotel became the place of unspeakable suffering.

During reconstruction, the building served as a Freedman's Bureau Hospital.  It was acknowledged as an African-American Memorial Site in 2002.

The war and its aftermath came and went, the railroads boomed, and this lovely building once again became a hotel with all its splendor and grandeur. These were the years my great-aunt told me about.

Today the Exchange Hotel houses a museum. As Virginia’s only standing Civil War Receiving Hospital, it has extensive exhibits on the Civil War, as well as railroad memorabilia and a gift shop.

Some people claim that the Gordonsville Exchange Hotel is haunted and indeed it does offer private ghostly tours at night.